February 1996

His Work Among the Luo People Of Kenya Go ... and make disciples of all nations Matthew 28:19
February 2, 1996

It's a typical women's class in any church here in Luoland. Women sit on wooden chairs, rickety stools, or benches, placed around the walls of a very small living room in a mud house. Some women have to sit on the floor. I get to sit in the circle too. There's no special platform for the teacher, nor do I have to stand "in front" of the class. We are all learners here. That's nice. But there is something very frustrating in almost every class I teach. Here's the scenario. I'm standing up in front of my chair while I teach. We have already sung together and prayed together, and most times we've already had a chat before class started, where usually more than one woman refers to God working in her life in one way or another. It's truly a time for sharing His love and caring. But now the class has begun and the women are ready for some serious learning. They are always eager to hear more. No one "just goes through the motions here". I've got my Bible open in my hands and if I'm not explaining a scripture, or giving an example, then I'm reading large portions of the scripture to the women. Most of these women can't read. This is the only time they get to hear the Word straight from God's Book to their ears and hearts. As I'm teaching, someone comes to the open door of the house and stands in the doorway. It's one of the women who came with me from another congregation to visit her Christian sisters in this area. She had been to visit the outhouse before the class got started and now she's back. The women look around at each other and the woman from this area who is sitting on one of the best chairs in the room jumps up and gives the visitor her chair. The women again look around at each other. Another woman hops up because she's from this home and her stool goes to the woman who is from this area but a visitor in this home, and gave her chair to the visitor from another area. Again, they all look around at each other, and a younger woman relinquishes her little stool to the woman who is standing because she is younger, and must give up her chair to an older person of the home. She however, has a baby in arms, so she moves over to the mat on the floor where another young women from this home has stood up to give up her place on the mat because she doesn't have a child in arms. That woman goes outside and sits just outside the door on the dirt. This little impromptu game of musical chairs often takes place three or four times during the class. In the meantime, I stand bewildered, watching the round of musical chairs, struggling to think in the Luo language and wondering if anyone in the room is even listening to me. I know these women want to hear the word, but this is ridiculous. And no sooner do I get started reading or explaining again, when another woman comes to the door of the house and we're playing games again! I've been here for over ten years and I still haven't gotten used to this. It has to do with the Luo way of thinking. Hospitality and age are the key concepts in the mind of a Luo. Visitors get served first and age second. So there's a sort of pecking order when it comes to who get the best chairs. My American way of thinking fails to understand the importance of all this chair relinquishing.

This last month, we had a Teaching Your Children refresher course for the women who had taken the first course, and who are teaching children's Bible classes in their home churches. It was a wonderful weekend. We were about forty in number from 13 different congregations and enjoyed sweet fellowship just being together. I hope they learned a lot too. One thing happened in the course of the weekend that sent me into uncontrollable laughter, and reminded me that I must be "all things to all people". These women have so little education and about the only thing they know how to do well is memorize. Maybe you can understand a little how necessary, but how difficult it is for them to learn how to apply the Bible to their lives. Now they must teach application of the Bible to their children too. The weekend was a real challenge. Our major aim was to try to show the women games, songs and ways to teach children that the stories they read in the Bible have a lesson for their lives in them. Have you guessed it yet? One of the first games we tried was Musical Chairs! Our intent was to show them that they can use this game to teach the children how a Christian should act, not grabbing the best, but giving to another. I just about laughed myself to the point of no return before we finished. Try to imagine the setting. We were in the Nyarach church building, mud walls and mud floors but quite a large room. We lined six chairs up in the front of the room and called seven women to come and play the game. We showed them how when the teacher clapped her hands, they should walk around the chairs and when the clapping stopped, they should try to grab a chair. They were totally incapable of playing. Before the clapping started, I could see the women eyeing each other. They were mentally deciding where each one stood in the Luo pecking order compared to the others. When the clapping started they obediently walked around the chairs and when the clapping stopped they would all stand still and let the pecking order take over: visitors sat first, then women of the area, and last women of the congregation according to age (oldest first) and whether they were carrying a child or not. I'd never seen anything so funny in my life. Funny but frustrating. We tried it over ten times or more and the result was always the same. By this time I was so confused, I was not sure if I was thinking like a Luo, thinking like an American, or even capable of thinking at all.

On the eleventh try. . . success at last. . . and what a success it was. One young Luo women took a leap into the American way of thinking (not always necessarily the best way of thinking) and she made her own application to the game. She actually became aggressive in this essentially fatalistic and passive culture, grabbing the chairs for all she was worth, ignoring the enforced Luo pecking order, even once knocking an older woman to the ground. There were no hard feelings but there was much laughter as we ended the game. We asked Adoyo why all of a sudden she began grabbing the chairs. "I began to understand that the chair is like heaven", she said, "and I was going to try as hard as I could to get heaven!" Shouts of "Amen" came from all corners of the room and my voice was the loudest.

The point here is just as Paul said it, "I have become all things to all men." That's the missionary rule of thumb and sometimes the most difficult thing for us (missionaries) to accomplish. Did you know I wear two different hats? One I carry in my right hand. It's my Luo thinking cap. The other I carry in my left hand. It's my American thinking cap. I put on one cap or the other, according to the particular situation. Sometimes I have to wear both at the same time, and sometimes I get confused about which one I am wearing at the time, just like I did at the refresher course. I've struggled so hard against that impromptu musical chairs custom of the Luo mindset, that I couldn't see that it was the very application of a Bible principle that I was trying to teach. For ten years I've had on my American thinking cap when I stand in front of the ladies to teach, and have been annoyed with their custom, when I should have had on my Luo thinking cap and seen a Bible principle in action.

I praise God for teaching me to "become all things to all men", for showing me my mistakes, and for providing such a delightful way to learn my lesson. Pray for me please. Wearing two hats is not easy. And pray for the ladies too. They have some equally difficult lessons to learn.