A Lutheran In Senegal

RAIN!!!

We could tell it was coming for nearly an hour ahead. The air shifted, got heavier and sweeter. Wind picked up—you could smell the rain in the air. Then a crack or two of lightning, and few drops here and there and then it came. Rain: cool refreshing rain, a shower, a cleansing, a baptism. Barefoot, but otherwise fully clothed, we did what we first saw our colleagues do when we arrived here seven years ago. We stood in the rain. We drank it up. We even danced a little bit.

Melodramatic, I admit. But you have to realize that apart from the occasional sprinkle—very infrequent, VERY light—we have not had rain here since last September. Unlike the parts of North America we’ve lived in, where precipitation in some form or another can be expected any time of year, and unlike the other part of Africa we’ve called home—Tanzania—where “rainy season” meant a steady downpour for up to many hours nearly every day, here in Senegal, we have the season when it MIGHT rain and the season when it WON’T. As of yesterday, we've left the latter and entered into the former.

Dust that has been building up for the better part of nine months is now tamped down a bit.  Roads that have been swallowing non-4x4s in their endlessly deep sand now are actually passable. Most of the screens on our windows have had a layer of dirt removed.

Sure, much of the dust and dirt came INTO the house, especially in our interior courtyard where we have a screen roof. And, yes, just a few more showers will make certain roads impassable again, this time because of puddles that turn into lakes. And the same rain that tamped down the dust has left a stifling humidity in its wake.

Without a doubt, we’ll complain about all of that soon enough.  The blessing that rain is for the vast majority of rural Senegal can be at best mixed, if no blessing at all for those of us living in the crowded and flood-prone capital, Dakar.  Power cuts will certainly increase, as more people need to use more fans and air conditioners more of the time.

But for today, we’ll welcome the rain. We dance in the coolness it brings, if only for fleeting moments. We’ll appreciate the newness and freshness it represents.

Peace,
Peter

Things We Can Buy At Our Door...

File this under “the choices we made” with cross-referencing to both “positive aspects of life in Senegal” and “reasons it will someday be hard to go back to the US.”

Things for which we have a standing order, which get delivered to our door every week:
1.    Fresh milk
2.    Yogurt
3.    Cheese…and occasionally…
4.    Crème fraiche (kind of like sour cream)

Things we regularly buy from vendors who come right to our door (at least once a week, sometimes as often as four or five times!):
1.    Shrimp
2.    Fresh fish (grouper, lotte, dorade…)
3.    Mangoes
4.    Bananas
5.    Apples
6.    Oranges
7.    Tangerines
8.    Manderines
9.    Pineapples
10.  Clementines
11.  Grapes
12.  Papayas
13.  Pears

Mamadou Diallo in his shop across our street

Things we regularly buy at Mamadou’s boutique, directly across our narrow street from us:
1.    Coke, Sprite, Fanta, Tonic
2.    Baguettes
3.    Eggs
4.    Onions
5.    Garlic
6.    Phone cards
7.    Charcoal
8.    Biscreme cookies
9.    Sugar
10.   Butter
11.   Mustard
12.   Canned pineapple (for Hawaiian pizza)
13.   Powered milk (for coffee, for the office)
14.   Change for bigger bills (not a purchase as much as a service)
15.   Bob Marley flip flops (okay, not regularly, but I did buy a pair there)

Other things available at Mamadou’s that we’ve not as of yet bought:
1.    Eight kinds of bullion cubes
2.    Canned peas, beans, carrots, and peas
3.    Packages of spaghetti, macaroni, and vermicelli
4.    Jack mackerel
5.    Sharp knives
6.    Diapers (sold singly or by the package)
7.    Cheap batteries
8.    Ladies’ underwear
9.    Soccer t-shirts
10.  Far too many things to mention…

While our phone bill doesn’t always find our house, we have to drive to the airport to collect our mail, and downtown to claim parcels, it is a great comfort to think of all the things that we can get at, or just steps from our door. It’s part of what makes the long hot season more bearable, and makes our life here in Senegal, all things considered, not that bad.

Grace and Peace,
Peter

The Good Herdsman (or, You know you're one of the Fulani when...)

Soulé Ba is the farm manager for Fedannde Jolof, the ELCA-supported milk project in Linguère and a leader in the Fulani Christian community there.  He was in Dakar for a couple of days, attending a conference for small dairies, many of them community based projects like FJ.

The conference was put on by an agricultural research and development agency, and included a very professional looking and helpfully laid out guide to the theme of the conference: J’aime mon lait local! (which means I love my local milk.) The brochure contained articles on the benefits of fresh, local milk, and included photos and sidebar stories from all around Senegal.

Knowing that we are fans of fresh local milk (we get a weekly delivery of milk and yogurt from a farm just outside of Dakar) Soulé brought us one of these brochures. As Sarah was looking through it, she came upon a photo of a woman with a majestic white Brahman cow behind her. The caption said “Linguère;” so Sarah asked Seulé “Do you recognize this woman?”

He took the brochure, looked at it for a moment, then announced, “No, but I’m pretty sure I recognize the cow!”

How’s that for a true Pullo? It's true, the Fulani know their cows!

Grace and Peace,
Peter

Ascension Day

 

Ascension: Detail from the Altar Tableau at the Keur Moussa Monestary

I live in Senegal, a country whose population is nearly 95% Muslim; so naturally, last Thursday, we had the day off for Ascension Day. Like the rest of the Christian holidays (Easter Monday, Pentecost Monday, Assumption, All-Saints, and Christmas Day), Senegal's observance of Ascension Day is a vestige of French colonialism. At the same time, these holidays function to help put flesh on Senegal's stated virtue of mutual respect and understanding among the religions, as well as its official status as a secular state. As it turns out, there are 14 public holidays each year in Senegal--six Christian, five Muslim, and three national or international.

"On est ensemble," the Senegalese are fond of saying, "we are together, and we all celebrate each others' holidays."  That's true enough, but much more so for the major holidays. Christians are often invited to their Muslim neighbors' homes or receive prepared dishes delivered to their doors for Korité (the end of Ramadan) and Tabaski (the feast that celebrates God's faithfulness to Abraham). Christians, particularly from the Roman Catholic and Lutheran communities, prepare a special dish called "Ngalaax" for Good Friday and deliver it to the homes of many of their Muslim neighbors. And everybody seems to celebrate Christmas--either with the sense that it's the celebration of the birth of Jesus (the Messiah to us Christians, and a revered prophet for Muslims), or, sadly, from an increasingly commercialized and decidedly western secular celebration of conspicuous consumption.

So, how does one celebrate Ascension Day in Senegal? We went to the beach. The weather is getting warmer, there's still about six weeks of school left, and it's a rare pleasure to have a day off in the middle of an otherwise busy week. I'm sure that some people went to church--although an Ascension day worship is not big part of the tradition of the Lutheran Church of Senegal or any other Protestant community here. But I imagine that for most people--our family included--Ascension Day was more of a long-awaited break. A calm before the storm of end of year compositions and exams, before so many of our friends and colleagues leave Senegal, some for a summer's home assignment, others moving on to somewhere else.

The day after Ascension day, in a meeting of the ELS evangelism team, my colleague and friend Dirk Stadtlander read the text from Acts 1:4-10 (read it here).

This text is full of many great reminders for Christians in general, and Evangelists in particular. Sometimes we are called to wait. We wait until the Holy Spirit empowers us to act. We are witnesses to God's reign, made known to us in Jesus Christ.

What happens with that? When? To what extent? That's not always ours to know--that's God's own business.

But we will be, and we are Christ's witnesses to the ends of the earth. So we wait--but ours is an active waiting. We don't just stand there, looking up into the sky. No, we are called to gather together, to share the word, to share our meals, to share our lives, to share the good news. We wait--the calm before the storm, perhaps--in order to be gathered and scattered and gathered again.

It's tempting to laugh off the fact that a country like Senegal gives us the day off for Ascension Day. But maybe it's a good time for us to be reminded that we are Christ's witnesses to the ends of the earth. We wait for the spirit-filled and spirit-led opportunities to share the good news that we have received in Jesus, doing so in an atmosphere of deep respect and mutual understanding.

"On est ensemble," and we do celebrate with one another. Even on an otherwise random Thursday in May.

The Full Altar Tableau at the Keur Moussa Monestary

Ba bennen yoon,
Peter

ELCA's TV Ad "HOPE"

As an ELCA missionary serving in Senegal, I have been amazed, delighted, and humbled by the response that the ELCA TV ad “Hope” has generated. A few people responded after it aired on the Travel channel, but many, many more after it aired more broadly and during “sweeps” week. The ad seems to have done its job: raised awareness of many and varied ministries of our church, done through partnerships with local congregations, companion churches, and faith-based organizations like the Senegal Lutheran Development Services (the emerging name of what the ad refers to simply as the “Senegal Lutheran Mission”).

Many people from different corners of the church—as well as from various chapters of my life—have written to me personally, wondering what was the connection to my current ministry and showing a genuine interest in discovering more about the work the ELCA and its companions do in Senegal. In addition to experiencing pride in the accomplishments of my church and affirmation for my own work, these contacts give me the opportunity to share even more about our work in Senegal. It’s both personally and professionally fulfilling to have been involved in the ministry that is being highlighted, and to know that the ELCA has chosen to hold it up as an example of the diverse ministries we’re engaged in across the globe.

I must say that I very much prefer the original print version of the ad and the accompanying story. Not only does it give much more detail than is possible in a 30 second ad, it is, in my view, a much more accurate reading of the various aspects of the ministry itself. The print ad and the article draw the connections more directly to the complexity of the work of the Community Center “Galle Nanondiral” (the House of Mutual Understanding in the Pulaar language) where the literacy and women’s empowerment programs are both based, and where I served as director from May 2002 to December 2006. In the print ad and in its accompanying story one realizes much more completely that the real story is in fact Literacy, and the “business training” highlted in the TV version was simply one of many different post-literacy activities that the literacy groups had the opportunity to engage in.

I think of the TV ad as being more like a docu-drama—a professionally produced, attractively directed and very much compelling rendition that focuses on one central idea of the article and makes it the defining image of the short piece. Here the idea is the mother and daughter both going to school, both learning, both finding hope for their futures. It’s an idea that is so compelling—and that works so well to get the ad’s message across—that its accuracy and the accuracy of other accompanying details seem to matter less. Which means it probably “works” better for those who know less of the realities in the spawling outskirts of Dakar, Senegal. When we saw it for the first time here in Senegal, for example, we wondered right up until the end when it said “Senegal Lutheran Mission” what ELCA ministry this ad was highlighting!

Still, the medium is the message, and in this case the TV ad has certainly raised awareness of the ELCA’s engagement in global mission with and through its companions. That women’s empowerment, microloans and business education are very much a part of our shared global mission may actually come as news to many ELCA members and folks in the larger TV audience, many of whom may have thought that global mission is only baptismal preparation, pastoral training, or bible translation. As more and more people see that we are involved in accompaniment ministries beyond the important church to church relationships we maintain, it makes the interpretation portion of my ministry so much easier—and much more satisfying. I hope that this ad will continue to open more and more doors of discovery and discussion as people come to realize the breadth of our accompaniment ministry in the world.

Grace and Peace,
Peter

Easter Celebrations

Yesterday was the culmination of our Three Days in Linguere, and we were given several chances to celebration the Resurrection together. First, we had a festive service of Holy Communion with portions led in Pulaar, portions in French, and some translated into both. The liturgy itself was a test-run of the new Pulaar translation of the "official" Lutheran Church of Senegal service, presented with side-by-side versions of the French and Pulaar texts. Once people get used to it,the booklet should make it easier to follow the service in either language, even if one doesn't know both.

The service itself was a clear proclamation of the central theme of our Christian faith: that Christ became a person like us all, died on the cross for our sins, and rose again from the dead, giving us abundant life now and eternal life to come. We sang and shouted our Alleluias, and even the pastor and some of the less shy kids even danced. In addition to the faithful members of the Linguere community--perhaps 20 or 25 of them--there were visitors from Dakar, Rannerou, and even Kolda.

After the service, still other visitors joined us for lunch, as the community's tradition for such holidays as Christmas, Easter and Pentecost includes a festive meal for neighbors, co-workers, and extended families. Those who prepared the meal estimated that over 75 were served.

It was a tasty meal--freshly butchered lamb from the flock of one of the members, plus a savory onion sauce and french fries--but much more than that, it was an occasion for the Christians in Linguere, by all accounts a small minority, to provide hospitality to the larger community. It was Christian-Muslim dialog in every day language, gathered around a common bowl.

After the meal itself, many people lingered for three cups of ataya, the strong tea served here in the heat of the day. According to local tradition, the increasingly sweet cups of tea represent death, life and love, respectively. How appropriate for Easter--God in Jesus Christ passes from death to life in order to manifest great love for us, for all the world and for the entire creation.

Finally, as the afternoon heat gave way to the cool of the evening, the ELCA missionaries--Stadtlanders, Langdjis and us--plus a visiting ELCA member, and SIT student in Dakar  gathered to sing. Like we have traditionally done in Advent and Easter before, we sang as many of the Easter hymns we knew (and a few we really didn't) from the Lutheran Book of Worship and With One Voice. One right after the other. Four-part harmony when possible. Alleluias all over the place. It was a great night! (we decided that we should probably  have a stock of Evangelical Lutheran Worship books, just so we keep up to date with the ELCA worship...).

New life again. Christ is Risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia! Amen!

Grace and Peace,
Peter

still updating, check back for photos later...

Holy Saturday--Prayer and Fasting for Healing

Today is a transatlantic day of prayer and fasting for healing and wholeness for Bruce Mueller. Bruce was an ELCA missionary here in Senegal during most of the 1990s. He served in veterinary work among the Fulani, helping train vet's assistants in a dozen or so villages surrounding Linguere, as well as establish a network of village based veterinary pharmacies. He also helped establish a herders cooperative that began to process and sell milk in and around Linguere--a precursor to today's Fedannde Jolof project.

Bruce was diagnosed with 4th stage non-smoker's lung cancer a month or so ago. Former missionaries who served with Bruce and his wife Kathryn have really reached out to them during this time--not only offering their on-going prayers of support, but other acts of kindness and accompaniment. If I understand it right,  former Linguere missionaries Gus and Betty Ziegler actually moved temporarily from Minnesota to Oregon to help out on the Mueller's small farm while Bruce was beginning treatment. John Spaulding (Dakar, 1989-2003) suggested this day of prayer and fasting, and the community members here jumped on board. Bruce is held in very high regard here in Linguere--by Christians and Muslims alike--and many people have asked about him and promised to keep him in prayer.

Apparently, Bruce has been responding to his treatment. He has been able to return to work at least part-time, and perhaps in the near future will be able to approach full-time. He continues to be hopeful, and to be strengthened by the knowledge that people around the globe are praying for him.

Today at midday, about a dozen or so people gathered at Galle Kawral, the Linguere church's place of prayer and community gathering, to read scripture, offer prayers, and sit in silent reflection as they thought of their brother and friend. Most prayers turned around two axes--not unlike the two thoughts offered in Jesus' prayer in the garden of Gethsamene: "If it is possible, God, take this cup of suffering away... but we do not ask that you do what we want, but that your will be done."

It was hard, but good, to spend the day together in this way with our sisters and brothers here in Linguere. We continue to hold Bruce, Kathryn and their family in our prayers. May God's will be done.

With Resurrection Hope,
Peter

An Mbalaax Good Friday...

The Dental Issanyankobe Jolof (Pulaar-speaking Chrisitian Community of the Djolof region) met last night for Good Friday prayers. Pastor Dirk Stadtlander had asked me to lead the service, which I did with the help of several Pulaar lay readers and pray-ers. We focused our time on the so-called Seven Words from the Cross, with each reading followed by a time of prayer and--we thought--silence. But we were all reminded of the fact that for the majority community in Senegal it was just another day. Not just another day, actually, but, since Monday is a public holiday, yesterday at about 5:30 was the beginning of a nice, long weekend with little or nothing to do.

So the solmenity of our service was overshadowed by the rather loud music being played by the neighbor. I realize that I sound like a grumpy old man when I say that. But I don't mean to imply that they don't ahve a right to play their music loudly--but rather to observe that it was tough to find the silent, contemplative mood I was looking for. Instead, we read a little more loudly, prayed more individually than communally, and sat in awkward silence while we listened to strains of upbeat, fast-paced, Mbalaax dance music. We said we would leave in silence, as is the tradition of Good Friday, but even that was hard to do.

I shouldn't have been so surprised. If anything, being here in Senegal has reminded me that at its core Christianity is counter-cultural. That is true, or should be true, in Europe and North America, too. But it's inescapable here. There we were on a Friday afternoon, the kick-off of a long holiday weekend, trying to be silent and contemplative, reflecting on the suffering death of God-with-us. That's about as crazy as celebrating a resurrection two days later--proclaiming that death is not the end, that hell holds no sway, that life wins out and God is in charge. Proclaiming at the same time that new life in Christ begins right now, not at some as yet undisclosed eternity, the "next life," rather than this one.

It's counter-intuitive. It's counter-cultural.

Why else would we read about Jesus suffering and dying and call it "good."

So let the music play. We'll make a mental note, a bookmark of sorts. It's Friday, but Sunday's coming. And by then, by the end of the weekend, we'll join in the dancing, too.

grace and peace,
Peter

Three Days in Linguere

Actually, I'm spending more like five days here, but I will in fact spend the Triduum, or Three Days, here in Linguere, out on the edge of the desert. It's not the first time to spend an Easter here in Linguere--in fact our family has spent more Easters in Linguere than anywhere else in Senegal--but it's never been common for me or for us to spend more than one full day (with a driving day on either side) up here.

But this time is different for many reasons. First, I had to come up with Philipe and Aly for a meeting concerning one of the programs of the emerging Senegal Lutheran Development Services (SLDS) for which the three of us serve as the committee of transition. Sarah and the boys, plus at least one of Sarah's students, will join me here tomorrow, so that's the second reason--family time together for the Easter weekend. Kids are on vacation, so we'll make a week of it, moving on from Linguere to Lampoul St. Louis, the national bird park of Djoudj, and Ndioum. Third, it's hard to pass up the hospitality of this place, to spend time with our friends the Langdjis and the Stadtlanders, plus all of the sisters and brothers of the growing Christian community in Linguere. Finally, it is the last time we'll be able to spend Easter with Anne, Willie and Micah in Senegal, as they will be moving to Cameroon in June. It's likely that this is the last time we spend with the Landgjis in Linguere at all....

So I'm here for five days, including The Three Days.

Last night, I must confess, I didn't make it to the Holy Thursday prayer service, since our meeting had not finished in time. I missed not just the prayers, but the foot washing and the holy communion. On the other hand, dinner provided a little of each. No, we didn't wash any feet--although Aly, Vieux and Aissata all would have done so for their evening prayers just before dinner. But we did have communal washing, as five-year-old Eva slowly poured water for everyone to wash their hands. The meal itself was a communion of sorts, sitting around the common bowls, talking and laughing, passing one another more bread. And we prayed, as we often do: Christians and Muslims together, for the food, for each other, and for peace in our community and world.

It was different way to start the Triduum, but this Thursday, as it turns out, was holy enough for me.

More later today--Good Friday prayers tonight will certainly coincide with the early evening call to prayer.

faithfully,
Peter

Welcome, Jim Gonia!!

We are excited about the possibilities for future ministry here in Senegal and throughout the West Africa Region with the arrival of Pastor Jim Gonia as ELCA Program Director for West Africa. And we were delighted to welcome him to Senegal this past week as he met with his new team of regional representatives (current Senegal missionaries Viking Dietrich, Anne Langdji, and Willie Langdji). Mostly he was here to meet with them, to start to plan how they will work together—from who will do what, to where the regional offices will be, to who specifically will represent the ELCA to various churches and other companions in the area. But he also took time to meet with us and other ELCA mission personnel, as well as with key leaders in the Lutheran Church of Senegal, the EELS/Senegal Lutheran Development Services, as well as the Fulani Christian worshiping community in Linguère.

 Jim brings a deep sense of pastoral vocation to this overwhelmingly administrative job. His first two “official” communications with missionaries and local leaders both spoke about the need for prayer in all we do, and the necessity of grounding even our most administrative work in solid spiritual practice. We’re looking forward to what that will mean to our work here, to more intentionally ground what we do in prayer and reflection. Already, I feel that intentionality coming from Jim in these very early encounters.

He’s got a lot of hard work ahead of him—a steep learning curve, he himself has admitted—as he moves into this position of ecclesiocrat after having been a parish pastor for 10 years and a missionary (in Madagascar) for a decade before that. We promise not to overwhelm him in these early days—and to not put too many unrealistic expectations on him all at once. But what a blessing to have a new leader that sees the work of global mission administration as flowing from his vocation—as a baptized child of God, as an ordained minister, as a former missionary to Madagascar and current missionary to Chicago. What an affirmation to my vocation, too, to know that the connection he seeks to make with me and others “on the ground,” even early on is primarily one of prayerful support, of discerning discovery, and of spirit-led inquiry and of one-bread-one-body style participation.

Welcome, Jim. May God bless our ministry together.

Grace and Peace,
Peter