LHRA Vanguard

Africa
Part 1 (from the Spring, 2009 issue of the Vanguard)
In March of 2007, I celebrated 23 years of ministry in the Lutheran Church as an ordained pastor. It is a milestone that has been a blessing and a burden. Growing up in the segregated south, I never thought that I would be a pastor and I certainly never thought that I would be a pastor in a predominantly white church body. When W.E.B. DuBois described life for the Black person living in American comparable to wearing a shoe that was too tight, this is an apt description for what it has been life for me in this church, at, but never feeling quite welcome.

In 1999, I had the opportunity to travel to Africa. I had always dreamed of such a moment and it was a dream come true. Never, however, in my wildest imagination would I have guessed what this journey would mean, the things that it would open up I me, affirm for me, clarify, disturb things that would answer some of the questions that twenty-five years in this church has raised for me and that created a kind of schizophrenia that at times left me emotionally naked and unsure if this was the church that I wanted to remain part of.

A colleague, who is also African-American and who had been to Africa, would say to me, “Ken, you’ve got to go to Africa, the people will love you. For you, it will be like going home to Mississippi.” He was right on both counts, the moment that my feet hit African soil, I indeed felt that I was home and in the four weeks that I was there, I was swallowed up in love by brothers and sisters who were eager to welcome me and claim me as a member of the family.

I remember in the four weeks that I was there, I never once thought about race. It was an amazing thing to be in a country where the majority of people shared your skin color. In that time, I felt a powerful re-affirmation of my Black self. I came away more than ever convinced that the challenge for Black people in America was to learn to love ourselves and that I needed to be in a ministry context where I could help to foster, create and nurture that kind of love.

Much of the restlessness that I had been feeling the last five years of an eighteen-year position as an assistant to the Bishop had very much too do with the realization that I had been left naked by a church that I had given my life, my soul, and my cultural capital to. I literally and metaphorically lost my voice for a while. Little did I know or understand how much Africa would mean for my own healing and my own restoration. I had forgotten the monumental impact of this journey until a few weeks ago. While cleaning out some files I ran across portions of a journal that I had kept the four weeks that I was there. And as I read those pages, the faces, the places, the sights and the sounds came alive all over again.

I know that when I came back to American and would speak to my mostly white colleagues, they would list politely, but I knew that they could never understand what I so eagerly wanted to convey. It wasn’t about what I had done or the places that I had been, it wasn't about sharing a travelogue, but about the changes that had occurred in me. I sensed quickly that they weren't interested in that. They want the same Ken Wheeler. but at some very fundamental and deep level, I would never be that person again.

Africa was a gift and that gift continues to bless my life. In sharing some of the pages of my journaling, I hope that those who read them will also be blessed.

August 3, 1999

Today I’m sitting outside of my tent in Tenengari National Park. My view overlooks down at the river and a plethora of trees set up against a majestic mountain. Yesterday we were at Ngorongoro, another reminder of just how beautiful Tanzania is. Everything in god’s creation, a rich kind, lush in some areas, hillsides dotted with banana and coffee groves. Yet in the midst of this beauty is such incredible poverty. For many, life is behind difficult. It is many ways impossible. This place evident in so many ways reveals the daily struggle that many people face everyday just to survive.

the safari cam at a food time for us, after two week of intense immersion in the Meru Diocese where the daily event of poverty and scarcity was constantly in our view. While this is a welcome respite (we are here 2 more days) and then back among our hosts.

For the people of the Mere Diocese, there is no respite. Getting up early in the morning and going to get water to cook, to bathe, to wash their clothes, working long days in the fields, walking to and from school on roads that are impossible to drive and may be even impossible to walk, will be their lot if they don’t die first from disease or poverty.

Community

I envoy, as I think we all do, the strong sense of community. People in Tanzania (or at least this part of it), live in community. It doesn’t take very long being here to realize the closeness of the people. People live very near together, families live in the same vicinity; parents live adjacent to their children (no concept of putting a parent in a nursing home when they get old). It was common for family members to come to dinner every night. You really did sense a profound bond.

I think the great fear of embracing capitalism for Africans is that they will lose what has made them strong. Even in the midst of scarcity has been this sense of communal identity and presence. It has been their source of power rally, to know that if they have nothing else, they have each other to bear each other up and to make the burden lighter.

How did you, an African, get to American? Viviane and I were asked this question numerous times. The first time I was asked was while I was staying in the house of the Uria’s, a wonderful African family, Mr. Uria, a farmer, his wife, a teacher at Poli Secondary School.

The question was asked by Mr. Uria’s mother, a 95 year old woman who spoke only in her Meru dialect. In KI Meru she asked a simple but profound question. How did you, an African, get to America? The forthrightness of her question hit me in a way that neither she nor I would quickly comprehend. It is a question that has been rattling around in my head and heart ever since.

Being in Africa has been a life-long dream. I think it is for every African-American. We are drawn inexorably like the river is drawn to the ocean. It has something to do with a deep longing to find out who we are, to know that we are more than an aberration, an accident, but that we have meaning, that we are bound to a place that we were a people, with a history, an identity and a life before we were slaves, before we were owned by somebody else. And yet as I am privileged to be in this place on this continent that gave me my for parents, I am more aware that I am far more American than African. I am a bit uneasy with that acknowledgement, but nevertheless, this happens to be the truth.

The questions asked first by this 95 year old African woman and then by a young African teenager caused much more struggle for me than for our African hosts. While all 12 of us have felt the graciousness of our Tanzanian sisters and brothers, I have felt and sensed that our presence as African-Americans has been especially meaningful. I have felt like a son being welcomed home. In every place I have felt an acceptance that is hard to explain. To be in a place where you are not a minority is refreshing. It is a feeling that whites have a difficult time comprehending.

I know that I will be different because of this trip. I know that I am already different. I also know that the question asked of me by that 95 year old African woman, I will not let go of until I have been blessed by it. Because at its deepest level, being African is not just about a place, but being and spirit, and maintaining a sense of hope and a disposition towards like that seeks to affirm rather than to destroy.

Walking up and down the hills of Tanzania with our host families was a powerful experience. Everyone knew we were strangers but they went out of their way to make us welcome. They were gracious even when we were not. The hospitality of the Tanzanians left us speechless. It was humbling and it was overwhelming. Every place we went there were people to receive us. And they would feed us, incredibly they would feed us, breakfast, then tea, lunch, tea again, supper and tea before bed. it was not hard to figure out that the feasts that we were enjoying every day for most people of Tanzania was not their normal fare. But we had to learn the valuable lesson of how to be gracious receivers.

I have alluded before to the immense poverty in Tanzania. There is no middle class. You either have or you don’t. Five percent of the people have the wealth and ninety-five percent of the people are struggling to make it. The government is 9 billion dollars in debt. The economy is slow. The infrastructure is poor. The roads are in shambles; many people who live up in the mountains have no running water, no electricity and no way of communication, one hospital in Meru and Four dispensaries to serve 150,000 people. The hospital has a very dedicated team of doctors and nurses, but they are understaffed, underpaid and do not have adequate equipment to do and give the very basic of medical care. (Before our delegation cam with am ample supply of disposable gloves, they would simply boil and use what they had over and over).

But it it’s the church which runs the hospital, provides for much of the education, cares for children who have been left orphaned because the mother has died, and provides vocational training for those handicapped at birth or because of some physical trauma. The church here does what in American is done by government, not because it has the resources but because it has the commitment. In Tanzania, the people do not look at the government, look to the church. It is a paradigm unfamiliarly in American.

Hope shines through like the sun peering through thick clouds. The story of Tanzanians and particularly Tanzanian Christians would be incomplete if you heard only that they were poor. Materially, there is no escaping the fact that they are poor.

But we saw more than their poverty. We saw the richness of their faith. It was that richness that accounted for a spiritual resilience that gave them the courage to face each day with the promise that each day held. From the doctor who in a moment of transparency would acknowledge his weariness and in the next breath there was recommitment to continue being faithful to the task because God would provide the way.
the depth of the people’s spirituality was overwhelming, a spirituality under girded by and centered in their understanding of scripture, most often articulated by the language of the Biblical writers describing God as protector and defender of his people, a spirituality nurtured in their understanding of community. It takes a whole village not only to raise a child but to make a people.

Part 2 to be included in the Fall, 2009 issue of the Vanguard.

August 4, 1999

This was our first full day in Tenengari Park. We began the day with breakfast and following we all gathered out on the porch of the restaurant overlooking this panoramic scene of breathtaking beauty. For devotions we heard the reading of Psalm 65, a fitting word for this day for this setting. We went out twice today, once after breakfast and then later in the afternoon.

It has been a long day. I'm missing my family something terribly. The difficulty of being so far away is compounded by the fact that there is no easy way to communicate. I am anxious to hear my wife's voice, eager to hear a word from home. Maybe when we get back to Arusha I will try to make a call. I am also feeling more and more that it would have been better to make this journey alone. I don't think that my white colleagues can understand the depth of meaning that this journey has for me. I'm not sure that I understand it all. In fact, I'm quite sure that it will take a lifetime to digest.

One of the books that I read this summer was entitled Walking on Water written by a young black male (Randall Kenan), who was intrigued by the question of what it meant to be African-American. The question started him on a journey across various places throughout America in search of an answer. I've been doing a lot of thinking about journeying during this sabbatical time, I've been asking questions, too. Where is God in the midst of suffering, a question that has caused me to wrestle mightily as I think about my mother who is in ill health? Is there something more that God would have me to do? Is the present con- text the place he would have me to do it? And the question that comes in and out of my life these last 40 years as a Lutheran, "Is it possible to be African-American and Lutheran? What this journey has meant for me is a greater clarifying, a greater clarity.

In Tanzania I have felt at home. I have felt an acceptance that I do not feel even in my Lutheran church after 40 years. I cannot help but to believe that there is a powerful message in that. This is not to say that I could ever be African really, but what I feel so incredibly and powerfully is that my heart and my spirit are being drawn toward home. There will come a day when I can no longer resist.

August 5, 1999

Worship was powerful. Two hours of singing and preaching and prayer. The preachers were two of our own, Pastor Larry Harpster and a young student Dan Kramer from Adoration Lutheran. The text was from Luke 24, the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus following the death of Jesus.

This was a youth service. The church was packed, people standing along the back walls and in the aisles. Following worship there was what would be the first choir competition that we would get to see, eleven choirs from the central district. It lasted for probably three hours. Five hundred people or more filled the grounds, children sitting in trees. This was a big event. We were told that it was a strong evangelistic tool. During worship as I looked out into the congregation and into the faces of this large group of African worshipers, I saw myself in their faces. The homesickness for my wife and children subsided for a brief time. As I studied their faces, I could see my father in an elderly man with his high cheek bones, thin features and salt and pepper hair.

Yes, this has been a journey that has brought me to a place, strange in some ways and not so strange in others. I have discovered much about myself. I have made some deep connectional feel as if a part of me that has been missing for a long time is now being filled. I looked through the congregation as Larry was preaching, the words from the text and the question asked by the disciples when they finally recognized who Jesus was. Did not our hearts bum when the scriptures were opened to us? Since being in Africa with the people of Meru, what began as a flicker has grown into a white hot flame.

August 10, 1999

Driving up and down the roads of Tanzania with ruts and holes in some places that would swallow a young preschooler reminded me of just how much we take for granted in America. We who have paved roads and so many conveniences that we have come to believe are necessities. I thought of the words of Dr. Nanyaro as we were walking through his village situated in the lush slopes of Mt. Meru. I had commented on the sheer beauty of the landscape to which he responded, "Pastor, don't let the beauty hide the reality of the toughness of life here." Our roads are poor. There is no electricity, no communication system. Some people, if they don't get food, will die. There is no good transportation. People walk every place. They die from diseases that have been eradicated in America because people simply will not become immunized. Malaria is the number one killer in Tanzania. Aids is high, but we discovered that the government will not release the figures for fear that it might affect tourism and dissuade people from coming to Africa. Arusha is the largest city closest to Meru, 500,000 people. It is a mix of the old and the new, peddlers everywhere who are astute at smelling out tourists. We also saw some of the 5,000 children who have simply been abandoned. They are beggars who have become a permanent part of the landscape of this busy hub.

The sense of community is strong in Tanzania. It is a dynamic that we saw and felt every place we went. We marveled initially at all of the work that people went through to have us in their homes, the hours they spent cooking these wonderful meals in a cook house, usually on an open fire, until we began to see that a number of people were involved in that process. Nieces, nephews, aunts, and children from several families were all there to make the day and the meal go well. The food was always more than we could eat or needed to eat, but to eat was a sign of gratitude for those who had worked so hard to make us welcome. And while we could never eat all that was placed before us, we discovered that the food was never wasted. It was shared with the community.

Walking along the slopes of Mt. Meru one evening, Dr. Nanyaro stopped to talk with two young women who were working in the field. The two women had been working in a plot that belonged to the older of the two, all day on this particular day. Tomorrow they would go to the plot that belonged to the other woman and they would work her land together. It is what we saw duplicated and repeated many times over, ujoma, the power of cooperation, the spirit of togetherness that makes the journey easier and the burden lighter.

An eye towards the west young African males, many of them, have a strong desire to come to America. It is a dream that you can see in the gleam of their eyes. Some who have been fortunate enough to make it to America have never come back. Dr. Nanyaro sees this as not a good thing because as he says, "These are the brightest and the best." Capitalism is a two-edged sword. On the one hand it would mean simply the capital to grow an economy, an economy that would provide jobs and income to afford people the resources to get what they needed.

There are houses in every stage of building because people work on them as the resources become available. Most people cannot go to the bank and get a loan because the interest rates are way out of proportion (36%). It is a discouraging picture. Young people here and like young people everywhere do not want to repeat the life of their parents. They are driven by a different spirit. They are being drawn by new dreams and new sounds.

Walking down the streets of Arusha as I passed one of the shops, I heard the pulsating beat of a popular American rap group. These young Africans have an idea that there is something that awaits them in America that holds a greater promise. While the desire is there on the part of older Africans for a better life, especially by those who have been educated, they are keenly aware that as Tanzania becomes more and more exposed to the west and looks to the west for assistance in building a market economy, they will inevitably lose something far more valuable than good roads or the convenience of technology. Democracy and capitalism hold immense promise and possibility but there are also dangers and it is the dangers that they fear that will rob Africa of its soul.

Reverend Kenneth Wheeler
Pastor for Cross Lutheran Church, Milwaukee WI
LHRA Board of Directors President