Summer 2009

Blogging again. Ok, so I am no longer in Nairobi and have just arrived back in Maryland after traveling around the county. Last semester ended quite well, although it went right down to the wire. I thought I would never write my final papers, but I did, and they finished up better than I expected. Curtsey of my slot on Senate, I went through the graduation procession all decked out, trailing all the professors with Ken (student council chairman, also on Senate). I got to meet John Mbiti, the father of contemporary African theology, which was exciting. The graduation parties were a lot of fun, and so much food. From the time I finished up my last paper on Wed till I left on Monday, I spent basically the whole time attending various functions, hanging out and visiting all the people I had been basically ignoring for the last month of school (and packing up my entire room). It was fun.

Then I flew back to Baltimore, was at home for a few days, then flew out with my family to Seattle to visit my grandparents and other relatives out there. I was there for two weeks, then flew to Chicago for a wedding Aug 1st. I was a groomsman (wearing a tux for the first time), and helped out with the preparations as much as I could. It was a good experience, and everything came together by the end. Then I spent the next week in Chicago with all my friends in the area, of which there are still a lot. It was awesome spending time with all of them. I miss Wheaton people. After that, my family picked me up and we drove up to the UP of Michigan, and stayed with my grandmother there. It was quiet and relaxing.

Tomorrow I’m helping my sister move down to college in Virginia, then the next day my friend starting grad school at George Washington. I have three weeks until I return to Nairobi and the craziness of life really picks up again…

Interview with Thomas from Liberia

For African Church History class, we were assigned an oral history project. I interviewed my friend Thomas from Liberia, and he has quite a story to tell. I asked if I could post it, and he agreed. We had to do a transcript of our interview, and I have not edited it. These are very selected excerpts, however, since the transcript came to five single spaced pages.

So they were fighting all over, a battlefront all over. And this process was tense for every Liberians. And so the government troops almost relent in the middle of the war, but they kind of divided themselves, those who were able to submit to Charles Taylor troops came on his side and were fighting for him. So those who remained independent, they also formed their own group, then those who diverted from their own groups: so we had more than 5 different groups fighting the same civil war. So as a result, people would come from outside of the country and just form their own group, people would remain in America and begin to support group and they organize people and the people begin to fight.

Ok, as for the church, I think the main issue was that most of the members left and went exile, ok, like my church went to Ivory Coast, other people went to Guinea, some went to Sierra Leone, some went to Ghana, some went to Nigeria. So the few people that remained in Liberia where I was, some of them actually became apostate because of the situation they found themselves in. Some begin to mix Christianity with other religions. Some begin to go for protection, we saw Christians going to herbalist to get protection for gun-proof. Ok, so when you get the gun-proof you begin to fight for Charles Taylor I think you begin to lose your identity you Christian identity so many people backslid because of this issue. Some other people were carried away by peer pressure because your friend comes from the battle-front and tells you, my man, this thing is easy, if you go and fight nothing will happen. Just take your own time and just follow instruction. Some Christians even join their friends to fight the war. Ok, so the church was greatly affected.

[Thomas went to Ivory Coast as a refugee.] The Ivorians decided that since war is in our country, we left our country and entered their country we brought the ugly feeling and the ugly behavior with us. So any ugly thing that any Ivorian does, they would say, those Liberians are the ones behaving like that. So I decided to leave Ivory Coast.

So while the war was going on I entered Liberia, and there was some friends of mine who took… When I was a student at ABC I bought some produce, coffee and cocoa, so I kept it in my house, in my home town. But these rebels conquered the place and they begin to take my coffee and cocoa and bring it over to Ivory Coast to sell it. So I decided, I saw one of my friends who said, “Oh, your coffee you left over there is now for the rebels, and they are taking the coffee and selling it.” So I decided to go back and get my coffee because my family never had anything. So I crossed the river, I never went to the rebel side, I went down the river because Liberia is bordered by Ivory Coast and there is a big river that divides the two countries, so I went across the river downstream, and I was able to cross and get to my village. So I passed and went to the town, I saw some of the coffee even though they have taken some, but I took two bags and carried to our village and I hired people, we took it and brought it to Ivory Coast. I sold it, and I paid people to come back for the balance.

So when I came, I decided to actually be in Liberia, but the question that came to my mind is what am I going to do in Liberia when war is going on? But the way I observed the rebels, their behavior and other things, brought another idea, God spoke to me that I think I should be in the midst of these people and be able to talk with anyone that would be open to me. So I begin to evangelize. Yes. So from one person to another, I begin to talk from one place to another, from one village to another village, until I was able to establish 6 different preaching stations in different, different villages, ok. So these six different preaching stations, I went back to the Ivory Coast and brought one of my friends who worked along with me. So we used to walk like 13 hours in a day to go from village to village to evangelize. But the best thing I did was, I could not go from place to place like that without handling arm, ok, so I decided to go for their training. So I went, they trained me, and they taught me how to handle the gun, how to dismantle it, and how to assemble it. So they taught me everything, and I managed to get one from their main commander. So he gave me the arm, I just used to handle the arm and move from place to place.

I do not take part in anything that they do, but I always advise them when they were doing wrong and remind that that this country you see would never remain like this. Though you are killing some people, but other people would remain alive. You may kill a brother of another sister, and this sister will live to see you another time: what will you tell the person? So I was able to convince most of them, and I was able to relieve some other people that they arrested who were going to Ivory Coast, citizens leaving the country because of war, they were rescued and they want you to remain with them. And they don’t feed the people. So once you arrest somebody and you are not able to feed the person I would go there and say, “But if you keep this person the person will die. You either release them, or continue to feed them daily.” Now if you can’t feed them, then I will tell you, let them go. So I was able to help plenty of people.

Dr. Jusu

Ever since I first saw Dr. Jusu at NEGST, I have been very intrigued by him, because he seemed a very dynamic and distinctive professor. I just came across this biography, and I think it is fascinating. People at NEGST tend to have such interesting stories behind them, and their life experiences are so different from anything I have experienced. His profile is found here:

http://www.cisf.org/dr-john-jusu-sierra-leone

For any of you who might happen to be considering seminary, another reason to come to NEGST is to meet and learn from people like Dr. Jusu...

Does Your Pastor Preach Like This?

Maybe your church needs a little more passion.




These videos were taken a few months ago at the Life in Christ Outreach Ministries church in Kibera.

Cranmer's Eucharistic Theology and the Book of Common Prayer?

I have no doubt that all of you have been wondering recently, what on earth is the relationship between Thomas Cranmer's Eucharistic theology and how he crafted the Book of Common Prayer? Good question. Obviously I had been wondering the same thing, and fortunately I wrote a paper on this very topic and it is now available for your perusal. Since Blogger does not let you upload documents, I started another blog for that purpose. Check it out:

http://davidbawks.wordpress.com/2009/07/09/cranmers-eucharistic-theology/

Third Term

It's a bit difficult to sum up the entire term in one post. But I'll see what I can do. Basically, this term has been all about student council. That's where I put my time, focus and energy. For a few weeks it was on my mind constantly, like every waking moment. I have found that as secretary, I have rather a lot of responsibilities. I have also discovered that there are a lot of things the student council does that could be done better. Many times I have felt that if I could be a full time secretary, 40 hours a week, then I could do a decent job. One of my responsibilities is for our secretary office, which offers typing, binding, and printing services. Unfortunately, most month the office only makes about half of the salary of our administrative secretary that we do employ full time to run the office. So we have to subside that office with our more profitable divisions, such as the farm. I have been trying to think of ways to make more money, and also how to incorporate a writing center into our secretary office. NEGST really needs a writing center, and getting that started, and sustainable, is one of my goals while I'm here.

I also have a lot of meetings and consultations, and of course it can be boring, but actually I have found that I do enjoy a lot of it. I like knowing how the school runs and hearing the inside story on things. Most meeting have actually been okay as far as length, but then the Senate meeting yesterday was seven and half hours, and I found that a bit long! I've researched such diverse topics as asbestos and GPA policies, and met with so many people over these issues. Raising money for the school to get charted by the Kenyan government, figuring out how to include all students in the graduation banquet, approving the leave of our employees, working on our financial systems and guidelines, handling various requests of the student council--these are all things I've had to do over the last few months. Leadership in a cross-cultural setting is really interesting, and presents a lot more challenges. Most things that are communicated are misunderstood. I've engaged in so much interpretation over what things really mean, the fine art of reading between the lines.

Since I am still a full time student, I have also had some classes to attend and assignments to do. This term I only took 14 hours, my lightest load yet, and I have had more difficult getting papers done this term than ever. At one point or another I was behind in each class, the first time I've turned in papers late at NEGST. I'm taking African Church History, Matthew 1-13, Introduction to Missions, and Introductions to Urban Missions. Matthew was the best, and hearing Dr. Wood's theology of justice was fascinating. Each term so far I've experienced a paradigm shift in my theology: 1st term, contextualization; 2nd term, power encounter; and 3rd term, Matthew and how justice is a huge theme in the Bible, and especially in the teachings of Jesus. I see it all over the place now. Justice really has never been emphasized much until I went to Wheaton, and then it was primarily social justice, which is obviously a big part of it, and really important, but I don't think its all there is to justice. This is something I certainly hope to continue studying in future.

Matthew has also taught me to be much more curious about what I read in the Bible. I've realized that there are so many things I've accepted at face value and never questioned, and when I think about why or what exactly it means, I have no idea. Like why was Jesus baptized? I found out that I really don't know, and I don't remember ever really considering that question. I wrote a paper on it and I still don't think I know. I mean, I do have some thoughts and ideas about it, its not completely meaningless, but there is a lot about it I think I'm missing.

Second term I was largely focused on my ministry involvement in Kibera, but I became too frustrated and had too many problems with the church and at the end of the term decided I could no longer continue there as an "assistant" pastor. Since then, I've been attending NPC (Nairobi Pentecostal Church) Woodley but I haven't really gotten involved. I hope to when I return in September.

I would also like to buy a motorcycle, and was planning to do so but the process of finding one and buying was just too difficult and I didn't have time to really shop around and find one. That's something else I will do in September, and although I must admit I am rather nervous about driving a motorcycle around here, I'm also really excited! It will be so awesome, and to have my own transportation... amazing.

Postmodernism and Development

Lest any of you doubt that I am actually in graduate school, and think that my life consists purely of vacationing and the excitement of exotic travel, this more academic post should help to disabuse you of that notion.

As I’ve been researching my term paper for Intro to Urban Ministry, looking at development and urban ministry, I was somewhat surprised to find such a philosophical element to the development debate. There are many ways to understand and do development work, but one of the most prevalent is the modernization paradigm, currently being espoused as neoliberalism (according to David Simon, see below). I assume modernization in this context would be basically countries such as Kenya becoming “modern,” like the West, in the sense of getting electricity, roads, media, etc. The postmodern perspective critiques this idea as being problematic on many levels, such as the assumption that we are more “advanced” than others, and we then merely duplicate our lifestyles and impose them on others. Such issues as environmental sustainability also point to the consequences if everyone were to have an American standard of living: not good. Even looking at the current economic crisis, from my devout reading of NY Times columnists I get the impression that there is a systemic shift going on in American attitudes towards consumption and having a lot of “stuff”—most of which they don’t need. Showing off wealth by going shopping and buying ridiculously overpriced clothes and other things doesn’t seem quite as cool anymore.

Back to postmodernism, I hadn’t thought of its implications in this specific aspect; but I realize now that this “movement,” if it can be organized to that extent, affects all academic disciplines. Some of the conclusions arising from the postmodern critique of development end up in the realm of anti-development: it shouldn’t be done at all. Well, that is probably not the most helpful way to go about this issue! I found the following quote quite fascinating:

Most postmodernists and postcolonialists have great difficulty in embracing the concrete development aspirations of the poor in practice, despite their theoretical sophistication. Part of this trend is a growing retreat to the cosy Northern pavement café—a favoured haunt of those with panoptic vision(s)!—from the rigours and challenges of field research in the South, by hiding behind the conveniently hyped 'crisis of representation' of who has a/the right to speak or write on behalf of Third World 'others'. (Simon, 185)

This sounds quite a bit like the conversation going on theology concerning African identity and the nature of authentic, African theology (or theologies). Of course, it is true that we as outsiders cannot make their decisions or speak on their behalf, but in terms of development, does that mean we do nothing? And then of course there’s the whole debate over dependency and all its related problems, but I won’t be able to solve that here! I suppose I should get back to actually writing the paper, but I thought this was quite an interesting idea. I’ll leave you with this:

What I am suggesting is the importance of a healthy scepticism towards some of the more sweeping and emotive formulations of post-everything, which may universalize from particular case studies in a manner reminiscent of modernist theorizing, be elitist as practised by its advocates despite the supposed concern with precisely the opposite, and may actually be of little practical use in addressing poverty and providing basic needs. Moreover, critiques of conventional developmentalism and the search for more meaningful, appropriate and socially grounded and bottom-up alternatives are not new. As with the different definitions of development and the examples of basic needs and environmental sustainability given above, there is a long pedigree of initiatives and theoretical formulations stretching back decades… (Simon, 190)

(from David Simon, “Development Reconsidered; New Directions in Development Thinking,” Geografiska Annaler, Series B, Human Geography 79, no. 4 (1997): 183-201.)