Its Nairobi but not as we expected

Posted on March 5, 2012 by 9adayadmin

Today we went to downtown Nairobi and the first thing we did was to have our vehicle wheel clamped. This, I am glad to say, is not a frequent experience in my life. In fact, like my trip to Africa, this too is a first for me. You have to give some credit to Kenyan clampers. They do the deed with a smile, want to shake your hand, exchange names and want to know where you are from. It is a slightly surreal experience. They need to fine you £70 but, apparently, want to make the departure of your money as pleasant as possible. We left it to our driver to convince them we were sorry, very sorry, and that we didn’t have 8500 Kenyan shillings between us – which was true, we didn’t. With more smiles and handshakes they removed the clamp, showed us into a proper parking bay and wished us a good day.

If that was our first problem, the second was quickly evident also. The majority of Nairobians (if that is the correct term) do not want their picture taken. Not a few will tell you as they pass by, even if the camera isn’t pointed at them. This, of course, presents a problem, given that we are here to do exactly that. I am not without sympathy for their viewpoint. Having lived overseas with three pretty, blue-eyed, blonde-haired daughters and been chased around by locals with cameras, my wife and I developed a few strategies not to be photographed as we walked down the streets. The issue here, however, goes perhaps a little deeper than a personal aversion to being photographed. But blog space being what it is, you will have to wait until we can find another wi-fi hotspot where we can get on to the internet. My pessimism about getting online is, so far, well-founded.

Keep checking…

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And so to Africa…

Posted on February 29, 2012 by 9adayadmin

But then Africa, as I have been recently reminded by the most anthropologically minded member of my family (you know who you are), is a rather large place. When I lived in China, another rather large place, we mused on the idea that you could say what you liked about the situation in the country because it was bound to be true somewhere. Possibly Africa is much the same. I have, again, to admit considerable ignorance about the continent – just as I did about India and South America. This does raise the question as to why Langham Partnership is sending someone who knows next to nothing about the places he goes to. But then, it does have its advantages when writing blogs – almost anything that is observed/happens is newsworthy.

And so to Kenya… which may be relatively more manageable but is, no doubt, still incredibly diverse; though Lonely Planet allows thirteen pages (including maps) for the country’s autobiography and Wikipedia manages to squeeze it all into 8,500 words. We won’t dwell on the fact that all I know about the country to date comes from these two sources. Which brings us to…

Nairobi, which is where Mezza and I are really going on our final trip to film the work of Langham Partnership’s three programmes. Lined up for interviews are around fifteen Langham Scholars, who are working in a variety of situations. Most, as you may expect, are at universities and colleges, teaching the next generation of Christian leaders. One is involved with water aid projects down near Mombasa. Another heads up an indigenous counselling service. Yet another works with the government on ethics and corruption issues. We will also be filming a project in the Kibera slum area overseen by another Langham Scholar. It is going to be fascinating to record all these different aspects of how Langham’s involvement with individuals is having an impact on just one city in a very large continent of cities.

(As usual, this first blog comes with a footnote to note that we have no idea what internet facilities we will have available. So far, my usual pessimism has been misplaced and I am optimistic enough to hope to be proved wrong again. Do keep checking the blog site. Thanks for following us this far.)

Trivia question: Will Mezza get a go on (or in?) a bouncy castle while in Nairobi?

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Krish Kandiah told us about a Christlike mentor

Posted on February 20, 2012 by 9adayadmin

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Nicky Gumbel sees Christlikeness in a colleague

Posted on February 9, 2012 by 9adayadmin

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A Taste of Bolivia

Posted on February 1, 2012 by 9adayadmin

The 9-a-day campaign only comes out in January 2013 but our recent trip to Bolivia (filming an essential 9-a-day documentary) allowed the film crew to experience some beautiful landscapes in a country full of glorious sites and sounds. We thought you might like a sampler…

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“Adios” from Bolivia

Posted on January 24, 2012 by 9adayadmin

Mezza and I are coming to the end of our stay in Bolivia and are already beginning to deal with emails that will take us to Kenya in March. All our interviews are complete and apart from filling Mezza’s memory card with a few more clips of La Paz, we can begin to contemplate getting up on Wednesday around 4 a.m. and making the tedious journey via Miami home.

Today we were reflecting on the highlights of our trip. The visit to the prison has to take pole position. As an experience it was unlike any other that I have had. The sincerity of the faith of the believers and their deep desire to serve God in such difficult circumstances leaves me humbled and challenged about my own walk with God. High on the list has to be our visit to the church out in the countryside near Cochabamba. It was a tremendous privilege to be sharing in a service with people with whom I have little in common but with whom there was an immediate sense of fellowship. Third? Probably my walk up to the Christo statue in Cochabamba – not for any spiritual reason, I just enjoyed the challenge of all those steps!

I have learned a lot during our stay. A lot about Bolivian culture and a great deal about the work of Langham Preaching in South America. There is a tremendous work going on out here and it was good to see some aspects of this first hand – the escuelitas – and to talk to Igor, Eduardo and Langham facilitators from across the continent. It was also a reminder that the Bible has become somewhat redundant in some of our UK churches and we could, perhaps, learn something from the earnestness of the preachers here to study the Bible and benefit their congregations with Bible-centred preaching. Whether Igor and Eduardo will read this I don’t know but it is appropriate to thank them particularly for all their help, advice and for being such excellent hosts.

Finally, thanks for reading these blogs. I hope you will sign up for our Kenya trip blogs and in early 2013 check out the Langham Partnership website to see the results of our work.

Ronald and Mezza. Adiós!

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The Prison Pastor

Posted on January 23, 2012 by 9adayadmin

Carlos was born into an influential family. As a young man he worked his way into a good position within the Bolivian government offices. He has photographs of himself with the president. He was well on the way to making a success of his life… until he was accused of a crime he didn’t commit. The courts deemed him guilty. He was imprisoned in La Paz prison for six months.

This was the prison Mezza and I visited yesterday. It is nothing like the institutions we see from time to time on British TV. The conditions are harsh. The living quarters are barely large enough to turn around in. There is no segregation of criminals into those serving sentences for minor offences and those with serious crimes to atone for. The place is filled with unabated noise; there is nowhere to retreat to. Carlos, for want of a room, slept in the laundry.

It was on the third day of Carlos’ imprisonment that he found Christ and joined the evangelical church. Such was the depth of his new found faith that when, after a month, he had opportunity to leave, he decided, despite the cost to himself, to stay in the prison to serve the church. Eventually, the church pastor came to him and told him that if he wanted to serve the church better, he needed to leave and be trained as a pastor. This wise advice led to Carlos reading about a Langham preaching seminar which was to take place in La Paz. He signed up and attended the first day. There was, however, a problem – to attend the course he must pay a fee. Where was he to find the money for this? Well, he was advised, perhaps he should ask his church. So, Carlos went back to the church in the prison and asked the inmates to find the money to allow him to become a better preacher. Remarkably, this church of prisoners, many of them in difficult financial situations, agreed. Carlos was able to complete the Langham course. Now he puts his training in Bible-centred preaching to good use as one of the pastors of the church in which he was converted.

What struck me as we followed Carlos around the prison was the ease with which he engaged with the prisoners. He is known at the gates and trusted to come and go without problem. He and the other church leaders, some of whom are also ex-prisoners, have a vital ministry and are well suited for the task. Prisoners are becoming Christians. But it also struck me that as leaders of the largest of the seven churches in the compound, there can only be perhaps 200, maybe 300 Christians in the prison. There are around two thousand more men, women and children who still need to respond to God’s love and find faith in Christ as Carlos did.

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A Spell in Prison

Posted on January 23, 2012 by 9adayadmin

I have my doubts as to whether you would call getting into a Bolivian prison an answer to prayer. Getting out maybe but not getting in. But today we did go into a prison and it was an answer to prayer. Again, I find myself humbled by Christians whose circumstances are significantly more challenging than mine – this time by the members of an evangelical church beyond the prison gates. The brothers were so concerned that we should be able to visit them that they spent five days fasting in advance. Their prayers were answered and Mezza and I, accompanied by one of the church pastors, were allowed without problem through the single iron gate that separates the police from the inmates.

The prison is about a mile away from where we are staying; a rough, cement rendered, square ‘building’ which hides behind its walls a warren of small alleyways and triangular courtyards. Above one of these courtyards is the evangelical church, one of seven churches within the compound. We climbed narrow staircases and walked along rickety balconies, watched by the inmates. Mezza may blend a little with South American faces but I certainly do not! There was no sense of threat as we made our way to the church but our security lay in the presence of the pastor and Christians who accompanied us. There were no police within the gaol. The prisoners organize their own rules and social norms; a sobering thought as you push your way through the knots of prisoners who congregate in the courtyards.

It is difficult to pick out a particular aspect of our visit to describe within the confines of this blog. The enthusiastic and loud worship that poured down into the courtyard? The welcomes we received several times over? The size of the church – 60 men meeting daily, of which 40 are believers? Our tour of the prison afterwards? In the end I have chosen a group of people who should not be there. The prison population is supposedly 800 but we were told that 2,200 is a better estimate. I was shocked to discover women and children crammed into the noisy courtyards. Families, facing desperate times when the husband is
sentenced, have moved into the prison in an attempt to survive. Of the estimated two thousand plus 400 are children, both boys and girls. They are free to come and go but I cannot imagine what it does to a child to be raised in these deprived, harsh circumstances. During the service a ten year old boy read a prayer – a prayer of love for his father and for his release. The church asked us to pray for Jose and the other children. They want to find ways to help them.

We stayed in the prison around four hours and then we were released (definitely an answer to my wife’s prayers!). In the afternoon we interviewed one of the prison pastors, who came to faith in this gaol. After he was released he attended a Langham Preaching seminar to learn how to be a better preacher. Now he goes back into the prison to serve the church in which he was converted. In our interview he told us that last week he had been praying for a prisoner to become a Christian. Five had responded. Tomorrow I will tell you his story…

 

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A Kind of Day

Posted on January 20, 2012 by 9adayadmin

This was the kind of day that has everything. An allsorts sort of day. Filming, relaxing and more cafes than I would normally frequent. It also involved two sheep heads, a goodbye, a moment of peace, and more meat than I would usually consume. As with a day it is better to take one thing at a time.

Vegetarians should read no further.

The two sheep heads were on an enamel tray in the market, which we finally managed to visit; the traders being back at work after their protest. The butchers’ street was a long stretch of stalls and a row of roadside traders. The heads were probably the strangest item on sale, though I did once see a basket of yak heads on a street corner in NW China, so this wasn’t quite as traumatic a moment as it might have been. Nearby, there were a couple of  stalls  selling brain and lungs, if those were what you fancied.

We said goodbye to the sheep heads fairly quickly but took a little longer over our farewells to our host in Cochabamba.  In India we were blessed by Blesson. In Bolivia Eduardo has made a tremendous difference  to our week. He has negotiated our way around an ever changing filming schedule, got us from A to B via C and back again, and taught Mezza Spanish. He seems to know every cafe in the city and it was rare that at some point during
a day we didn’t end up in one for breakfast, elevenses (which in Columbia, discovered, are taken at eleven a.m. and four p.m.), lunch, or Columbian afternoon elevenses. He also, kindly, opened his home to us. Fortunately, for his wife  and children, they were away. I was, however, interested to learn that his  wife, Rachel, is also a writer. She has a novel published and is writing a sequel.

The moment of peace was an hour spent a Roman Catholic retreat centre off the road west out of Cochabamba. A few hundred metres from the dusty main road is a small sanctuary of trees and neatly planned gardens, where the sound of the birdsong is louder than the traffic noise and you feel you might hear God’s still, small voice. It was a welcome respite from work and our daily routine of walking the streets of the city.

And, finally, this evening. Mezza and I were invited to the South American version of a British carvery combined with a Chinese banquet; a rodizio. Vegetarians should read no further. The waiters attend the tables carrying long skewers of beef, chicken, pork and turkey; carving slices of meat from their skewer to order. In Brazil rodizios run to 24 courses of meat. Our Bolivian equivalent did not quite match up to that but there was more than enough on offer. It was helpful to walk a mile or so to a taxi rank afterwards before being driven back to the retreat centre for the night.

Tomorrow we head for La Paz. Hopefully, there will be internet available to finish this blog. If you are reading it, take it as read that there was.

P.S. Anyone any ideas how we incorporate sheep heads into videos on preaching?
Answers on a postcard to Mezza.

P.P.S. Rachel’s book, Prism (by Rachel Moschell), is available on Kindle or from www.smashwords.com/books/view/108104

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The Woman with the Mauve Brolly

Posted on January 19, 2012 by 9adayadmin

Today we went to see Jesus. We should have gone to the market but the protests I mentioned yesterday had closed it down for the day. So – not for the fifth, sixth or possibly seventh time – we altered our plans.

Jesus stands, arms spread out, on a hill outside the city. Between the buildings you get occasional glimpses of a remote white figure. Some of the views are clear. Others are obscured by dozens of strands of wire that are slung across streets in a seemingly haphazard fashion, all converging on one telegraph pole that passes them on to the next a few yards away. Perhaps when the Christo de la Concordia was built in 1994 there were fewer tall buildings in the city, or less wires at least. Still it is difficult not to be aware of its presence and it is one of the few attractions in Cochabamba on the tourist trail.

There are 1399 steps from the road along the bottom of the hill to the base of the statue, a 6m high platform. We didn’t actually count these, of course; that way lies madness! (Particularly when travel books supply the information.) However, we did for, his forgo the luxury of the cable car and climbed every last one of them to the top. (The very last one was climbed with great relief.) It was on our climb we encountered a young lady with the mauve umbrella but I will come back to her.

One cannot build such a statue without providing tourists with information about its size, how long it took to construct and the like. As an civil engineer (in the past) I feel obliged to read the facts and, as a writer (now), to replicate them in blogs. The outstretched arms measure 32.87m (about 108 feet) and the base is 2840m above sea level (over 9000 feet). There is an amusing footnote to the height statistic. The famous Rio de Janeiro Christ statue is 33m high, one metre for every year of Christ’s life. Cochabamba’s version is higher, allowing the city some sort of bragging rights, supposedly on the claim that Jesus lived to 33 and a bit. Actually, the statue is 34.2m high ( 112 feet) but it makes good reading in the travel guides. You may be more interested in the lady with the brolly.

As we made our climb up the hill, stopping periodically to get our breath back on the pretext of admiring the view, we were passed by a young woman in white, carrying a mauve umbrella to keep the sun off. She was running down. This is not an easy thing to do but down is down after all. We toiled on up, periodically stopping as before, only to spot the same lady walking back up again. Before we reached the top she had passed us, done a circuit of the statue and passed us again on the way down. I am reliably informed by Mezza (I was climbing the steps within the statue to arm level for a small fee and a higher view over the city) that she made a third visit to the top. Quite remarkable. I have no idea who she was or why she was doing this but I hope she doesn’t have knee problems in later life!

When we had filmed Jesus and admired the view long enough, we walked back down the 1399 steps and went for lunch in the city. As we ate our way through an excellent meal of chorizo sausages, salad, cassava and fried bananas, we felt rather good about ourselves it must be said; the majority of visitors had taken the cable car. However, because we are Christians, it was nice to know we had been kept humble by a woman in white, carrying a mauve brolly.

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