The Buchele Adventure

Steve@50 – part 3 The year of Enculturalization

2009-10-14T14:32:00.002Z

Steve@50 – part 3 The year of Enculturalization

It has been raining here for weeks now, the San Gabriel has filled with water and driving past it, I too am filled with hope that things are about to change. In missionary training, I am told it is called the end of the year of enculturalization, meaning that first year when the missionary is not active in the work they will do, but active in integrating with the new culture. I’m told it is often one of the hardest years, to be in a place that has so many needs, and yet being unable to do anything about it, other than to be present. In pastor training, its called that first year, or the Honeymoon, when wise pastors won’t change anything, at least until they understand exactly what they are changing, and why. They too are learning the culture of that new church. Sometimes if feels like you are just sitting around, and the words of Will Rodgers come to mind who said that “Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” So being run over is not a function of right track or wrong, but of just sitting there, even if that is exactly what you are supposed to be doing.

As I said in the first of these Steve@50 posts (which is on the blog: www.buchele.blogspot.com if you’re reading this “note” on facebook), I talked about finding myself in learning to cook Indian food. It was a process that started long before I needed it, and isn’t that just like God to prepare me.

It was during our first year in Ghana (April 07) when Suzanne discovered a love of Indian food; so I bought an Indian cookbook. After several tragic attempts, I asked our friend Veena, who makes the most amazing Chai, if she could teach me to make Dal. We invited friends over, and she patently taught me, giving me a glimpse into its process—albeit it a short lived one—soon after I was back to my tragic ways. Another year, another cookbook that yielded similar results. Now a third year, but back in the states and seeking purpose and meaning in my life, I picked up yet another cookbook, and started with Dal. I figured if I was ever going to master this process, I needed to master Dal, so we ate nothing but Dal for weeks until I could make a fairly decent one.

Here is what I learned:

1) Cooking Indian Food take time, like three hours, plus that last hour when you just let the food rest and the flavor changes.

2) You can’t hurry the onions. When the recipe says brown the onions, it means fry them for 30 minutes at least, over medium heat, stirring constantly until they are really brown.

3) There are no short cuts. (see #1) When I was a programmer, we used to say “Nine women, no matter how smart, intelligent, or clever can’t make a baby in one month,” and that is the same way with Indian food, you can’t hurry it.

4) Good food is meant to be shared among friends.

I cooked my way through Classic Indian Cooking, inviting friends over to dinner as often as we could without over Dal-ling them. For my 50^th, Suzanne arranged a celebration of friends (from a life two lives ago) in Austin. Suzanne and I spent most of the day cooking, and when our friends arrived, there were jobs for the men and children, while the wives sat at the table and talked. The kids made Naan, rolling the dough out and cooking it outside over a wood fire on the smoker. The men gathered in the kitchen, cooking the vegetables, and talking about manly things.

Then we gather for the blessing. It happens every time, it could be my mother-in-law’s pot roast, a Thanksgiving feast, or a gathering of friends who are now holding each other hands, encircling the kitchen or sitting around the table. I look around the room, into the eyes of friends, or family and I see their faces in the eyes of their children. It is a room filled with gratitude and each time I can’t think of a place I’d rather be, even when I am not sure, in the greater scheme of things, exactly what I am doing here.

The practice of being lost, writes Barbara Brown Taylor, “consists of consenting to be lost, since you have no other choice.” This consenting itself “becomes your choice, as you explore the possibility that life is for you and not against you, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary.”[1]

So that has been my choice of late, to choose to be lost, even when I know exactly where I am, just not why God put me here.

[1] BBT, An Altar in the World, p80, emphasis mine.

Steve@50 part 2 – Walking a Dry Riverbed

2009-09-30T13:40:00.005Z

Steve@50 part 2 – A Walk in a Dry Riverbed

Conventionally, lostness has to do with location, and not knowing where one is in relation to the rest of the world, but the lostness I feel is knowing exactly where I am, but not what I am to be doing here. Is it the same question God ask of Elijah in 2 Kings 19, “What are you doing here?” except the roles are reversed, and I am the one asking “What am I doing here?”.

Elijah had prayed for the rain to stop, and it stopped raining for three and a half years. I’m not sure who prayed here, but up until a few weeks we were experiencing an exceptional drought (exceptional being two stages past extreme). I woke up one Saturday morning and went for a walk in the park near our house. It hadn’t rained in so long; I followed the dry riverbed of the San Gabriel, walking on dry bedrock well below the usual water mark, or put another way, I would have been completely under water in normal circumstances. I had the feeling then, not a voice I could hear, but a thought that said to me, “this is my church, and the water my spirit.”

I noticed a few ducks scrambling over to a muddy puddle to sip what water there was, and like the drought they were experiencing, I understood it to be today’s church, squabbling over its little puddles of what is left of God’s spirit; there has been no fresh outpouring in so long. God designed the riverbed to be filled with water, and here it was dry, almost as if God’s hand of blessing had been withdrawn, that God’s Spirit had been diverted, that God’s Holy Spirit did not rain down on it, nor wish to enter what is called the church today.

Why, I asked. Now many of you know I’ve been walking the more conservative side of the road these past 10 years, believing I was still in the middle, but somewhere the road shifted, and today I find myself not so comfortable with what I once believed. We were told it was the way to grow your church, to believe these things, be inviting to these people and we did, and it did. But I am not sure we helped people the way the church was designed to as that more conservative way of the faith did not always help the living of it. We were sold a bill of goods, a set promises that can not deliver. I’ve tried to live that way, by those books, by the ideals or purpose driven notions and failed. What I have learned is

a) It is near impossible to live that way, and life feels like a failure, and guilt ridden.
b) When I do manage to ratchet down my humanity and live that way of life, it is joyless (and if there are small periods of joy, it is from condemning others who can’t live it)

So I’ve had a bit of a conversion, and sharing this with a friend who had not lost her way (and didn’t give up on me when I had). I now see empirically what she’s always known, that God’s kingdom invites a larger set of people than I could have imagined and I guess that is contributing to my sense of lost-ness too. Where is the box?

It is a lesson people of the faith have learned, or had to learn throughout the centuries, that a life of faith is lived by more than a set rules, but by a shared love of all peoples. I have found that subtle switch enough to let me live more faithfully than I have in a long time. It is amazing what love can do.

At the end of the walk, I laid flat on my back in the dry riverbed looking up, arms out stretched and confessed. I asked God to show me a new path, let me learn its ways by walking it, let me swim in this riverbed called the church, swiftly flowing with God’s spirit.

Steve@50 part 1 – Finding the Path by Walking It

2009-09-29T14:36:00.000Z

Steve@50 part 1 – Finding the Path by Walking It

I am now 50 years old, and a month, and a day. Ouch.

Before I turned 50, I heard one of those sermons that keeps working itself out in my thoughts, specifically, it was the introduction to the sermon where Dr. Beverly Jones, the Chaplain of Southwestern University was remembering a cathedral she visited years ago in Europe, how she noticed a labyrinth built into its stone floor of the narthex. It was a room crowded with tourists rushing their way to see the sanctuary, and she looked down and saw this ancient stone path.

Dr. Jones talked of following the labyrinth to see where that experience led her; how it felt to follow a path oblivious to those pushing toward a view of the Chancel. She spoke about walking a path that others do not follow, know about, or see, and how we are still called do it, even when we don’t know where it will lead us. Quoting ancient wisdom “we find the path by walking it,” she said, and I knew it to be true to my soul.

That sermon began an interesting conversation in my mind with Barbara Brown Taylor’s latest book, an Altar in the World. Taylor talks about the spiritual practice of lost-ness, how she set out to be married, and ended up divorced, to be healthy, ending up sick, to be a village priest, and now teaches college. I think of my own journey, musician, computer scientist, pastor, and now 30 years later back to being a musician, working in a church. Like Taylor, it is a path “no one in their right mind would have chosen” , but whose treasure outweighs the “projected wages in the life I had planned.” Esteemed philosopher Guy Clark observed the same

Sometimes you write the songs, sometimes the songs write you.

We went to see the movie Julie and Julia a few weeks ago, a wonderful movie that chronicled the story of a historical Julia Child set against the modern day blogger Julie Powell as she cooked her way through Julia’s first book. Similarly lost, both Julia and Julie found their way in the art of French Cooking. It was a lostness I understood, a movie I totally connected with, because I’ve been finding my way in the kitchen too, not a French one, but an Indian kitchen, through the teachings of another Julie, Julie Sahni, and her wonderful book “Classic Indian Cooking”. If the ancient wisdom says we find the path by walking it, then I’ve found my path by cooking it. It has been a delicious adventure.

The Pastor’s Privilege: A Tribute to Jerry Barnes

2009-09-19T13:34:00.002Z

Jerry Barnes died earlier this week while driving a school bus that collided with an 18 wheeler. That’s about all I know about how he died. What I have been thinking about this week is how he lived. At his memorial service, we heard stories of how Jerry loved fishing, never met a stranger, always had a winning smile, a man who didn’t let the circumstances of life define his attitude toward it, a person who, when judged by the quality of his friends, was indeed very rich. All true, but what keeps coming back to me this week is how he invited me into the sacred moments of his life.

Jerry was a good salesman, and being that, he had an innate ability to make people feel good about who they were. It wasn’t hollow or undeserved praise, it didn’t have really anything to do with what you were doing, you just felt better about yourself when he was around, and as I think back on it, that’s what I enjoyed most about being invited in those sacred moments.

The story always starts with when you first met them, and for me, it was visiting Jerry and Janet in their home in Morgan’s Point after church one Sunday afternoon after they had visited that morning. I’m sure one of my kids in tow. I brought them a mug, and stayed too long, we fed the deer, but what strikes me about that day is the people I met at their house and how in the years to come, we would see each other these sacred moments.

Like when Janet’s body died, holding her hand, along with Gayla, and the kids in that hospital room after her mind had been taken from a stroke earlier. It was just a shell, but we stood there, thanking God for her life, for the mother she had been, and love she had given the world and wondering about the huge hole she would leave in Jerry’s life, one that the church and good friends would try to fill. A sacred moment, a privilege to be there, and one that made saying good-bye at the memorial so much more authentic. I think back to that service and something I heard about the foods that Janet loved to cook, but her favorite thing to make was, reservations.

Or their daughter Heather, when she married Chris in that amazing castle in Burnet, as Suzanne and I were invited to witness it and feel much like one of the family. Or like when Jerry fell in love with the future Mrs. Janet Barnes, the second. How watching those two fall in love reminded us what it was like to be in love. And they were. Each had lost their soul mates a year or so earlier, and found in each other, rest from those empty places in their hearts. For a while they were together and made each other whole, but once healed from that brokenness, I guess, that which had brought them together was not enough to keep them together, and so that marriage ended. Still it is a favorite memory of mine of watching them hold hands in the parking lot after church and almost skip across it.

At the memorial service, I wondered was it me, or just the office of pastor that Jerry had invited into his life. We were not that close but I had been a part of so many sacred moments, and this being one more, I wanted to be a part of it—for my sake—and I know, when I want something for reasons like that, its never good. So I wondered when seeing his kids after the service, would they remember? Kim saw me first, and she rushed over and gave me this deep hug, saying “Steve…” Then Cal, with that great smile of his father’s, saying, “hey, I remember you!” Or Heather introducing me to her two children, both beautiful and handsome. I knew that even if it was just the office of pastor, I was the one who sat in it, and to be invited into a family such as this, and to share in some small part of the lives of the children of Janet and Jerry Barnes was indeed a privilege, and one I am deeply grateful for. I got all that from one good hug.

As much as I want this to be about me, about the pastor’s privilege, it is really just a tribute to the way of Jerry Barnes and how he touched my life and maybe yours. I would like to close with a poem by David Swing, that I’m told that was one of Janet’s favorites, and we read it at her memorial.

Let us learn to be content with what we have.

Let us get rid of our false estimates, set up all the higher ideals—

A quiet home

Vines of our own planning

A few books full of the inspiration of genius,

A few friends worthy of being loved and able to love in return.

A hundred innocent pleasures that bring no pain or remorse

A devotion to the right that will never swerve,

A simple religion empty of all bigotry, full of trust and hope and love—and to such a philosophy this world will give up all the joy it has.

God Speed Jerry, and thank you.

Returning to Ghana #4 - A visit to Eric's Village, part 1

2009-06-29T16:34:00.005Z

Returning to Ghana #4 - Visiting Eric's Village, part 1

For years it seems like I've been talking about visiting Eric's village, the one he grew up in. Eric was born in Kumasi, but was raised in Adenkrebi, about an hour north of Accra. This is the photolog from that visit.

So Eric warned me that it was a lonely place, that there was nothing there, and he wasn't kidding. I think for me, the best part was watching how people welcomed him. The closer we got to Adenkrebi, the more people recognized him, and yelled out his last name as we drove by. This is the road to Adenkrebi, the one that turns off the main road.

This is Eric's oldest brother. Notice the heavy coat. Its rainy season and we're out side Accra on one of the hills that surround it to the north. Its maybe 70 degrees, and he had a coat on.

Here is the "town drunk". Eric tells me again that if I want the truth about anything or anybody, ask him. Because he is the drunk, nobody pays any attention to him, and he sees and hears everything. (click here for more about "town drunk")

Here is the kitchen, located in the courtyard.

To the left of the cooking area, will be water collection barrels, capturing rainwater from the roof. They barrels are 55 gal. steel barrels with concrete on the inside so they don't rust.

Outside the building I see a familiar site, a new bore hole pump, except it isn't locked, and looks--- I don't know--lonely. I've seen many of these pumps, and usually people rush to show me it works, or I see people lined up to use it, but this one sits alone, overlooked, idle. I see it was installed May 17, 2008.

I ask about it but the subject changes and we move on. Later we walk by it again, and I ask again. "It is spoiled," I am told, and I wonder, how long did this pump work?

I wonder if the Rotary Club of York, Maine knows this. Visiting their website, I find a picture of it working a year ago, but today its spoiled. [website]

I am told the more sustainable bore hole projects are set up on a nominal fee based use system. Each gallon of water pumped accrues some nominal fee. The money collected from that fee goes into a maintenance fund so that when something breaks, there is already money saved to have it fixed. I've spoken to a few Christian organizations wanting to drill bore holes, and install pumps, and I always ask them if there will be a fee for the water? The answer is always "NO!" it will be free!

"What happens when the pump breaks...who will pay for it to be fixed?" I ask. Not always, but often this is a question that has not been asked, and usually there is no answer except the water will be free. Charging money for water seems cruel to these organizations, but it seems to me even more cruel to give someone a well with no plan for its maintainability. I don't know the setup for this bore hole in Adenkribe, but I suspect it was not fee based (there is no lock on the pump) and today, a year after it was installed, it sits idle, unused, broken.

There are stories passed around the expat community of cars, bicycles, pumps, generators, other things that require ongoing maintenance being given to a community, or a household. When they become broken, the expat gets a call saying "Obruni, your __________ has spoiled, come fix it (or send us money to have it repaired)" I wonder if the York, Maine Rotarians received such a call. I've emailed their president to let him know, and wonder what he will do.

This is the Presby Church in Adenkribe. Its the one Eric was raised in. Outside there is a bell tower built by some Germans.

Eric tells me it rings three times before the worship service. 45 minutes

before, so people know to come in from the fields, 10 minutes before to let people know its time to leave, and when worship starts.

Inside the worship area:

Here is the most alarming part, the white Jesus. I ask Eric about it, and he says "Your people gave us these pictures of Jesus..."

I don't know if I should laugh or cry. I believe that one should never take away or explain away a belief system, or understanding without having a better one. What sort of picture could you replace them with? I mean I understand I'm in no position to say or doing anything, but if I were, what would I do, I wonder.

Comments are most welcome!

Return to Ghana #3 (Chicken with Red Sauce)

2009-06-22T18:32:00.002Z

Return to Ghana #3 (Chicken with Red Sauce)

Food. There a few things I enjoy more than the food of a different culture, learning how to make it, or getting into conversation about it, it is a passion of mine. I had learned (and posted) many recipes in our years in Ghana, and I continue to make this great foods since we’ve been back, but there was one grave omission: Shelia’s Fried Chicken and Red Sauce. Eric calls this Obruni food, but its like nothing I’ve ever tasted before, and so it was I came back with a determination to learn how Shelia made it.

It seemed rather rash to land at the airport, and immediately ask Eric if his cousin could come over and cook for us, so I waited a few days, and it turns out that when Shelia heard we were coming, she too asked if she would be allowed to come cook for us.

It was a Thursday afternoon that Shelia came over and entered into this Kitchen that was not hers. There are some dynamics I completely miss, like the sense of ownership that the house help feels toward the house they work in or the animosity that southern and central Ghanaians feel for northerners. The Mosleys are so good at understanding this, and me, so completely clueless. Inviting Shelia to come into this kitchen, and then spending the afternoon working with her (thus displacing the usual crew) was one of those “not well thought through” moments. It was not well thought out in that there was some internal conflict in the household. We had a great time cooking together, talking about life, and enjoying each other's company. Here is her wonderful Fried Chicken and Red Sauce.

Shelia’s Fried Chicken and Red Sauce

This was Suzanne’s favorite in Ghana. There are two recipes that are cooked concurrently, often in the early afternoon before the house got hot. The chicken was served room temperature, but the red sauce was served hot along with white rice and a fruit salad.

Fried Chicken

8 medium onions, quartered

2 fists of garlic, skinned and cut

4 fingers of ginger, skinned and cut into slices

3 chickens, cut up.

2t salt

Oil for frying (safflower or sunflower)

Chop onions, garlic and ginger in a food processor or blender until rough-smooth. Pour over cut up chicken and cook on medium-high heat for 10 minutes. Add salt, stir and continue to cook until chicken thoroughly cooked and just starts to pull away from the bone. Shelia calls this “steaming the chicken.”

While chicken is “steaming” start work on the Red Sauce (see next recipe).

When chicken begins to pull away from the bone, perhaps as long as 30 minutes later depending on the tenderness of the chicken, turn fire off and pick chicken with tongs and place in a colander, capturing the stock that drains off and returning it to the stock pot. Let chicken cool slightly

In a large, deep frying pan add one half to three quarters inch of light oil. Heat oil until hot, then carefully add chicken to one layer. Cook until chicken is deep brown on all sides and remove. Drain on paper towel, and cover. Cook chicken in batches.

Sheila would often cook chicken in the afternoon so it was cool by the time we ate dinner. The Red Sauce was served hot along with rice and a fruit salad.

Red Sauce

32 Roma Tomatoes , quartered.

3 handfuls of small hot peppers, steamed and seeded (if you want to reduce the heat).

3 medium onions, halved and then sliced in half moons.

1 cup light oil (safflower or sunflower)

2 tins of tomato paste (70gr each)

½ c dried shrimps (or 4 cubes of Maggie – Maggie is a concentrated flavor cube [wiki])

3 green peppers, cubed, or cut in nickel sized pieces.

3 T curry powder.

In a large stock pan, fry onions in oil until just brown at the edges, then add tomato and pepper blend.

While onions are frying, puree tomatoes and peppers in a blender of food processor until smooth.

Cook on high heat until reduced by half (about 40 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent burning).

When reduced by half, add 2 tins of tomato paste, and blend until smooth, cooking on medium heat.

Add half cup of dried shrimps (or 4 cubes Maggie). Stir often to prevent burning.

Add 4 cups of stock from the chicken, (which should replace half of the liquid that was reduced by cooking) and then continue cooking until thick. Add in 3 T curry powder and turn off fire and correct seasoning, adding salt if needed.

Just before serving, stir in cubed green peppers.

Serve with rice and fruit salad.

Thoughts on Cooking

I wonder why it is I am drawn to doing the things that only last for the moment, performing, like preaching, like cooking, things that are fully consuming, but once completed, are just memories. I look at the artwork my kids have made over the years, and they are for us, a moment in time, captured. But for most of what I enjoy doing, I have only memories. Like my mom teaching me to make what I call "Iowa Chili," though it should more rightly be called "Kansas Chili" because that is where she was raised, but I learned it in Iowa. Iowa Chili doesn't have garlic, it does have kidney beans, along with ground beef, and uses tomato sauce along with the while tomatoes. Texas Chili is way different, as is Grubstake Chili. Each has been taught to me in a kitchen of shared love, love of food, love of the cooking process, love of the companionship of learning and teaching food, and the stories.

At my old church, the kitchen was where everything of import happened. We cooked together, talked, enjoyed each other's friendship in that room. If I needed to think or talk to someone, staff knew it would happen in the kitchen. At my current church, none of that can happen in the kitchen, its a room designed by someone who doesn't cook, or love cooking. It lacks a soul, which is so odd because the rest of the building has such character. I know rooms are not alive, that they don't have a soul, but there is something about this kitchen that is missing. It may be what my daughter Anna talks about, when she says "chain food" doesn't have love in it. She can taste if the love is there, she says, and knows if the person who made it cared.

Eating dinner that Thursday night around the Mozley's large table, eating this wonderful food, with these great friends, I remember thinking, if my Anna was here, she would taste the love, and the friendship that produced and shared this meal. It made me think that food is not just to something to sustain our bodies, but when shared, to sustain our souls.

Return to Ghana Blog #2

2009-06-18T12:46:00.002Z

Last year when we left Ghana it was with the hope of returning soon if we could figure it out (we didn’t). This time I came wondering if I would still love it like before, still want to return, or wonder why did we love it so? Its not so strange. Suzanne and I fell in love after she moved back to Connecticut. We met in Austin in the fall of 2003 during her “Junior year abroad” at The University of Texas. In those days were just friends but then but she went back to Connecticut College for her senior year, and that’s when we fell in love. A year later and now graduated, she moves back to Austin, and we decide to see how it we like living in the same town, and dating proper and to see where that led. It was a shared sense of caution to not to be
moved into commitment by the sheer momentum of the events. It was that same caution that guided our return to Ghana.

Life in the Mozley household was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. Each day was a celebration of relationships, of different people stopping by, stopping in, greeting us, coming over to dinner, showing up for breakfast. The sheer volume of people coming through the house was dizzying, and the graciousness that each was received, amazing.

Each morning started for me at 6:30am with coffee and conversation with Michael. He would be coming back from the gym having worked out with our new friend Gary (aka Soldier Man). Michael would be doing his Bible study, I’d be working on either a sermon for Asbury Dunwell, or slogging through the books for seminary (which was starting the day after I returned), and we would talk about life, and where we felt God’s calling, or seen God moving.

I had enrolled in a doctor of ministry program at Austin Seminary where I graduated 10 years ago with a M. Div. It was something I’ve wanted to do for years, but the timing was illusive. Since I am currently underemployed and the kids are mostly out of the house, this seemed like the perfect time to go. The books I was assigned to read were three dissertations, and one book on Roman/US imperialism. Officially, the course is called “The Bible and the Practice of Ministry,” but its reading list was a collection of feminist, queer (the book’s term for it), and imperialist readings of Paul’s letters that had as much to do with the practice of ministry as WMD had to do with Bush's invasion of Iraq. Now imagine reading them in the Ghanaian context. Ghana is a place where faith guides people’s lives, where church is more than just a place to go, but a community to live out life from.

In February, I had had a wonderful experience at Austin Seminary’s MidWinter Lectures, where two of the three invited speakers were of national acclaim. I saw that it was indeed a new day at Austin Seminary. Originally, I hadn’t thought of returning to this place that has so resisted the changes that were modernizing the church, but seeing how much it had changed, I thought, “I want to go to this seminary.”

[Nooma (the bird) and Cat don’t share Michael well]

Each morning at the Mozley’s I sat outside, drinking wonderful coffee, watching the animals flock to Michael, and working on my sermon was good day. For the sermon, I wrote it old style; not using a computer, or the internet, or any books that might shape the message. Bishop Violet Fisher had had a profound effect on me when she came to Wellspring, and after her first sermon, wrote the next two from her experience of the church. They were right on target. I wanted to try the same thing, that and to greet this new land that Asbury Dunwell Church was buying, and be open to what it had to say to the church.

ASBURY DUNWELL CHURCH

[Asbury Dunwell Church Future Site, with Phillip, the Administrative Assistant]

For many years the congregation of Asbury Dunwell Church has met in a chapel on the Methodist Church headquarters, though, officially, it is not a church of the Methodist Church of Ghana, though it is the tradition that the Methodist Bishop appoints one of his pastors to the church. They know that this relationship can not last forever, and especially as the chapel is 110% full on most Sundays. Walking around this raw land, it was hard not to get excited about its possibilities.

It will be quite a change for the church, which has been located in central Accra, to move East of the city to a yet undeveloped area, though the city is growing in that direction.

[Neem Tree, with Auntie Pamela in its shade]

Having been the pastor of a church that built a 1.2 million dollar multi-purpose center as its first building, it is one thing I swore I would never do again. But walking around that land, and then preaching in that church on Sunday, I felt those familiar yearnings, like wouldn't this be fun? Maybe its akin to a mother in the midst of childbirth, swearing off more children.

BABIES

While we were gone, three of our friends had babies, so we went to greet these beautiful babies:

[Steve & Steven, Eric & B’s son]

[Suzanne and TK, Adzo & Nii’s son]

[TK and Ingrid, Matt and Astrid’s daughter]

Seeing these babies was the only part of our visit that made it feel like we had been gone a long time. It was wonderful to hold these babies, and see the parents God had blessed them with.

Returning to Ghana, part 1

2009-06-07T03:31:00.003Z

Our firstborn is a high school graduate from Lincoln Community School, Accra, Ghana.

Suzanne and I returned to Ghana to witness and celebrate the event and with us, brought a little bit of Texas for our friends: 18lbs of mesquite smoked beef brisket, Stubbs BBQ Sauce, El Lago corn tortilla chips, Velvieeta queso and plenty Central Market flour tortillas. It was a grand graduation party, but the best part was seeing the sheer pleasure the brisket wraps brought to our friends. “This is really good,” we heard watching folks go back three or four times.

The other, and ongoing, part of our trip was to see if we still got “that lovin’” feeling about Ghana. We had had two remarkable years there, some of the happiest times of our life, and 11 months away from it, we went there wondering “would this place still pull so strongly at our heart strings?”

Fox had stayed in Ghana when we returned, living with our dear friends The Mozleys. and in country, we got to enjoy their famous “Boy’s Quarters” where so many interns (Tatum, Rebecca…), and visiting friends had stayed. It felt like a right of passage.

[Fox and his Ghana Family and Tori]

Arriving on Friday night, I preached at Elim International Family Church, and played guitar with the youth group I used to help with, who also lead the worship music that morning. Olivia is leading the group now, they sound great, are doing challenging music, and doing it well. What joy it was sing, and see the God honoring worship leaders these young people have become. Their spirit was servant-like, their musicality, superb, and it made me proud to have once been a part of this group, and to see what they have become.

It was fun to be preaching in the African context again, their responsiveness, the seemingly unlimited time to speak (I think I spoke for 30 minutes), and the deep hunger to just hear a word from The Lord. At the second service it was light out in this usually well air conditioned room, so the heat inside was rather intense. I don’t ever remember the electricity going out during any worship service.

I didn’t blog while in Ghana this time, in part because I didn’t have my computer, or regular access to the internet, but also unlike when we were here, I didn’t want to share my thoughts so quickly. In those days I posted our life and the African experience as it happened, this time was it was reserved, it was our time, and I didn’t want the shared observations to shape what we were doing.

“Ghana is Changing-oooo,” Michael said that first night. The oooo tagged on to a verb, well really anything, to add emphasis. He speaks from firsthand experience. His family was robbed at gunpoint some six weeks ago, and the emotional bruises still ache. Many homes in the area where our friend’s live have been robbed, and the attacks seem to be getting more violent. I remember the first year we were here, two of the Ashesi professors were robbed in our neighborhood, being forced to lie face down in the dirt with a gun to their head, while their belongings were taken. They both left the country at the end of the term, and I wondered then about the long term affect this act of violence had, scaring off those who have come to help Ghana. Michael had the same experience of laying face down, while his kids were held outside, and Claire showed the armed robbers around the house.

Equally disturbing is the lack of press coverage about the robberies. If you are not a part of the community that is being hit, it is likely you have not heard about it, and certainly not in the Daily Graphic.

So that felling of threat was always with us, especially at night when we would call ahead to have someone ready to open the gate, and close it quickly before the compound was crashed. One night we drove by it several times, not sure the intensions of the car following us, nor the one oddly parked just ahead of the gate. It was the same night Fox graduated, and tension driving around, wondering is it safe, was in odd contrast to the joy experience earlier. In fact two days before the graduation ceremony, the principal of the International School was also robbed. Now as I’m writing this and watering our lawn so the homeowners association won’t send us another threatening letter about our brown grass, I wonder about my place in this life here. Brown grass, geesh.

I was listening to my pastor yesterday talk about a formerly successful colleague who was not so at peace with what his life had become, his station in life. That is me, I thought and I don’t want to be that guy, caught in what is, and wanting something else. “It is already written,” an Indian friend of mine would say dragging his two fingers across his forehead in resignation. The two fingers reveal your station in life as already written across your forehead only you cannot read it, only experience their meaning. Is this season of life, or a station? Is it just for now, or for always?

Marriage and Family Day

2009-03-28T14:25:00.004Z

Yesterday was marriage and family day. One of the joys of being a Methodist Pastor is mentoring the next generation of kids who want to grow up and be Methodist Pastors. We’re called Clergy Mentors, and we walk through the process, really a thick book for the student (or mentee) to work through, and ask the mentor, questions. Yesterday was marriage and family day.

If you know me well, then you know I’m a process guy. I like to figure out how the system works, and the develop a process to guide or inform that system.

Ordering One’s Life:

God, Family and Everything Else – by everything else I mean your job, truck, boat, soccer league, church (yes church), and anything else that isn’t family or the divine. This is the life God blesses, its not an excuse to not get things done in the everything else category, for the sake of family or God, but to order or set your priorities so that your life can be ordered this way. This is the life God blesses, change the ordering...and you're on your own.

Then Do These Things:

1) Find a hobby, shared experience, or something you can do with your spouse on a regular basis. For my parents it was playing golf. I don’t care for golf much, but my parents did. They were not crazy for it, but did enjoy 9 holes every few days at the country club in my home town. Even as a high schooler, I remember how different they were when they came home from playing, I could see that they loved each other, and I’ve attributed that to this shared activity that they both loved and did together.

2) Develop a mutual admiration for how the other spends their days. Admire the work that they do, take pride in how well they do it, brag on what your spouse is doing.

3) Eat dinner together around a table with no distractions. I used to say with the TV off, but these days the bigger problem is the internet, or txting. It isn’t such a problem for Suzanne and I, but this next generation is going to have to figure out how to disconnect and be fully present. The thing about eating a home cooked meal around the table is that family talk and tell stories, and interact in ways that life does not encourage.

In premarital counseling I would run down this list, and then ask the couple if they would be willing to spend one hour doing this one thing that would virtually guarantee that they would be happily married the rest of their life. It would take an hour a week. They would both smile at each other and say yes, and then I’d ask, do you know what that one thing might be, and then to the husband-to-be, its not what you’re thinking.

4) Be active in a faith community, and it doesn’t matter what kind. By active I mean commit to going together to at least three out of four gatherings of that community’s worship service.

So these are the things I discussed with my mentee, and by way of review, with those who want to stay happily married.

The Changing Questions

2009-03-18T15:10:00.002Z

The Changing Questions

Missiologist Dr. Darrell Whiteman, in a lecture to the Accra Missionary Community[1], said “The center of Christianity is shifting to the Global South[2].” Whiteman quotes data from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary’s Center for the Study of Global Christianity. The Center concludes:

Over the past 100 years, Christianity has experienced a profound southern shift in its geographical center of gravity. Whereas in 1900 over 80% of all Christians lived in Europe and Northern America, by 2005 this proportion had fallen to under 40%, and will likely fall below 30% before 2050.[3]

According to Whiteman, over that same period Christianity in Africa grew from 9% (or 8.7 million) in 1900 to 48.9% (350 million) in 2006. Latin America, India and China (since 1951) experienced similar explosive growth. Overall, Christianity, as a percentage of the population, has remained almost constant, 33.4% in 1900 and currently 33.3% in 2006. Even though Christianity has declined in Europe and North American, it is growing in the Global South. But Whiteman also warned that “if this explosive growth is not disciplined, we’ll have a very weak church. Without discipleship, the church will fall into nominalism and mediocrity.” He adds “decisions for Christ are easy; disciples for Christ are more difficult.”[4]

As the center of Christianity shifts, the questions that guide its witness are also changing. The answer remains the same, Christ, but who is asking it, the context in which it is being asked, and the implied need within the questions are all changing. Missionary John Taylor observed in 1963 that “Christ has been presented as the answer to questions a white man would ask, the solution to the needs that western man would feel”[5]. With this new center of Christianity, there will be different questions, ones that are not framed out of a Western mindset, pointing toward solutions, a developed world would expect.

It is not only the questions that are changing, but context they are being asked is from. Globalization is changing the context. For example, in Ghana our second year, we hired a driver; Eric is his English name. Eric has the equivalent as of a 9^th grade Ghanaian education. He finished Junior Secondary School, but did not continue in Senior Secondary School. Ana, one of the Fulbright Student Scholars who stayed with us left Eric her laptop, when she returned to the states. My son, Fox who stayed in Ghana to graduate high school, taught him the basics. I had taken Eric to an internet café and introduced him to the world of the internet, and now with his own laptop, and WiFi access, we correspond weekly on Facebook. Globalization.

The needs that drive these new questions are also changing, influenced by a Global South worldview, along with the other world religions that enter into that conversation. In our part of Africa, Muslims coexisted well with Christians, in fact when we had student gatherings at our house, it was not uncommon for students who were Muslim to pray for us, and do so in the name of Jesus. Current thinking about how to reach Muslims[6] suggests not asking them choose between Christ and their cultural identity that came with their Muslim upbringing, but to offer Jesus Christ into the mix, and disciple them in his teaching, slowly incorporating all that He brings to a believers life. It is indeed a beautiful thing to watch a—and I hesitate calling them a convert—but rather a new believer to continue to bow down and pray five time a day, and abstaining from food and water during the daylight hours of Ramadan, and do so in the name of Jesus. Christ is still the answer, but the questions are changing, along with the context they are being asked from, and the needs behind them.

After two years away from the States, I notice that the questions here are changing too, influenced by an increasingly smaller world, one that the West does not control as it once did. We think of Globalization as something that happens to them, there, but it is also changing us, here. I suspect there has also been some cultural drift in the answer. John Wesley is remembered for saying “Offer them Christ,” but I realize that the church I once led, was offering a lot more than Christ, and not all of it helpful. Recall what Missionary John Taylor observed about the African Missionary Churches in 1963, that “Christ has been presented as the answer to questions a white man would ask.” I wonder if that applies to us in the American church, if we are seeking solutions that meet “the needs that western man would feel,” when what people need is to be offered Christ. I wonder what would happen if our church mindset changed to be a missionary mindset (or International Church mindset). Because church like an extension of society, one that ultimately meets the needs of the society, regardless of people’s individual needs. What perhaps almost burned me was not knowing that Society’s needs can never be met completely. People’s can, however, when you offer them Christ, and Christ alone.

[1] Whiteman, Dr. Darrell, Being and Doing Missions in a Post Colonial World, lecture.

[2] Global South meaning: Africa, Asia, India, South and Central America.

[3] Johnson, Todd M, Christianity in Global Context: Trends and Statistics, webpage

[4] Whiteman, powerpoint from the lecture to Accra Missionaries

[5] Taylor, John V., The Primal Vision – Christian Presence in Buganda (London SCM Press).

[6] Decker, Frank, Sermon at Asbury Dunwell Church, Accra, Ghana. March 2008.

Beyond Woundology - Please, Thank You and I'm Sorry

2009-01-15T15:25:00.000Z

15 January 2009

Today marks 15 months and one day since my accident[1]. The healing has come to the point that people I meet for the first time hardly notice, or if they do, don’t comment on it. Yet I’m surprised when people who followed our African Adventure, ask how my arm is, and I remember, oh, I was once injured, but now I’m better.

It’s a temptation to tell new people about the accident, to elicit their sympathy, to tell of my miraculous healing, the witch that cursed me, and the months between, when God was silent. If I do tell this story, it should be told to give Glory to God, but more often than I would like to admit, I tell it to explains something about the way I am, or who I’ve become, or because I gain some power in telling the story of my hurt.

Today also day marks my sixth at Wellspring United Methodist Church, and if there is one thing I have learned about Wellspringers, it is that they are a resilient lot. Webster defines resilience: as something that is “capable of withstanding shock without permanent deformation or rupture” or having the qualities that tend to “recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.” But sometimes this ability to recover gets stuck, or lost in the stories we tell. It is almost like a person or institution makes a conscience choice not to recover from or adjust easily, but chooses to stay in the painful moment.

Caroline Myss, author and medical intuitive , tells a story about having lunch with a woman when a male colleague stops by. She introduces him, and together they chat until he discovers they share a common interest. He invites her friend to a workshop hosted by organization that specializes in their shared interest. As Ms. Myss tells the story, her friend replies, “I couldn’t possibility attend on that day because I have a support group meeting for (and she describes a terrible event that happened in her childhood and how she never misses that meeting of it victims).

“Why did you feel the need to tell him all that?” Ms Myss asks, “he was only asking if you would like to attend the workshop.” She uses that story to illustrate a behavior she calls Woundology. Woundology is about using the wounds -- the hurts, traumas, or unfortunate events of the past, to manipulate, elicit sympathy, compassion, or to gain a measure of power and/or authority in a situation.

I sometimes want to ask Wellspringers, “Why did you just tell me that story?” I want to learn the interesting history of Wellspring, but I hear so many sad stories, or ones with a heavy pause, full of weighted implications. I keep thinking that if I just listen long enough, at some point I will hear the last of these sad stories, and more of the ones that celebrate our history. I am still waiting.

I wonder, is Wellspring paralyzed by its past wounds? Is it longing for a past that never was, hoping for a future that can never be? Once time, when Jesus was near a place called the Sheep Gate pool, where the NIV says “a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed,” He saw an invalid who had been that way for a long time and asked, "Do you want to get well?"

I have a wonderful chiropractor in Austin, Dr. Rosanne Butera, who has treated me since before I was a pastor. I’ve been through so much with her, and while we were in Africa, she was treated for breast cancer. There is some regret I feel, for not being there to pastor her through that time of need. Now that we are back and both healed, we can exchange knowing glances of having been to the edge of darkness and returned. Dr. Butera says I need to make friends with my shoulder. It was such an intuitive thing to say. She realized my shoulder had become disconnected from my –I don’t know what to call it—but I wasn’t feeling any love for that which had caused me so much pain. I don’t know if she was talking about forgiveness, but this feeling I have for my shoulder, has many of the same qualities that unforgiveness. It seems that when we finally reconnect to that which has caused us so much pain, the hurt stops hurting, and we don’t feel compelled to tell its story again.

Yesterday, I connected with an old friend, one whom I had not seen in many years. This friend was on the edge of a bad situation and though we had not conflicted directly, there was collateral damage. It wasn’t that I had left on bad terms, I just left, and the pain of that parting haunted me, kept me awake at night sometimes wondering what part I had played in those wounds and how I could avoid it in the future. I thought if I could only think through what had happened, understand what I had contributed to it, what I had not, that understanding would be mine; it would lose its power over me. So far that wasn’t working, and in the words of Dr. Butera, I needed to make friends, so I reached out, and it was great to reconnect, to remember all that was good in that friendship, and to allude, but not rehash those final days and say, I’m so sorry things ended that way, and can we start again?

Someone much wiser than me once said that the key to this life comes in three phrases: Please, Thank you, and I’m sorry. Please—shows our need of interdependence, that we need something from each other; Thank You—shows our gratitude for that relationship and what it provides; I’m Sorry—reconnects or restores that relationship, when things get broken.

Jesus asked “Do you want to be made well?” before he healed, because even Jesus couldn’t heal if people didn’t want to be, if they would rather tell their story one more time. Do you want to be made well?

So my advice to myself is

1) Stop telling the sad story so often

2) Start saying I’m sorry more often

3) Make friends with what wounded you.

Amen (which means So be it!)

[1] I did not provide a link to all the blogs that detail the accident, in the spirit of not telling my sad story again.

New Years Day Red Red

2009-01-01T23:51:00.001Z

Yikes, it is 2009, now six months since we left Ghana. Six months and five days and a lifetime to be exact. Since being back I’ve battled “adopted homesickness” occasionally using some of the same coping mechanisms I used in Ghana when we were missing Texas. Food & Music. Music was easy, there is so much Ghanaian Music on youtube; preparing authentic Ghanaian food was the challenge, that is until we discovered a store in Austin that carried Palm Oil. Palm Oil is that thick, red, sticky, pretty-bad-for-your-heart oil that is so tasty, and at the heart of much Ghanaian cooking. Without it, I could make Groundnut Stew, but with it, I can make almost anything.

Ghanaian Music Videos: Ofori Wutah Music Reggie Zippy Slow Motion

For good luck, Southerners eat black eyed peas on New Years Day. Since Suzanne despises their taste, this tradition has always been an interesting challenge for me. I remember one year when we were we stayed with Suzanne’s grandmother in West Texas. She slow cooked her black eyed peas with a ham shank, and salted them heavily, serving them with corn bread. On that New Years Day, we arrived late, almost too late to have them on New Years Day. Since Suzanne was exhausted, she went straight off to bed, only for me to wake her close to midnight, and stuff three black eyed peas in her mouth. She was such a good sport.

So today it will be easier, we’re having a fusion dish, Southern Tradition, Ghanaian food. I’m disguising the black eyed peas as Red Red, and serving it with rice. So it will really just be Red, not Red Red, since we have no plantains to fry.

Black Eyed Peas & Red Palm Oil (Red Red)

Cook the Black Eyed Peas

1 to 1.5 lbs black eye peas, dried.

A large pot of water

One onion, with the skin removed, but scored on both ends with a cross to hold them together.

Salt.

Cook until peas are soft, adding water if necessary. Keep covered. When cooked, remove onion and discard.

Prepare the Palm Oil

1 to 1.5 cup red palm oil

Half an onion, sliced in quarter moons

1 clove garlic, thin sliced

2 inches of ginger root, cut half lengthways

Combine oil, onion slices, sliced garlic, and ginger in oil and cook over low heat until the onions are dark brown, but not burnt. This may take 30 minutes. Don’t use too high heat as it burns the flavor of the palm oil. Strain to remove onions, garlic and ginger root. The dark onions/garlic are not used in Red Red, but I keep them in a jar in the fridge to add an interesting flavor to cooking.

Prepare the Tomatoes

1 12oz can of whole tomatoes

1 fresh jalapeño

Half an onion.

Combine and shred in a blender until uniform texture, but not puréed. After palm oil from above has been strained, add tomato mixture to hot oil and again cook over low heat until the tomatoes release their moisture, and it cooks off and pan no longer sizzles when stired.

Right before Serving – reheat cooked black-eyed peas, and oil/tomato mixture and combine black-eyed peas and oil right before serving. Ideally, this dish would be served with fried plantains, but today we’ll be serving it as “beans and rice,” a south of the boarder staple.

****

OK – so it’s a little ironic that we’re serving a Ghanaian dish to our son, Fox, who is back from Ghana for Christmas break, but hey its New Years Day and Fox was a good sport.

Funeral Wisdom

2008-12-08T19:51:00.002Z

Over the Thanksgiving week-end I was given the opportunity to lead a memorial service for one of the church members that died unexpectedly. They had moved to Sun City (the retirement community located near the church) some eight years ago, and his unexpected death came as quite a shock to the family and community. Earlier that week, I had attended a memorial service for a friend, who I had not seen in 10 years. He was our neighbor, or rather we owned land next to where he lived, and when Suzanne and I were working on our land, him and his wife were always very kind to us. But since they had moved to Sun City, and I had gone into the ministry, we had lost touch. Then Suzanne’s sister saw his obituary. At his memorial service, I learned that Sun City has its own unique liturgy for memorializing the dead, and then a week later I was leading just such a service for my church. I do believe what the Bible says about all things working together for good for those who love God, and this was just one more example.

I learned three things from our friend Jack Lindsey, who’s service I attended first. If you’ve known me for a while, then you’ve likely heard me expound on at least one of these wisdoms. At the memorial service, I called them “proverbs” from Jack’s life. When Jack and Peggy first started clearing the land that they would later build their house on, it was winter and they being new to this land and retirement, were eager to start the task of taming this Texas scrub brush. Clearing land in the winter has several advantages, and one great disadvantage. The advantage is that the grass and scrub brush has died back, it is usually cold, thus the great bonfires burnt at night fall feel so good as the day’s work is disposed of.

But in winter, the leaves that identify the trees are gone too, and that is where this first piece of wisdom came from. Seems that when Jack and Peggy sited in their home, there was a large tree in the place where the front door would naturally go, so they cut it down. In the spring, when the new shoots came from that stump, they learned they had cut down a large Texas Redbud tree, a beautiful tree that is the harbinger of spring here.

So Jacks advice to me, his proverb, was to own the land a full set of seasons before cutting anything down, which I quote as “always understand what you are changing before you change it.” There is a darker side to that wisdom in that only in that first year do you have fresh eyes to see what needs changing, or not only the what is, but also the what could be. If you wait a year before making any changes, you will likely have lost the energy, or vision to do so. OK- so I’m really taking about change in the church, but Jack’s first proverb is still true.

The second proverb of Jack Lindsey had to do with fence posts, or T-posts as we call them here. Seems that when Jack started to fence his property, he got the notion to paint the t-posts white. I don’t know his rational for doing so, but for the next 30 acres or so, every t-post he put in the ground had to be white, and they don’t come that way from the store. Many the day did he rue painting that first t-post.

The proverb becomes never start something you can’t finish, or its corollary, always finish what you start. It was a proverb I held to in those early days at a previous church, especially during the building process, which can be so draining. I felt honor bound to finish what we had started, but as time went on, the finish line became less and less clear. How would I know when to leave, when what I had started never seemed to be complete? There was always What's Next.

I know several pastors who are in or about to start the building process, and they are already stressed out. I see that hope in them that when this building project gets started, or is complete, or they move into their building, or their church grows larger, that everything will be easier. I actually pulled one aside last week and said, “the real measure of success in a church building project is when you are still pastoring that church two years after you move in.” So many pastors don’t make it that long, they leave, or are run out of town, or have so damaged themselves or the church, that changes must be made. So maybe moving in isn’t the finish line, but two years later, when the shiny has rubbed off the new building. But here is the danger, if you cross that finish line and keep running, it means you're starting another race, maybe one you’re not called to finish. So maybe there should be a second corollary to the wisdom of never starting something you can’t finish, which might be: always know where the finish line is, and when you cross it, stop running and rest, otherwise you're running toward burnout. I am still woking on that corollary.

The third proverb of Jack Lindsey came from the west side of his house near the garage where Jack had 100s of plastic one gallon pots filled with potting soil, and a strange assortment of plants growing in about half of them. Seems that when he and Peggy traveled, he would collect seeds, bring them back and stick them in a pot to see if it would grow. We would be talking, and I would watch his foot scuff the ground, or kick at one of the pots, as if to scratch his head, and say something like “ ever seen something like that?” or “I don’t remember planting that,” or sometimes he would find what looked like an empty pot and stick another seed in it, only to later find two different plants growing in it. A more meticulous man might have kept records, where the seed was from, when it was planted, but for Jack, the interesting thing was just seeing if it could grow in the Hill Country of Central Texas. I imagine that today, ten years later, there is still a interesting assortment of things growing on the west side of their garage. So the proverb becomes: When you travel, always bring something back, and see it if grows here.

I have to think that proverb is alive in our lives now, as we have brought plenty, plenty seeds back from those two years in Africa and are planting them, metaphorical, into our lives here to see what grows. (Disclaimer: we did not bring back actual seeds, as that would be a violation of US agricultural law). Some days it feels so strange being back in Texas, acting as if we never left, or that we were unchanged by our experiences overseas.

Suzanne and I went into a Blockbuster Video the other day, and on the three walls of new releases, we only knew maybe three or four movies, the rest we had never heard of. There were so many, we didn’t even know where to start, and so we left empty handed, completely bewildered. So maybe we’re still trying to find what grows in our new old life here.

Back to the Thanksgiving week-end memorial service I conducted. I was struck by a phrase the family and several friends used, they said the diseased practiced the art of medicine. Since then I have been wondering, is there an art to ministry? Those who have worked with me know that I believe that 70% of all problems in the church, are not real problems. When we pastors treat any of that 70% like they were real problems, then they become so, we give these non-problems legs. What we end up having to deal with then is not what we thought was a problem, but how we dealt with it. If 70% of all problems in the church are not real problems, and 30% are, then maybe the art of ministry is knowing the difference between the two. Kind of like that Serenity Prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr that AA adopted.

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things that are not real problems;
the courage to deal with the ones that are;
and wisdom to know the difference.

New Buchele Videos uploaded to YouTube

2008-11-20T20:26:00.000Z

New Buchele Videos uploaded to YouTube

Buchele Ministry Video [click here] - I created this video for a church that was sponsoring us. (2008)

Men in Tights [click here] - See our son sing and dance in green tights with a bunch of marines. (2007)

Father's Day Baptism at Lake Belton [click here] - Steve baptizes two youth in Lake Belton. (2006)

Easter Cross Story [click here] - tells the story of the Foundation Cross that was installed Holy Week 2005, and its unfortunate accident. The sermon was how God uses broken things. (2005)

The Election and my Dad's thoughts

2008-11-05T15:28:00.002Z

Its funny the things I remember my Dad saying, like how odd it felt when a president was elected who was younger than he (Jimmy Carter, 1976), or later in that presidency, how he would fume “You can impeach a president for running a stop sign, but not for ruining the country.” Dad was reacting to the impeachment proceedings connected to the Watergate break-in, and the economic downturn that happened during Carter’s presidency.

It felt strange for both those events to happen in my own life; like last night, as they talked about our 47-year-old new president elect. I’m 49 so I know how my Dad felt then. Likewise, I also understand how this president elect will follow one who wasn’t impeachable, but certainly did his part in bringing the inverse of prosperity to this country.

It finally feels safe to be a Democrat again. I know in a previous life, I was a closet one. I had the John Kerry sign, but displayed it proudly in our back yard. It didn’t feel safe to be contrary. I hope that this new majority party can do better, I hope it celebrates diversity, and tries to mend the wounds of the last eight years, and not retaliate for them.

I also hope we can appeal to our “better angels,” and Abraham Lincoln said in his first inaugural address, and the president elect quoted from last night:

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature. (AL, March 4, 1861)

I hope we will reach out to the single issue voters, and not ridicule them. My heart goes out to them for their unyielding support of a party that has not delivered. For six years that party occupied the presidency, had a majority in both houses, and still did not advance their cause. If it could not be done then, then when, I wonder? I hope we will all work together, and though we may not always agree, I trust we can respect each other and honor the process. For if we can all honor the process, then the outcome will be one we all can live with.

Three Months Back

2008-10-05T03:02:00.001Z

I never wrote much about the process of blogging those past two years in Ghana, and now that we’re back trying to resume our former lives in Texas, I have trouble knowing what to write about, what will be interesting and yet safe to share about our lives.

So here is where we are now: After living about a month and a half out at my in-laws house, about 40 minutes away and driving in each day, we bought a smaller house in a neighborhood close to Southwestern, where Suzanne teaches. We bought on Friday, and on Monday we awoke to the news about Freddy and Fannie. Seems like we’ve been down this road before, specifically the last time a Bush was in office, but then it was the Savings and Loan Crisis, and that only cost some 160 Billion.

At that time we had bought our first house and over the first 7 years of owning it we watched it lose a third of its value, such that even if we had wanted to sell it, we would have had to bring and extra $25K just to do so. Thankfully the market recovered before God called us into ministry.

Hardly a week goes by that this area is not rocked by news of another plant closing, or layoffs. This week it was Alcoa, the giant aluminum processor that once had a massive processing plant in Ghana on Lake Volta. Locally, Alcoa IS the town of Rockdale, and I know several men my age who’s fathers worked at the plant their whole lives. Add to it that rumors of more layoffs at Dell, the company that changed Round Rock from a village outside of Austin, to the massive suburbia it is today, while transforming the whole PC industry, and we understand that soon, some 60,000 jobs will be eliminated as they outsource overseas.

Perhaps the biggest change for me resuming our lives here, or at least trying to—besides the cost of gas—was the lack of adventure. John Elderege wrote in his 2001 book, Wild at Heart, that a man needs an adventure to live, a woman to woe, and a battle to fight. In Ghana, those things, at least the battle and adventure part, were hard wired into the system, but here, not so. In Ghana, I woke each morning knowing that at least two things were going to break, it could be the house, the car, my bike, or house help, guards, the power, water, trash, or something gone missing, or run out of. Thing is, I never knew what it was going to be, but I knew it would take half the day getting it fixed, or finding the parts, or the person who could do it. I liked that, it was adventure and battle all wrapped into one. But here, If you want adventure you have to seek it. If you want a battle, you have to create conflict. I am amazed what people here find to fight over, and wonder if that isn’t part of the problem. They crave adventure, they crave battle and we have so insolated ourselves from both that to find them we must disrupt peace or cause someone pain. Well, maybe this new economic landscape will provide opportunities for adventure or battle, and maybe it was the lack of either that brought us to the place we find ourselves today. Bored men seeking adventure.

Ashesi tribute to Suzanne

2008-09-25T23:03:00.004Z

Ashesi has posted a wonderful article about Suzanne:

Fulbright Scholar, Dr.Suzanne Buchele leaves a lasting impression
August, 2008

[click here to read] or follow this link:
http://www.ashesi.org/NEWS/NEWS/current_news.html#Buchele

We are settling back into Georgetown, Texas, Suzanne at Southwestern, Steve at Wellspring UMC.

You can check out the new church website: www.wellumc.org

Article about Suzanne

2008-08-09T15:31:00.001Z

Southwestern has just published a web article about Suzanne, and her experience in Ghana

SOUTHWESTERN PROFESSOR RETURNS FROM TWO YEARS OF
TEACHING IN GHANA ON FULBRIGHT AWARD
[click here to read]

Debrief & Renewal Initial Thoughts

2008-08-02T15:09:00.001Z

This is just to let you know that we made it back safely to Texas, where we are again staying in Suzanne's Mother's house outside of Burnet, Texas. Last week we were in Colorado Springs attending DAR, a week-long family camp debriefing of our time in Ghana. [read about DAR]

While we were there, Grace received news that her math teacher in Japan had died suddenly from cancer. It had been in remission, but after school was out and she went in for a routine check-up, they found her body riddled. She died three weeks later. The news sent Grace in to a rather dark place, because she had not known she was even sick. How I wished that email could have waited until the camp was over, but then I received one telling me my father and last surviving uncle had been in a terrible car accident. Dad was ok, but Uncle Luther (Dad's twin brother) died later.

News like that puts me in a strange place, going clinical they call it, when the emotional process that should be happening gets put on hold while the things that must be done, begin. I still don't know if I will attend the memorial service this next week, or wait for the big University/Church wide service in September.

DAR or Debriefing And Renewal was held in a camp like setting with about 20 other missionary families who had returned from the field, either last week, last month or six months ago. Some are back on furlough, some forever, some (like us) waiting to hear what is next. It was great to be back in a community of missionaries. We've being had been back a month and two days when DAR started, and while excited to be back in the land of drinkable tap water, nice roads, close family, friends, abundant food, and mono-colored currency, it had not started feeling like home, or rather like our home, or where we belonged. We learned, that's perfectly normal, and saw that in our adopted tribe. I think the coolest thing about the whole weekend was seeing the instant bond the group of some 40 kids of all ages developed. Here they were, thrown together and within minutes of getting there, they were so tightly bound, you would have thought they had been together their whole life. Personally, I saw our Anna return. She is the rather shy one, the one who watches, and processes internally, and by day three at DAR she was back to the happy Africa Anna, the one who hugged on me, and said hi, laughing. The night before I was talking to Suzanne saying how much I missed our Africa Anna, and Suzanne said, "She is a teenager now, and will never be that child again." How my heart sank, but then the next day, it leapt as she said "My Fadderrrrrr," in her cute (and oh so convincingly) Ghanaian English accent. I'm so glad she is still there inside, I thought.

Suzanne and I got so much out of the stories of the other missionaries in our small group, seasoned veterans, returning after so many more years in the field than us. Almost all had had children while abroad, and now returning for the first time in their lives, that is the first time longer than a few month furlough, wondered how would my kids adjust. They too were excited to lose their kids into the pack that formed, hung together, stayed up late, dissed movies, and talked and talked and talked. I wondered, did they too see their cross cultural kid emerge once they got back into their tribe?

The drive to Texas was long, Google maps was right, it really was a 14.5 hour drive, and leaving at 1 in the afternoon, put us in around 2:30am. Along the way we listened to Anne Garrels , Naked in Baghdad, the NPR reporter's firsthand account of the spring 2003 battle of Baghdad. [click here]. Throwing her thoughts in to the mix of our own, of debriefing, death, and seeing our siblings, my sister Sheron [read her blog, visit their website], or Suzanne's brother Mick, and their spouses (or would that be spice) made for interesting drive conversation. Both were such faithful readers of this blog, and so we didn't have to answer the question So how was Africa, a question I find I am dreading more and more, and able to less answer succinctly. It's a question I find myself anticipating about DAR, and wonder if I shouldn't go and memorize some of the great quotes about it on the Mission Training International site so I could answer succinctly. Too bad there isn't a How Was Africa site. If asked now about DAR, I could say "ít was good to be in our tribe again, a place where we understood, and felt understood," but that sounds so winey. We did learn that our daughters (Fox stayed back since he is returning to Ghana) want us to know that its time to buy a house—any house—and stay there. So if you are in a mood to pray for us, we could use those prayers. It needs to happen this week to enroll Anna in school. We have looked at many a house, and put in offers in on two, but THE HOUSE has not spoke to us. So later today, we'll try again. It's complicated since we're trying to move to a neighborhood that Suzanne's sister Mary might move to, if her house in Austin sells, which it hasn't yet. So prayers are appreciated.

All in all it was a fantastic experience for the family and we are the better for it. It gave us tools to process what our souls are going through, and maybe will make reentry into these United States easier. It did feel weird not having Fox there, but there is a between high school and college camp we hope he will attend next year. So instead he worked VBS at my previous Texas church, and stayed with its pastor. Well done Fox.

August 2, 2008 – Today Suzanne and I have been married 22 years, or half her life (she turned twice that a few weeks ago). Grace turned a 16 at DAR, and now is one-third my age. Fox turns 18 in the fall, and Anna turned 13 while we were on our last trip to Lake Bosumtwe. Its been an interesting journey, so far, and I can't wait to see what is next. Really.

Back in the USA - 2008

2008-06-26T12:21:00.001Z

We successfully jumped the pond via Delta in a little less than 20 hours from check in to bed sheets. It’s the little things that you appreciate first like drinking from a water fountain (wait…they have drinking fountains), like nice T-Roll (toilet paper), and the dry, clean air. Of course there are the smells, of fresh coffee and of food long ago forgotten. There is the loss of the natural connection you feel to other white skinned people when you are the minority, and then you see the refreshingly familiar smile from an obviously West African traveler, it reminds you—as if you needed it—that you’re not in Africa, and already missing it. And then there are the mirrors, or realizing its been a long time since I’ve really seen my face in a mirror. OK – so we had small poorly lit mirrors in our house, but wow, do I really look like that?

Oddest moment in travel: being served Chicken and Gari foto, and a Voltic. Gari foto is a starchy Ghanaian side dish made with gari (dried Cassava) and red sauce; Voltic is the largest bottled water producer in Ghana. Second oddest moment: Anna and Suzanne dressed exactly alike and only discoverig it after all the bags were packed and loaded.

This week we will be concentrating on the four Rs, Rest, Relax, Re-stocking and Re-enculturation. I’ll be preaching the next two Sundays trying to sum up two years in twenty minutes. Pray that I don’t ramble too incoherently, but just enough to show our gratitude.

By the way, if you would like us to come speak to your mission committee on our work, and the on going mission to Africa, let me know [click here]. I would love to come and share our passion and begin a dialog.

Last Blog from Ghana

2008-06-24T22:28:00.001Z

14 Hours to go, yikes what a scary thought! We’re still we’re packing, so of course I’m blogging. Actually the packing is almost done, or should I say one last time, is coming. As I write this its 9:15pm and Suzanne is still working at Ashesi, and my guess will be until moments before we take off.

We had our Last Supper at Papaye for their amazing fried chicken and either fried rice or chips (french fries). Said way too many good-byes, and I feel numb. The nice thing is Ashesi is keeping the house and five people move in soon, so we get to leave behind a lot of our furnishings, and stuff we care about, but not enough to put in storage or ship back.

Over the week-end we took our last family vacation, even though most of us were feeling sick. It was a wise decision to take those three days off and visit Lake Bosumtwe because we all got well. It was a grand last visit to see our wonderful friends Andrew & Ju Jernigan who just had a baby boy last Saturday. While on the trip, something terrible happened, we turned old. All our kids are now teenagers, as Anna had her 13^th Birthday.

So we fly to Connecticut where we will stay with Suzanne’s mother Nelda, and her husband Charlie until July, then I’ll fly back to Austin to pick up a car and Grace. Grace and I will meet the rest of the family in at DFW to go to Denton and tour the University of North Texas, where Grace will be in school next year as part of a residential high school called the Texas Academy of Math and Science (TAMS). Fox will be returning to Ghana to finish high school and graduate from Lincoln Community School (LCS) with an International Baccalaureate degree. Anna will be living with her parents in Georgetown and making more new friends like the wonderful ones she left in Ghana. Her best friend Fanta, will be going to school in Toronto, so there is hope they will get to see each other. Dress warm Fanta, and God Speed with all those crazy Canadian canucks!

Over the summer we will be attending Re-Entry Camp at MTI, thanks to the generous support of Foundation United Methodist Church, my old church. They call it DAR (Debrief and Renewal) but what I’ve heard is its a really good idea for families returning from an intense experience to have some help with reentry.

That said, Suzanne will resume teaching at Southwestern University, in the Math and Computer Science department, and the Bishop has appointed me to a new part-time position as Associate Pastor and Director of Music at Wellspring United Methodist Church, in Georgetown, Texas.

Like those who have left before me, I still have many more blogs to write on Ghana, and maybe I’ll even post a few of them. I want to say a special thank you to all who supported us these past two years to especially to Nelda & Charlie Nardone who forwarded our mail and sent us the comics, and were our launch and landing points when leaving and returning to the states. To my dad Wes Buchele, who brought us to Ghana I the 60s, and helped us return in so many ways this time, to my sister Beth who came to my rescue in South Africa, and was the gifted healer. To The Church at Horseshoe Bay, who’s financial support allowed us to pour more of our ourselves into ministry here than would have otherwise been possible, growing the kingdom in ways they will never see, at least this side of eternity. To our monthly contributors, the Thompsons, the Redus family, Ambra, and the Belobrajdic’s, your support allowed me to speak into the lives, or I should say sing into their lives of missionary kids here in Accra. Their world is better because of you. To Barb & Phil, your gift allowed us a year of Emergency Ambulance service, a service we only used once, but what a huge difference it made. To all our supporters I don’t have time to name, thank you so much for believing in us, and especially to Hulda Burger, who said that even $5 dollars can make a difference here. Hulda you were right, and thanks for trusting us!

Well, its time to get back to packing, take off is 12 hours away (and Suzanne did finally finish at Ashesi at 9:45pm).

Oh and one more thing, thanks for reading our blog! God Bless!

The Last Adventure, part III - The Cult of Kwame Nkrumah

2008-06-17T11:12:00.001Z

In the morning I check out of the guest house, and look at the slip Emmanuel has given me days before detailing the money he has spent. Lodging is listed at $75, which at $10/night for two nights is a bit inflated. I speak with the owner, and she assures me, the bill was $20, ten dollars for two nights, but your friends already paid for it. While waiting for the shared Taxi, I mention it to Emmanuel, how nice the room was, and what a bargain at $10/night. Busted, he does not say anything, finally I ask him why he would list the rate at $75, when really it was $20? He tells me I misunderstood, and I tell him what the owner says, and he offers several other excuses. When I say, lets go talk to the owner and clear this up, he pleads with me, “if a white man reports this problem, he will be sacked,” which I take as a sort of confession, but think about until I get back to Accra.

The programme for today is to visit the birthplace of Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s founding father and first president. He is Ghana’s George Washington. During his presidency, this childhood home in Nkroful, had been built up, but during the 1966 coup when even saying the word Nkrumah could get you arrested, the military had it leveled. Today the site, it a mixed grill of rubble, restored buildings, and river.

The rubble is what was left after 1966, the guide points at marble capstones still laying in dirt 42 years later, and tells how the troops came and brought down the buildings. He talks about the complex then, the library, the swimming pool, and the lecture hall, and points to an area where squatter’s homes have taken residence, implying this is where it all was, and look what has happened to it today.

The restored buildings, a two-room house and a detached kitchen, are the only new ones and are built on the foundation of their originals. Inside is unfinished. Between the two is the mausoleum where his body rested between its first burial in Guinea, and where it rests today in Accra. Looking at the empty tomb, and his bust above it, the one our guide kisses and clearly adores, I begin to see what I’ve heard about before, The Cult of Nkrumah.

The guide had taken us to the River Subre, where the miracle of the fish occurred. “Nkrumah was just two,” the guide explained, “and on his mother’s back as she crossed the river. Kwame told her she had stepped on a fish.” I get it, but the guide goes into a lot more detail than helps the story and by its end, I’m thinking the miracle wasn’t that Kwame saw the large tilapia under his mother’s foot, but that she listened to her two year old. Nkrumah used to visit his home, offer libation to the gods, and bath in the river. He believed in its power, but one time, when he was still president, he came to meet a dry river. The guide explains, “He pored libation, and then took his staff and struck the dry riverbed, and the water flowed. “Even to this day it has never been dry.” In fact we learn that Ghana’s current president, John A. Kuffour bathed in this river before he won the election. The guide encourages us to also bathe, and Emmanuel completely covers his head with water. Me, I am content to just wet my face.

I think about how Biblical these stories are, like Moses striking the rock and water gushing forth, or the fish miracles of Jesus, a multitude, feeding 5000, the coin in its mouth, but then I also think about our own stories of George Washington, how he can never tell a lie, or the one about chopping down the cherry tree, and maybe they are not so different. We need to believe a little bit of the divine was responsible for the creation of our country.

From Nkroful, we head to the border town Elubo on the Ghana side of the Ivorian border. Along the way I am introduced to Rice Kenke. Kenke is street food that is unique as the region it comes from. Perhaps the most famous is the Fante Kenke that comes from the Cape Coast area. We usually pick up 10-20 blue bags of it to give out to our guards and house help when we see it.

Around Accra, its Ga Kenke, which I prefer over the Fante, Ga and Fante being tribal names, but of the three I now prefer Rice Kenke.

Fante Kenke is wrapped in banana leaves and fermented, Ga, in corn husks, and rice in banana leaves, but then roasted, giving it a slightly smoky flavor.

Elubo feels much like any other border town I’ve been in, money changers, liquor stores, and plenty of unsavory people. Its raining the whole time we are there, so the dirt roads of the town turn to mud, serious mud. We go to the Ivorian border and try to bluff our way across, but I failed to bring my passport, so we are turned away. I see a FORD, which is the name given to the 15 passenger vans that race between major cities. Though Emmanuel wants to spend more time with me, I am ready to go, and so for $13 I squeeze in with 15 other passengers, and off we go. It is then, when I am trapped between two really large Ivorian women, the kind you could say “I admire your structure” to, in a seat made for three holding four, that I remember the FORD’s other name, “Flying Coffin.” It goes fast but the time doesn’t an for five and a half hours, I am smashed between these women, sweating hip on hip, arm on arm, shoulder to shoulder. I see only two vehicles pass us, and they both had embassy plates. Because the FORD is more expensive than TroTro or shared taxi, it attracts a more affluent clientele, and here affluence often translates to size, weight and in this case girth. It’s a FORD filled with really, really large people. On a TroTro I’m usually the fattest, but not here, not by a long shot. It is also air conditioned which is nice, and there are no goats under my seat, though my feet rest on two 70 lbs bags of rice. Its Uncle Sam Rice from Thailand, or at least that is what the bag says.

I have plenty of time to think about Emmanuel, and choices he is making. We see the remains of accidents, and in the paper the next morning, I see 21 people died along this road and the one I was traveling just a week before.

No wonder that the leading cause of non-infant death in Ghana is traffic fatality. Usually its TroTros, but this time it was STC bus (STC – State Transport Company, the Greyhound of Ghana), and by the roadside, I count the remains of three buses. Travel is just dangerous, and so are friendships. I feel like I ought to be furious with Emmanuel, and Suzanne is when I tell her the details our adventure. I can’t stay angry, disappointed yes, upset no, and in a few days, after we have texted back and forth, I text back,

As God has forgiven me, so I forgive you. Now go and leave that town and return to your wife and children and be the man God made you to be.

As I write this, he is still thinking about it, and as for me, D-Day is just 7 days away. D-Day being our Delta Day, when we fly out. So, there is unfinished business between us, but I will continue to pray for my lost friend, that he finds his way home in time.

Pray for us too, as we ready to return home, to resume a life we have changed from.

The Last Adventure, part II - Cape Three Point

2008-06-17T11:00:00.001Z

The next morning we were joined by ”Grace,” a friend of Emmanuel’s from Takoradi. It was an awkward paring, adding her to our adventures. For one thing she wore 3” platform heals, which really never make since, but considering how much hiking was a part of the programme, I’m sure she was regretting that choice by mid morning.

We went by shared taxi, then TroTro, then private TroTro, to Cape Three Point. Shared taxi is one that runs a regular route, in this case from Busia to Agona for about 60 cents. These taxis are small five passenger cars, which often hold seven uncomfortably. All day long he drives between these two towns and waits until the taxi fills up before leaving. If you are in a hurry, you can buy the empty seats, but that is no guarantee of a more comfortable or spacious ride.

The TroTro drops us at Akwidda, the town where the old witch cursed me [click here to read about that]. Now there is a derelict TroTro sitting where the curse happened, one that looks like it has not moved in years. Maybe the old witch cursed it too, I think. It is good to have a second chance at this place, an opportunity to pray over it and release the power it had over me. I looked for Stephen, the town drunk who had been our guide, but didn’t see him. Maybe just as well, as we picked up a different guide, who lead us across the bridge and up the hill to arranged for a private TroTro, one that just happened to fill with about 10 other people (who I am guessing rode for free).

All along that walk the kids shouted my friend, my friend, instead of the usual obruni. The people are friendly enough, they seem used to strangers walking through the intimate parts of their town, or to me it feels that way.

We were not comfortable at first, that feeling we had invaded their privacy, as the huts are so close together, and the doors and windows all open, it feels more like walking through hallways of a strange house.

Cape Three Point is the most southern point in Ghana and unique among the world’s capes. A cape is a pointed land formation that extends out into the sea, and as you can guess by the name, in this part of Ghana, there are three such capes, pointing into the sea, like three fingers, the middle one being the longest.

A lighthouse was built on it in 1875, and replaced 50 years later when the harbor of Takoradi was expanded by the British. In fact when I was in Agona, instead of being called obruni, the children called out to me Takoradi Obrouni, a remnant from that time when the British were building the harbor. In 2005, an NGO replaced the diesel generators that powered the lighthouse with six solar panels.

I can’t say enough about the beauty of this place is. I wish we could have spent hours there, just listening to the rage of the ocean as it threw itself against the base of the cape. I watch the waves crash, and wonder about what Emmanuel told me last night. We take pictures of him and Grace, and of me and her; there is a normality to what we are doing, that hides the evil he has planned. Denial is powerful ally, and yet I wonder, what is she doing here?

It seems oil has been discovered off Cape Three Point. Actually, it was discovered in 1982, so this is a re-discovery, but in 1982 they were not able to capitalize on it, our guide explains, there was a coup, Ghana’s fourth. Because it is so remote, Cape Three Point has been spared much of the over development that has plagued so much of the country. Development is not really the right word, more the devastation that a large population can inflict. But that all is about to change as they are planning to stretch a cable car from Kukum National Forest [click here] to this place, and soon the last remaining virgin ocean side rain forests will be opened up, and the protection of its remoteness, lost. I already feel that loss for this place, and how soon it will all change. Our guide doesn’t however, and speaks excitedly, and urges us to return in a few years.

We walk back to the private trotro that has been waiting for us, and it loads with a different set of people riding for free. Back in Akwidaa, walk back to where the first TroTro had dropped us, and I see the derelict TroTro, but there are goats playing in it.

Emmanuel explains that is our TroTro, and though I don’t believe him, I christen it the SS Derelict. He also says we have to wait for The Derelict to fill, so we have several hours to observe village life. I watch kids playing with stick tops, a fisherman repair his nets, and many men sitting under the large mango tree talking. This feels like the center of town, even though it’s the edge. The large tree defines the place, and you can understand why westerners mistakenly think Africans worship trees. On Sunday, Kwame-Michael Mozley asked the question in church “Do you know what happens under that tree?” I think back to the witch’s curse near the tree, to the men sitting under it and talking wildly, to the school age children drawing their letters on slateboard, or to the market. “Do you know what happens under that tree?” he asks again…”Everything.” What may seem like acts of worship are really just the living of life under the only good shade in town.

Emmanuel goes around trying to hurry the Derelict, but its a large one, so it is taking plenty, plenty time to fill. Grace is hungry, I give her some plantain chips I’ve carried from Accra, and my emergency water bottle. I look at Emmanuel walking around and think back to one of our earliest conversations, one where he told me it was his prayer that he would never do anything to lose my trust. “I know how you obruni are,” he said, “you value your money, and if you think you are cheated, you finished with us.” I’ve tried hard not to be one of those people he described, especially when I later discover he has added something to the bill, or kept the change, or quoted me one price, and next time when I do the deal myself, am quoted a much better price. I figure he must have added something to it and kept the difference. Suzanne thinks I am crazy to keep on doing things with him, but I figure it was just part of the adventures no one else would take me on.

I look at Grace. How uncomfortable she is, hot, hungry, thirsty, with sore feet. Later as I was telling Suzanne about it, I said “It was fascinating, wondering how it would all play out, knowing nothing was going to happen, no matter how Emmanuel maneuvered it.” We make small talk in the shade, she is a caterer, which means she has been to cooking school, instead of high school. She lives with her parents, her dad runs a TroTro yard, her mother is a nurse. She is maybe 20, Methodist, and later when we eat, she asks me to pray. People are now starting to move to the TroTro now, even though its in the full sun. They are taking the good seats and chasing the goats away. So we are taking the derelict.

We end up buying the last seat, except now the engine won’t start. I’ve been praying all day for God’s protection and wonder if this is part of that prayer answered, but then 10 men show up from under the tree and push, and push and rock back and forth, and 10 tries later, the engine roars to life and we are off. A few miles from Agona engine seizes and we walk the rest of the way.

For dinner its Groundnut soup again, but this time with fufu, goat meat and herring. I don’t eat bones this time. “So what is the programme for the rest of the night?” I ask Emmanuel. It seems that Grace and he have been having a running conversation about me all day, she is saying I don’t think he will go through with it, or dance to the music as they say, and Emmanuel saying he will! Of course I’m oblivious to it all, they are speaking Twi. Emmanuel says, “You and Grace will go back to the Guest House and I will meet us in the morning.”

“Emmanuel, I can’t do that,” I explain. “I’m a married man, and would never do that to Suzanne.”

“This is Africa, you must do this,” and I say, “I don’t think so.”

“Am I being too stubborn ? he asks. I don’t quite understand his meaning, stubborn is not how I would describe it. Immoral, deceitful, evil work for me, stubborn, not so.

“She is not coming home with me,” I say, and he is surprised. I remember this next thought, and make a mental note to add it to the premarital counseling I do. When you don’t feel committed to the person you are married to, then at least stay committed to the institution of marriage (FYI: Suzanne and I are getting along fine, it was just the thought that went through my mind).

Now we’re at the Takoradi Harbor and Grace has gone home. “So in your culture,” I ask when what I really want to say is WHAT THE @#$%^&* WERE YOU DOING!? “…in your culture would it have been alright to dance to the music?” He asks about the US culture, avoiding the question. I answer most would say no, but there are others that would dance to the music, but what about your culture? I wonder about the discipleship provided in the church he attends. Don’t they cover this? Emmanuel rambles on and doesn’t really answer the question, which is an answer in itself, I guess. I do learn he has a girlfriend there, one who is not his wife, nor the mother of his children.

I say, “Emmanuel, you have changed,” and I hear a weariness to my voice. I thought to earlier that morning, when we greeted his friends, how I could already smell apeteshi on their breath (apeteshi is distilled palm wine, like a strong Ghanaian moonshine). The night before I had noticed the alcoholic redness in the eyes of his friends. They are drunks, and I see traces of it starting in Emmanuel’s eyes. When I first met him he never drank, “Emmanuel, you have changed,” and I am sad. Sad for his wife Vida who taught me to cook, sad for Anna, his daughter who runs and jumps in my arms when I see her, and sad for Ruth, who is such a quiet flirt and had Malaria at the same time that my daughter Grace did. Mostly I am sad for Emmanuel, the path he has choosen, the future he may never have, and past he can’t escape.

The Last Adventure, part I - Emmanuel's new life

2008-06-14T11:02:00.000Z

The last time I saw Emmanuel, when he was in town conducting business, he insisted that I come visit him. Emmanuel is my friend and former guard who left our service about a year ago to move to Agona, which is in the Western Region, about 80 miles from the Ivorian boarder. He sells ladies shoes there in the market [click here to read more about what he is doing].

[Emmanuel showing me the shoes he sells]

I remember last year when Emmanuel pulled the night shift guarding us, I would listen to him pray. It was usually 3 or 4 in the morning, the light was out, and the hot sticky still nights kept sleep away. I would get up and watch him pace the front of the compound, praying in a mixture of Twi and English, and sometimes I could hear my name spoken. No matter the language, there is a fervent quality to prayers given at that hour, as if he were personally keeping the demons at bay and our house safe.

[Kaya holding his son Kaya Jr – the name Kaya means Please Stay, and is usually given after several babies have not]

It was a three-hour bus trip to Takoradi, and then another hour beyond that by TroTro to Agona. Like the last time I visited him, (to read about it [day1, day2, day3, day4]) I was paraded around to visit all his friends, but unlike last time, it didn’t annoy me so much. I like that change in me, the one who doesn’t have to be in control, or even know what is happening next, who is just there, very much in the moment. One of the things I notice about people from the states when they visit is a constant need to know what is next, and how it is going to happen, even when they have almost zero understanding of the culture, or what it takes to get that thing to happen.

At one point, when we are all together, Emmanuel said “Steve, these are my friends, the ones who did not know me when I came, but took me in, the stranger. We have a saying here,” and then he said something in Twi that I couldn’t understand and began to translate. His friends all jumped in, arguing about his translation of the saying, but the gist of it was Only a stranger is served the blind chicken (or one-eyed chicken). I gather the blind or one-eyed chicken is the Ghanaian equivalent to unclean, and when you have friends, they watch out for you (like the blind chicken can’t).

[“Teacher” standing with boy named Nyame (meaning God in the local language), while his mother looks out]

Now that I had been properly introduced, and greeted all his friends, as well as visiting them in their homes, we had a delicious meal of groundnut soup with Omo Tuo (or rice balls), and fish. I think back to a conversation I had with Nicole Sims at the Mozley’s when we first got here. We are sitting around the table having Groundnut Soup,

“Do you eat the bones?” She asks the Ghanaians sitting at our table, and they laugh. One of the women, says yes, but her husband won’t. After they were first married she tells about her husband seeing her eat the bones and asking, “Are you an animal that you eat the bones too?” They argue about it and she asks him, “Are you Ghanaian?” It is a custom not shared by all. Nicole asks how to eat the bones, and she says “don’t force it” Later as Nicole is biting into a breast bone, the woman cautions her: “Don’t force it!”
“Am I forcing it?” she asks with bones still in her mouth so it doesn’t come out clearly.
“I see your face” and she is right, it has that tight strained look. [click here to read full entry]

I notice there are rarely any bones to clear away when eating with our Ghanaian friends, so tonight, I try as I have been taught. I chew and chew the sharp fish bones until they are ground down to swallowing size. I look at Emmanuel’s bowl, and Kofi’s, who has joined us for dinner, and their bowls are empty, no bones, and I am only half done. Eating isn’t the social occasion that it is in the States, so there is little conversation to slow us down. They eat quickly. Chewing the bones slows me down, but when I have finished, I and see a completely empty bowl, without bones, and I am proud and think Well Done, Steve . Then it was off to the guest house where I would be staying for the week, but the TroTro is has only one place and there are two of us. The mate stays behind and gives me his jump seat. Its late now, maybe 8pm, and I don’t think they expect me to know what to do, but when someone shouts blastoff, which I take to mean next stop, I expertly swing open the door before it stops, and hop out so the people can exit. I hop back in, shout Away, and close the door as we’re pulling out and flip down my jump seat. The people laugh, wondering about the Obruni mate, and I think, Should I be collecting fares?

It was a simple room, not self-contained as they say here, meaning the shower and toilet are around the corner and to be shared by everyone on that floor, which was OK since I am the only guest. The room came with its own bed sheets and a towel, which is relatively rare in this price range ($10/night), usually you are expected to pack your own bed sheets and towels. The room also came with an ashtray, another rarity as smoking is not all that common here, a New Testament, quite common, and a bowl of condoms, I guessing in case the New Testament or smoking didn’t work. Compared to Ghana’s neighbors, the rate of HIV/AIDS is low. Ivory Coast, Togo, Benin, and Burkina Faso each have infection rates between 20-30% whereas Ghana is reported to be 6%. Maybe this is why.

[Bedside table]

Emmanuel had come earlier in the week and paid the bill, so we go right to the room and chat for a while longer before he asks his leave. It is the custom here not to announce that you are leaving, or have to go, but allow the host (that would be me in this situation) to grant permission to leave, but I’ve never quite mastered the protocol. I do know that you are supposed to walk with your guest to the street, and perhaps further, maybe even to their home, but again I do not have a good understanding of what that looks like. So Emmanuel asks “May I go,” and then adds, “or would you like me to stay?” I had to ask: “So what is the program for tomorrow?” Emmanuel talks about visiting Cape Three Point, a place I have heard wonderful things about, but not had the chance to visit, and then he adds, “You have tasted many of the delicious dishes that my country has to offer and tomorrow you shall taste one of our African girls.”

I was quite sure I had heard him wrong, or didn’t understand the custom, or what he was saying and by morning I had convinced myself that what he really said was “and tomorrow you shall taste one of our African grills,” at least that is what I hoped he said.

YouTube Videos: Fox & Grace

2008-06-07T08:02:00.001Z

Warning: Proud Parents Alert!

Here is what Fox and Grace have been up to this spring.

Watch Fox in his high school’s production of Little Shop of Horrors, playing The Dentist.

Watch Grace and her friends do a “slightly odd dance” (her words) at her school’s talent show.