Saturday, July 7*The Christian Education Team moved to the Wycliffe Centre where we’ll be for today, Monday, and Tuesday. We arrived around 9.30 a.m., but began around 10.30 as some of the pastors and students were still arriving, and many of the students were also assisting the painters.
The Wycliffe Centre presently consists of a large auditorium with two smaller rooms on either at the entrance, and fairly large rooms on either side at the very front. The auditorium can likely hold 300-400 people. The rooms at the front are being used as offices and one is the temporary library.
To the south is the new hostel, a long narrow building with rooms on either side. The walls are up, the roof is on and the shell is now complete. Some of the rooms inside are more or less finished, but about 2/3's of the rooms inside still remain to be finished. The walls are rough and the floor is still dirt. It is not clear if it will all be used for hostel rooms or if there will be a mixture of dorm rooms, meeting rooms and offices (I’m guessing the latter is the likely outcome.) It is also not clear when it will be finished, because the key ingredient is always the needed funds.
Outside the painters have made tremendous strides. A white base has been applied, but only after the painstaking work of scraping the concrete smooth with wire hand brushes. A red, yellow and blue colour scheme - the colours of the Diocese of Toronto - was starting to be applied on Saturday, and the result was striking, though still a day or two away from being finished.
Inside, about 25 were attending the classes, again a mixture of clergy, Wycliffe Centre students, and lay people, though with a much higher percentage and number of students now that we’re at the centre.
The day ended around 4 pm. We were taken back to the hotel for a breather, then to the Sharrif Centre for supper. Tonight, about 23 others are joining us from Nairobi, most of whom will be staying at the Countryside Motel and a third hotel.
Many of us were in bed early, told to be up and ready for Sunday service and an afternoon ‘extravaganza’.
Sunday, July 8, 2007
What a day!
From the Happy Moments Motel we were picked up around 9.15 am and taken to the Wycliffe Centre for the Sunday morning eucharist and an afternoon ‘extravaganza’. It was everything that was promised.
As we arrived, we could see three large tents being erected on the Centre grounds, what would later serve as the border for the afternoon entertainment.
The film crew were already set up, recording some of the choirs and instrumentalists. Adults, children and schoolchildren from several of the Anglican schools were being bussed in. The most interesting transport was something that looked like a prison truck with barred windows and benches inside, but like Paul and Silas in prison, this truck bounced along to the songs of the choir it carried. The doors were pulled open, but it still left a drop of about 3 ½ feet. A rope hung from the door frame and the people inside, most of whom were ladies, swung out and down to the ground like spiderman swinging down from a skyscraper.
*The morning service itself, a eucharist with the bishop presiding and all the clergy of the diocese in attendance, followed, in general terms, the outline we're familiar with at St. Paul's. The songs are familiar gospel hymns ('What a Friend We have in Jesus'), some of the modern praise songs, some songs in Swahili with which we weren't familiar, and at least one song that had been written the day before. The most enjoyable of all, however, are familiar songs in Swahili that have a leader and a response. The people all know the response, and usually there's a familiar refrain to which everyone joins in.
*In Toronto I had been advised by John Bowen of Wycliffe College to look out for a short, quiet and unassuming priest by the name of John Njuguna. He won’t draw much attention to himself, I was told, but over the course of his ministry he has planted nearly 25 churches. Fortunately, he was one of the first people I met when we arrived in Bungoma, and we have visited every time we’ve been together.
Today on the grounds of the Wycliffe Centre, Fr. John was very happy. “What a great day this is,” he told me.
“Seven years ago,” he said while pointing to a northern corner of the Centre property, “I started this church. It was a very bad area, run by thieves. People who came into it, herding cattle, or carrying chickens, or riding on bikes, might enter with something, but left with nothing.”
“What did you do?” I asked.
“Well,” he said, “the first thing I did was go into their homes. I told them that God loved them. I told them that I was their friend, and now, they were my friends. And I told them that they were welcome to come to my church.”
And then, very deliberately he said, with a wave of his hand back and forth - “I didn’t talk about any bad things” - meaning, he didn’t raise the subject of their thievery. “I didn’t talk about any bad things.”
“I kept visiting,” he said, “and gradually they started coming to the church. After a while, they began to step forward in order to be baptized. I welcomed them, but I told them, ‘God loves you, but God needs you to serve him. Therefore, when I baptize you, there are some things you can no longer do.’”
“This region has been transformed,” he told me with a smile, pointing out in today’s crowd at least three of the former thieves, one of whom has become a local evangelist.
“This is a very happy day for me,” said Fr. John.
*The afternoon 'extravaganza' included 17 different choirs, dancers and groups who sang, performed skits and danced. It was great fun watching the MC trying to keep them to 'one song each'. He failed.
All around the grounds were several displays from the Mothers' Union and other such groups.
*After concluding speeches, led by the Bishop, there was the presentation of about a dozen sheep, purchased by Canadian donors, and given to youth representatives of each parish in the diocese.
Then colorful stoles, purchased in Guatemala, were then presented to all of the clergy. We left for the hotel around 4.30 p.m..
*This evening a wonderful buffet was presented for us at the hotel as a gift for our contribution to the area and, not to put too fine a point on it, our business at the hotel. We sat outside on a long veranda - which had been constructed from the funds for our two week stay - and enjoyed great food, a local band, and dancing.
A great day and a real refresher after a long week.
Day six of the mission is over. We've been away 8 days.