Quo Vadimus

A slow day in Ghanaland ... catching up on video editing mostly ... so I'll take this chance to catch you up on some little bits of Ghana culture (popular and otherwise) that might have slipped my previous accounts. Call it "An Obroni's Guide to Accra"

And I would be remiss if I didn't start with the absolute highlight of my trip. Forget the wonderful people. Forget the amazing hospitality. Forget the beautiful children. You come to Ghana for one reason and one reason only. You come for the...

Fan Yogurt - Among the infinte number of things that people young (way too young) and old sell in the middle of the streets to anyone driving or riding by is Fan Yogurt. They carry huge tall boxes of it on their heads and run alongside cars selling it ... defying several of what I previously thought were immutable laws of physics. One of them is that frozen things in cardboard boxes in the heat should get warm ... but these don't. Fan yogurt is frozen yogurt or ice milk that comes in little packets. You pay 2000 cedis for one, they hand it to you wrapped in an old lottery sheet, you wipe off one corner, bite the corner off and suck on it for all its worth. I thought the strawberry was good UNTIL I HAD THE CHOCOLATE. Here's a tip ... it doesn't matter how bad a day you are having in Accra, a ChocoFan will make it better. It's like really good frozen chocolate milk that melts as you are sucking it down. MMMMMMMMMMM. You can see us often sitting on tro-tros sucking on our ChocoFan like babies with binkies!

Water Satchets - Same principle as the Fan Yogurt (though healthier albeit far less satisfying). If you're from the West, drinking tap water here is not a good idea seeing as there are little critters in it that our stomachs don't have enzymes for. No worry. In addition to big bottles of water, you can buy water in satchets from hoardes of people who run alongside cars and sit in the markets yelling out "Pure Water!" Only not all the water is pure. Lisa and Rachel clued me in on this the first day ... first you have to look for the "official Ghana seal of approval" on each bag. That tells you that it really has gone through a place that actually purifies the water, not one that just puts tap water in little packets. Then ... and here's the cool trick ... try to get packaging that has more than one color on it. R&Ls theory is that the ones that can afford more colors probably have better machinery and the water should taste better. Don't know if it's all in my head, but it seems to work. (A sideline to this ... if you're a big fan of ice, don't come to Ghana ... no ice for Westerners -- it's all made out of the tap water and the critters are alive and well when they thaw out!)

Movies - People say they have American movies here, but I haven't seen any theatres with them. What they have everywhere is Nigerian movies ... which are absolutely hysterical. Picture American 1970s and 1980s B-movies where everything is WAY overacted. They are also usually pretty violent ... not a lot of gore but a lot of gunplay. My brother would be in heaven here.

TV - Accra has three channels, which carry similar programming. By far the most popular thing on TV is the EuroCup soccer, which is in the semifinals this week (I'm in the minority pulling for Greece because Schroedter's cousins are there right now). Other than that, the staples are Spanish soap operas, lots of news, the occasional made-for-TV American movie that you have never ever heard of, and lots of religious programming. Imagine my chagrin to be getting ready for church on Sunday and hear the 700 Club on in the living room. By far the best is the Ghana News. For a Millennium Development Goal nut like me, it's wonderful. You never hear news about international development in the U.S. Here ... it's ALL you hear. There's also no real crime here to speak of (other than the occasional robbery) ... and I have yet to see ONE news story about a killing or really any crime since I've been here. So refreshing after American news! The best part is the weather on the nighttime news. They play all this really funky hip-hop music for about 30 seconds with pictures of clouds and rainstorms and sunsets as an intro and then you have this really hip guy dressed to the 9s in his native garb with a big smile on his face telling us what the weather is going to be like tomorrow (basically, every day it's 82 degrees with a chance of rain). We call him the happy disco weather guy. He's our hero.

Music - Gotta tell you ... haven't been too impressed with music here. Emmanuel loves reggae, so when I'm with him, I get to listen to some good reggae (Robin will love that!). Other than that, the main kinds of music are (in no particular order) -- American top 20 hip-hop and rap, really bad (IMHO) techno, ultra-sappy Christian pop, almost as sappy American and British pop (lots of Bette Middler and Celine Dion and they love the boy bands here), and ... by far the funniest ... local covers of old U.S. Top 40 hits (One day I was walking down the street and heard a cover of "I got you, babe" in Ga). Even the music at church has been disappointing ... they sing mostly things right out of the Church of England hymnbook. Emmanuel and James are trying to get them to jazz it up a little with local rhytymns, but they are slow to come around. Actually, some of my alarm clock music from the Pentecostal church isn't bad ... but a lot of it is songs I used to sing at church camp. Nothing wrong with that ... unless Jesus Loves Me, This I Know isn't your cup of tea at quarter to five in the morning!

Food -- In a word -- outstanding! You have to be careful what you eat ... gotta make sure the meat is well-cooked and never have any dairy (exception: FanYogurt) or mayonaise because the power goes out pretty often and you never know how long it was out. But with a few simple precautionary rules, you can have a culinary delight daily here. I was reading somewhere (maybe it was the Poisonwood Bible), about someone going back to America after being in Africa and not being able to taste the food. I believe it. Everything here is just bursting with amazing flavor ... even the stuff that isn't really hot and spicy. And the produce ... let me tell you about the produce. Bananas and mangoes and watermelon and pineapple and fruits I'd never heard of that just explode and melt in your mouth. I've gotten used to fresh fruit and homemade bread/toast and an egg that's pretty much just out of the chicken every morning for breakfast. One thing, though ... the Atkins diet? Not gonna happen in Ghana. This place is Carb Central. Everything is fried and breaded. The only thing I haven't seen fried or breaded is the goat (the other white meat).

Radio - James gave me a radio for my room which gets BBC World, so I am a happy camper with my psuedoNPR fix (but better, because like the news here, it's heavy on the international development news. Also, it's really interesting to hear how the world reports on America ... if you hadn't caught on, we've become pretty much of a tragic and dangerous joke). But the rest of the radio is either music (see above) or talk shows. The talk shows drove me crazy for awhile because I could swear they were speaking in English and then I wouldn't be able to understand it and I thought if I just listened harder I would be able to and then ... hey... there was some more English again and then I couldn't understand it again. (All this is happening on the buses ... which play the talk shows at full blast in the afternoon). Turns out they don't stick to one language on the talk shows. Pretty much everyone here is multilingual and they switch back and forth with incredible ease. Also turns out that many people speak "pidgeon" -- which is what you would guess ... something that is barely recognizable as English but is basically angloslang. So when you listen to the talk shows, you will hear a couple sentences in English and then the conversation could be in Ga, Twi, Pidgeon, English or any number of languages. I've stopped trying to follow it, BTW.

Tomorrow is Republic Day. Nobody works. It's the anniversary of Ghana becoming a republic and joining the U.N. (It's really cool how people include that part ... it was a really big deal for Ghana to join the U.N. They really take pride in it here!). I think I'm going with Nie Aboe, Mackinnon, Ann and a bunch of the crossroaders to a waterfall a couple hours from here for an outing. We were thinking of going to Buduburam today, but that fell through. We'll go next week.

Bye for now!

|
Mike at 6/30/2004 01:25:00 PM

One of the things I find most remarkable about Christ the King Anglican Church in Mallam is something that everyone here finds most unremarkable ... how it began.

Christ the King began in James and Frieda's living room. They felt a need for an Anglican church in the area so they just called together some people and started Bible study and morning prayer in their living room. Eventually, as it grew, they contracted with Canon Oddo and Emmanuel Quartey at St. Luke's to come and provide Eucharist on a regular basis. Then a piece of property in a great location came available and the diocese helped them buy it. Then they raised the money to put the current structure of a roofed shelter with bricks up to about your waist most of the way around.

I was having another conversation with Bishop Akrofi about this today and mentioned how remarkable I thought this was and he looked at me like I was speaking esperanto. Of course they planted churches like this! Then I mentioned to him the history of church planting in our diocese -- which I believe is a good and healthy diocese -- in the past 10 years, and he absolutely thought I was joking. He was incredulous.

Every day, I'm struck by how much we have to learn from each other. If I recall correctly, our recent history with church planting is that in the past 20 years we have planted 1, maybe 2 churches (depending on when St. Francis, Wildwood and Transfiguration, Lake St. Louis, started) plus a false start in Columbia (plus the campus ministry at Wash. U. ... which technically doesn't have congregational standing but is a community of faith!). We have a big chunk of money from the capital campaign sitting in the bank waiting to be spent on church plants. We had a study we did (with assistance from the national church center desk on these things) that advised us that we should only plant a church when we had something like $400K in the bank and then only do it in an educated, white neighborhood.

Meanwhile, nondenominational churches are being planted in people's living rooms and at Starbucks by laypeople with full-time jobs. SOme of these ... maybe even many of them ... die out. But some of them don't.

Meanwhile, here in Accra -- where yes there is more of an overtly Christian culture (he says sitting across from the Blood of Christ hair salon) but there are also 9 bazillion churches to choose from -- lay people with the bishop's blessing are planting churches that are growing and becoming parishes.

I'm not saying we should completely discard the notions of church planting that have driven us so far. There is room for planting a church with Perept, $400K and a piece of property near the newest McDonalds. But it seems to me we have nothing to lose and everything to gain by trying this, too.

Emily Peach and I have gathered monthly with a group of mostly unchurched folks between ages 20-38 for more than a year now for conversation about faith and social justice and other things. It's not a traditional "church plant". FOr one, the people in it have no desire to be a traditional church, but we keep coming together, and the Spirit is present ... I can tell because of the content of what happens there and also because people keep inviting new people!

I've talked with Steve Scharre and Tina Grant ... two Wash. U. students who just graduated and are staying in St. Louis for the next couple of years ... about them getting together and starting a community for postgraduates (student and nonstudent). All I've told them so far is that they have complete creative control over what it looks like. It they want a prayer group, do it. If they want Bible study, do it. If they want Eucharist, do it. If they want to have movies and discussion, do it. Shoot pool and hang out and talk? Go for it. Form the community and see how the Spirit moves. See what people get brought to it, what their gifts and dreams are and let's run with it. It can't fail, because the worst that can happen is that we'll learn what didn't work!

Now that we've got this new congregational development arm to Episcopal School for Ministry, what would happen if we identified (or even put a call out for) a group of lay people that have the gifts for connecting with people and gathering community, that have innate gifts for welcoming the stranger and communicating Christ's radical hospitality. Then what if we helped them pray through and brainstorm different ways to try to start something and what it might be ... and then just turned them loose and see what happened. For their efforts, we could send them to the congregational development pieces of ESM tuition-free as a way of supporting them. We could find ways for them to connect with each other virtually and face-to-face for support.

Why not try it? What do we have to lose? More to the point, how much are we losing now NOT trying something like this?

What do you think?

|
Mike at 6/29/2004 10:58:00 AM

Life here should be slowing down for awhile. After a week of traveling, and with the possible exception of a trip back to Budruburam on Wednesday, I'm in Accra all week -- with no appointment calendar full of things to do and see.

The official use of my time is to start to edit all the video I've taken the past three weeks down into the form I'll use for the video about CENCOSAD's work (which we'll use for education and fund-raising). I'll be doing a lot of that and spent a lot of time today on it. Good news -- so far, the video looks pretty good (thanks, Ian!), the audio comes across well (which I had been concerned about), and I can get about an hour of tape into MPEG files on my computer that only take up about 600MB of space ... so I won't have the problem Steve had with the video files eating up all my memory. Bad news -- because of various factors, it takes about 3.5 hours to convert one hour of video to the MPEG format and put it on my computer. It's SLOOOOOOOW going.

But, as I was contemplating what to do with the downtime while the computer is working, I realized that I can do editing but this is also a good time to remember that I AM ON SABBATICAL. So I did some reading and then a whole bunch of writing as I try to start to figure out how all the different streams of thought I've had over the past six months come together. All in all, it's been a really good day.

Yesterday was bittersweet. The tough part was that it was Robin's and my 12th wedding anniversary and the first one we've spent apart. I did get to talk with her on the phone for about 8 minutes last night, so that was great. I can't wait for her to get here (10 days!).

I preached and concelebrated with Immanuel at St. Luke's. It was a wonderful experience. The service was hugely long because in the middle of it (right after the sermon), they stopped and had what they call a mini-harvest ... basically a fundraiser for some special cause (this time it was the building fund). They solicited donations from everyone there, then auctioned off a few things and then had an altar call for more offerings. They wanted to raise 15 million cedis (about $1600), and ended up raising alomst 19 million (about $2000) ... so that was great.

After the service, Immanuel and I went with most of the congregation to the house of a woman whose husband had died the night before. It's a wonderful tradition they have -- everyone comes over and just hangs out with the family outside the house praying and singing some hymns and letting the family feel supported ... for about 20 minutes ... and then people close to the family stay and everyone else leaves -- so there's no hassle of having to feed everyone and no details to worry about. Just everyone showing up and showing that they love and care.

After that, Immanuel and I drove to Kokrobite - this really great beach resort area -- where we met up with Mackinnon, Ann, Nie Aboe and Nie Otuo. The Ghanians thought the water was freezing, but we thought it was great. You can also rent a little shelter at the top of the beach for the afternoon for about 10,000c (about a dollar), so we hung out there for awhile. Very relaxing and just a good time with friends.

I just got an invitation from All Souls church in Budruburam to come preach and celebrate on Sunday, July 11 ... but that's Robin's Sunday in town and we're already promised to St. Luke's. I'm going to write them back and see if I can come to one of their Wednesday night services instead (and make sure they've cleared it with their bishop. Given the state of things, I don't want trouble from or to offend the Bp. of the Diocese of Cape Coast).

That's all for now. Hope you all are well. Congratulations and blesings to Teresa Mithen and Jon Erdman, ordained priests last Saturday. And also to Erin and Windy, married in L.A. last Saturday. I wish I could trilocate so I could have been with you all.

|
Mike at 6/28/2004 11:23:00 AM

Here are this week's photos. I took a lot more video than pictures this week, so there were things that I thought I got pictures of that I didn't get still shots of. None of these pictures do the scenery any justice. Western Ghana is absolutely beautiful but in a way that is bigger than any picture can tell.

Here's the trip in a nutshell, so the photos can make some sense. We left Accra on Monday afternoon, got caught in a heavy downpour but still made it to Kumasi (the second largest city in Ghana) by 9 or so. On the way, the car kept stalling out whenever we were in low gear, but it started up again every time -- very nice. The next morning, before we left Kumasi, Victor took the car to get it checked out. Turns out it needed a new fuel filter -- routine maintenance isn't something that's done to most cars around here. With that in place, we took off mid-morning.

Tuesday's destination was Bibiani, in the Western Region. After a brief stop to see some local health officials, we went to a school in a nearby township to see a reproductive health presentation, walked a bit to visit a person living with AIDS and check up on him then drove to another township for a drama presentation by the peer educators.

The next morning, we left for Sefwi Wiawso -- another district capital -- where we went to a training session for peer educators followed by a visit with a group of women living with HIV/AIDS. At the insistence of the district superintendent, Mackinnon and I stayed at "the White House" -- which is where visiting dignitaries stay when they are in town. By regional standards it's palacial. By American standards, it's about a Motel 6 ... but to us it was a palace. HOT SHOWERS!!!!! We felt bad that the rest of our party didn't stay there ... even worse when Godslove told us the next morning he was woken up at 2 am by the hotel manager needing to use his cell phone because theives were trying to break into the hotel.

Thursday, it was off the paved road, onto the dirt road and off to Sewfi Juabeso. When Josephine told the district superintendent in Bibiani that we were going there, he laughed and said "so ... you're taking them into the danger zone, eh?" Then they all laughed and we sat there like the people who didn't get the joke. I'm not sure if it's called the danger zone because 1) the road getting there used to be treacherous ... though it's a pretty level dirt road now; 2) it's pretty close to the Ivory Coast border; 3) The local tribal chiefs aren't really thrilled with us doing reproductive health education there or 4) that some of the people in the area still practice ritual murder ... a lovely little fact Josephine slipped into conversation on Wednesday afternoon -- before smiling and saying "but you should be just fine!" Josephine loves having fun with us Americans.

Anyway, Juabeso was definitely the most primitive of the places, but it was still wonderful. They put on a big festival for our arrival, drama from the peer educators and even a doubleheader soccer match. We also did the requisite peer educators meeting and meeting with people living with HIV/AIDS. The highlight for me was getting to dance with a lot of the area children while they were blaring loud music over the concert-sized speakers while they were tearing down from the festival.

Friday was the long drive (11.5 hours) back to Accra ... but with good weather and beautiful scenery it was not a hard day.

During the week I also read The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver ... about a family of Baptist missionaries in the Congo in the 1960s. Fantastic book -- especially if you happen to be traveling through Africa while you're reading it ... but even if you're not.

Now we're back in Accra. Tomorrow I preach at St. Luke's and then ... if all goes well ... we'll go to the beach in the afternoon. Next week I'm in Accra (save for a visit to Budruburam on Wednesday, I think) doing editing of the video I've taken, some longer interviews with James, Josephine and Godslove for voice overs, and generally having a pretty easy week after three weeks of packed schedules just about every day.

Hope you like the photos. Love you all!

|
Mike at 6/26/2004 11:47:00 AM

This is a not great picture of part of one of the small townships near Bibiani at dusk. For the hour or two before this, we were at a public area with most of the community at a drama performance put on by the peer educators ... then we hung out and talked with some of the local people living with HIV/AIDS and some of the regional health care officials. It's all very different from Accra ... not even so much the type of houses, but the population density is so much less and there is so much more green ... but there is also much more rural-type poverty. No running water in most of these places. Electricity (you can see the wires). But hit and miss on roads and phones. We also started to see more evidence of child malnutrition as we went further west. I almost hate to show you pictures of the scenery because it was so beautiful and the pictures just don't capture it ... they're much too small!

|
Mike at 6/26/2004 11:21:00 AM

We came upon this several times as we walked through a small community outside Bibiani on Tuesday. Nuts are knocked out of trees with long sticks, washed and left to dry on long tables like this before they are taken to market. This was in the middle of an incredibly poor communit... mud brick houses were the best you could find (though the school was concrete block). No running water, and irregular electricity (which didn�t stop someone going around in a truck with a loudspeaker announcing over and over to people that if they didn't pay their electric bills, their power would be shut off).

|
Mike at 6/26/2004 11:17:00 AM

This scene was right outside a school in a small community outside Bibiani. We had just witnessed the weekly all-school educational session on reproductive health (which was a combination of some speakers, some Q&A, some testimony by the students and a really bad video that was pretty much like one of those gross-out movies we used to see in health class to convince us that major body parts would fall off if we ever had sex.) After that, school was out for the day ... but all the kids waited outside for us. And when we stepped out, everyone rushed us, just wanting to touch us ... and that's what you see in this picture, just a huge crush of kids trying just to touch Mackinnon's hand. Then when I took out the camera to take a picture, the crowd of kids went really nuts and started jumping forward knocking down and almost trampling some of the kids. We had to stop and move off the porch and try to get the kids away the best as we could. They just kept mobbing us, and I thought they were going to pull my fingers off. It was like we were rock stars ... all because we were obroni. In terms of being made to feel welcome, yeah, we were made to feel welcome, but it was also disturbing. What about being white made us so wonderful? If anything, given the history here, you'd think it would be the opposite. But its not. The most disturbing thing that happens is when you're walking around and the kids come up to you and rub their arms against your... they're trying to get the whiteness to rub off onto them. I hope they know how incredibly beautiful they are, because things like this make me not so sure they do.

|
Mike at 6/26/2004 11:15:00 AM

Small world. These are three kids in Bibiani who were thrilled to have their picture taken. Only check out the T-shirt on the middle one ... it's from Grant's Farm in St. Louis. You can see the STL skyline with the arch on the bottom.

|
Mike at 6/26/2004 11:12:00 AM

I tried to get a picture of these two girls (sisters, I presume) for awhile, because they were so beautiful. She is barely four feet tall and she carries her sister around everywhere in the traditional way with the cloth wrapped around them both. It made me think of what Schroedter would look like trying to carry Hayden around! The elder sister agreed to pose, but the younger one was a little shy.

|
Mike at 6/26/2004 11:11:00 AM

This is Josephine, or "Auntie Jo" as she is called by just about everyone. She is in charge of all of CENCOSAD's reproductive health programs and our trip this past week was accompanying her on her quarterly visits to the reproductive health programs in the Western Region. Jo is amazing. She is passionate about the work and manages to pump up the volunteers and yet hold them absolutely accountable and not let them get away with giving anything but their best. Most of all, she is great at navigating all the local political systems and trying to make sure that the people are getting what they need. There is a lot of distrust about NGOs among regional government agencies ... they worry that they are going to do things behind their back and somehow cause them to lose control and even funding. Jo does a great job of navigating all the local protocol, getting disparate groups with common interests to work together and generally make the best of trying to do important work with very little money in a very difficult situation.

|
Mike at 6/26/2004 11:09:00 AM

This is Godslove Bansah ... he works fulltime for CENCOSAD with the Theatre for a Change groups and training peer educators. He came with us on the trip and worked a lot with the peer educators, training them in new techniques for AIDS education ... various games and ways to open up group and individual conversations. We had a lot of time in the truck together during the hours we were driving around, and had some great conversations about faith, religion and the church. He was very interested to know about "the gay bishop" ... as I find anyone who knows about it is. I never bring him up, but I end up talking about Gene Robinson a fair amount. And every conversation has been really positive. There's a huge doctrinal and cultural gap, so when I explain why I believe the way I do, it's very difficult to get across ... but all the conversations have been very positive and gracious -- and challenging in the best of ways.

|
Mike at 6/26/2004 11:07:00 AM

Not exactly "where's Waldo," is it? Here's Mackinnon with a bunch of the people who came out to greet us when we came to Bibiani to observe a performance of their peer educators' drama group.

|
Mike at 6/26/2004 11:03:00 AM

Mackinnon insisted on taking this picture so that I would be in at least one of them. Too bad the lighting isn't good. I'm standing outside a church in Sefwi Wiawso (where we were on Wednesday), where we've just finished meeting with some women who are HIV+. It's a small city that is very hilly and very, very green -- covered in trees and all sorts of plants. Very beautiful. Most of the houses are wood or mud brick with wood or rusted tin roofs.

|
Mike at 6/26/2004 11:01:00 AM

This is from a peer educators meeting/training in Sefwi Wiawso. The peer educators are all volunteers and many of them are young mothers with children, like this one. There's no childcare, so they just bring them along -- many of them walking miles to get to the central point where the training is held. This also gives you a good view of the traditional way of carrying a child here in Ghana -- a strip of cloth that holds the child tightly to the back of the mother.

|
Mike at 6/26/2004 10:59:00 AM

The Ga Mashie neighborhood in Accra serves as a lab for many of the programs that CENCOSAD initiates. One example is the Theatre for a Change program. Godslove and others who have done the program in Ga Mashie travel to places like Sefwi Juabeso and train the peer educators here in the drama techniques. When we arrived in Sefwi Juabeso, they put on a huge darbur, or community festival gathering, in honor of our coming. In addition to speeches and dance and music, there was a drama performance by the local youth peer educators -- a performance about someone who engaged in risky sexual behavior and infected herself and her family with HIV/AIDS (interestingly ... and disturbingly ... even though the majority of transmission of HIV into families comes from risky behavior on the part of the men, the majority of the dramas and videos I have seen have shown examples of women whose risky behavior caused they and their families to contract HIV. Women are definitely second-class citizens here, and especially in places like this where the tribal elders have problems with people discussing sex openly, it is easier to tolerate if the person to blame in the drama is a woman, not a man).

|
Mike at 6/26/2004 10:55:00 AM

If you're an obroni (white person) in rural Ghana, wherever you go, you will soon be surrounded by children. Just like the crowds of schoolchildren outside Bibiani, many may not have seen a white person before and we are certainly an oddity at least (and seen as objects of adoration in ways that, no matter how I mentally spin it, I can't come out with as being a good thing!). Here, Mackinnon was looking to take a quiet break in the back of the truck while Jo and Godslove and I were meeting with the People Living With HIV/AIDS group ... no such luck.

|
Mike at 6/26/2004 10:53:00 AM

Blair calls it "The Ubiquitous Third World Treat" - no matter where you go, you can find Coke ... something of which Mackinnon is very glad. Here we are in a small community outside Sefwi Juabeso, one of the most deprived parts of the Western Region (just a little bit from the Ivory Coast border). There is no running water, no land phonelines, evidence of malnutrition among children - and Coke - which was given to all the peer educators to drink during their meeting. By the way, if you're wondering whatever happened to "New Coke" - it's here in Ghana, only here it's just called Coke and it's just what it tastes like. Which raises the question - did they ship New Coke off internationally when it bombed in America, or was it so successful internationally that they tried to introduce it in the U.S.? More mysteries of the universe to ponder.

|
Mike at 6/26/2004 10:51:00 AM

I've talked a lot about Accra but I don't think I've given you a picture like this yet. When I talk about it as being lots of sprawl, this is what I mean. This is a view of one of the nicer neighborhoods in Accra ... houses up on a hill ... but it gives you an idea of what the city is like. Mostly one-story buildings -- and just seas of them. Scenes like this just go on and on and on and on.

|
Mike at 6/26/2004 10:48:00 AM

We're back!

Don't have a lot of time to post because the internet is slow and unreliable this evening, but just wanted to let everyone know we got back safely from our travels to the Western Region. Long trip today, though ... we hit the road at 6 a.m. and didn't get back to Mallam until 5:30 p.m. Ghana might be the size of Oregon, but it sure isn't as easy to get around!

I'll write more about the trip later. Simply amazing what people are doing in these communities ... mostly volunteer ... to try to make their communities better. Even more amazing are the two people (besides Victor) who went with us ... Josephine (whom everyone calls "Auntie Jo"), who is in charge of the reproductive health programs, and Godslove, who works with the Theatre for a Change groups and peer educators. Watching them at work was inspiring. CENCOSAD is all about capacity building, and they do it wherever they go ... pushing people to grow, expanding people's minds, they train and teach problem-solving 24/7.

Want to post this before the system crashes! Love you all.

|
Mike at 6/25/2004 02:02:00 PM

Hello again ... I've posted 15 or so photos -- so many that you might have to click on the bottom archive link on the left column (http://revmikek.blogspot.com/2004_06_01_revmikek_archive.html) to get them all on your browser. I've got them in order from longest ago (last Sunday) to most recent (yesterday).

So today, Emmanuel and I concelebrated at Christ Church, Mallam. Instead of the sermon, they had their annual meeting. Amazing how similar annual meetings are no matter where you go -- bickering over membership numbers and the budget. But a lot of the youth were speaking up and taking part very enthusiastically, which was cool.

I feel like I have a grasp on the Ghanian Eucharistic liturgy now ... which is more Church of England than Rite I. I also have a grasp on how forgiving the people were last week!

The big event of the day was after the service. Emmanuel was enlisted at the last minute as a pinch-hitter for the preacher at a wedding at a Pentecostal church (the groom was an Anglican former parishioner of his). So, he told me that I'd be coming along -- which I thought was great.

I also thought that I'd just be sitting in the congregation (first clue this wasn't the case should have been when he told me to keep my alb on). When we get there, they escort us both to the platform where we are seated with 4 other clergy of various denominations, including the pastor of the church. I then get introduced as one of the officiants of the service (very nice .. they welcomed me both in English and in Twi).

Emmanuel leaned over to me as the wedding went on and told me that when it came time for the blessing, I'd be going down with the other clergy and taking part in it. SOunded like a group thing ... kind of the way all clergy come forward at an ordination. Sounds cool. So we all get down there and the PC pastor is singing this wild blessing and everyone is shouting lots of Amens and Alleluias (remember, this is a Pentecostal Church). As he was wrapping up, one of the church elders leans over to me and says "Now you give the blessing."

About 5 seconds later, as the words were still ringing in my ears, the room is now silent and there is a microphone being held in my face and everyone's hands are extended over the couple. I felt like I was in the middle of a Ben Stiller movie. Thank God the Episcopal marriage blessing was pretty close in my mental filing cabinet (I spruced it up some to fit the pentecostal style ... don't think it would have flown well at SMSG).

Later, they gave me about 2 minutes notice that I would be doing the benediction ... so that was easy.

Then, they had us all pose with the couple in the official wedding pictures. I still haven't actually met this couple yet and I have blessed their wedding and now am standing next to the bride in the wedding pictures. I wonder what "goofy white Anglican priest" translates to in Twi.

Well, enough blabber. Hope you like the pictures. The resolution isn't the best, but hopefully you get the idea of what you're looking at. No more posts from me until next Sunday, I imagine ... hopefully I'll have some great pictures of the Western Region then.

Love you all!

|
Mike at 6/20/2004 11:59:00 AM

Here's Mackinnon all decked out in Frieda's Sunday best for her first Sunday morning at Christ the King, Mallam. She fit right in!

|
Mike at 6/20/2004 11:55:00 AM

Rachel shops at the Mallam Junction Market fruit stand (one of many at that market). The fruit here is absolutely amazing. It's huge and it will completely spoil you for what passes for produce in the U.S.

|
Mike at 6/20/2004 11:53:00 AM

Ann and Mackinnon bargain with a shopmaker at Kaneishi Market for a length of fabric. Once they bought the fabric, they took it over to Victor's wife, who took their measurements and is making it into clothes for them. This shop is a booth on the third floor of the market building (pretty hot up there). It is one of what seem like a hundred booths up there that all have pretty similar selections of cloth. But you can see what a great selection they have.

|
Mike at 6/20/2004 11:52:00 AM

All over Accra there are business signs with strange English phrasings and seemingly non sequitor illustrated appearances by famous Americans or others in the news. For example, there's the big smiling painting of Bill Cosby on the main Mallam road. Others are as bizarre as this one -- with a picture of W. and Osama Bin Laden chatting it up at Rogers Barbering Salon and Communication Centre.

|
Mike at 6/20/2004 11:49:00 AM

This is the view from the stairs leading down to the oceanfront cafe where Mackinnon and Bridget and I had lunch on Thursday. Accra is so densely populated and some of the areas are so intensely impoverished, it's difficult to believe that this resortlike location is literally 4 minutes' walk from the neighborhoods where CENCOSAD has been most active.

|
Mike at 6/20/2004 11:47:00 AM

Bridget and Mackinnon with the Bay of Guinea at their backs. If you look closely, you can see fishing boats on the far right.

|
Mike at 6/20/2004 11:46:00 AM

Me, Mackinnon, Borbi and Ann at the tomb of W.E.B. Dubois.

|
Mike at 6/20/2004 11:45:00 AM

That's Ann and Borbi replacing the wreath left by the Lt. Governor of Maryland on the tomb of W.E.B. Dubois.

|
Mike at 6/20/2004 11:44:00 AM

You've read about them, well here one is - a trotro. As you can see, trotros are one part van, one part bus and one part clown car. How many people can you cram in a trotro? Well, there are legal limits, but during rush hour the answer is - however many the mate (the guy who sits by/hangs out the door taking fares and barking out where the destination is) thinks he can. Trotros stop on the street at places like bus stops, but there are also trotro stations, like this one, where people form long lines (queues, actually) for trotros that go all over the city and all over the country.

|
Mike at 6/20/2004 11:43:00 AM

Here is one of the schools that the UN builds (but GES administers) at Budruburam. Next to it you can see one of several fairly new ambulances that we saw just in our brief tour of part of the camp. The "Supported by the UNHCR" is on anything and everything that the U.N. has had anything to do with.

|
Mike at 6/20/2004 11:42:00 AM

Here is the school I wrote about yesterday that is sitting unused because of an unresolved conflict between the Liberians (who are about 93% of the camp's population) and the resident Ghanians over whom should be allowed to be students at the school. It's simply one of the nicest buildings I've seen since I've been here (admittedly, partly because it has been unused) - what a waste.

|
Mike at 6/20/2004 11:39:00 AM

This is a typical street scene in Budruburam. As you can see, it's pretty similar -- and actually a bit nicer -- than some of the shots I posted last time from Mallam. The structures are mostly pretty substantial, the roads are fairly pothole-free for non-paved roads and you can see the electric lines stretched everywhere.

|
Mike at 6/20/2004 11:37:00 AM

Here's the outside of the All Soul's Early Childhood Development Center in Budruburam. Most of the center is in a small classroom building to the right, and they also hold some classes in the church building.

|
Mike at 6/20/2004 11:36:00 AM

With Borbi peeking in, Mackinnon holds a friend she made at the All Soul's gathering in Budruburam. We think her name was Shelley or Shirley, but one thing we know is that she LOVED Mackinnon. Twice - once when she put her down and once when she left - she cried and reached out/ran after her!

|
Mike at 6/20/2004 11:35:00 AM

Here's me with some of the group from the All Soul's Church and Child Center. The woman with the glasses next to me is the head of the women's group at the church and the principal of the school.

|
Mike at 6/20/2004 11:33:00 AM

Here is the sanctuary of All Souls Episcopal Anglican Church in Budruburam. It's the only place I've seen the word Episcopal used here -- because in Liberia it is called the Episcopal Church (and the Liberians send a deputation to General Convention). This one is part of the diocese of Cape Coast in Ghana, but there is no mistaking that it is a Liberian congregation. Notice the flags in the sanctuary - Liberian and Episcopal!

|
Mike at 6/20/2004 11:32:00 AM

Wow ... two posts in one day!

Just got back a little bit ago from Buduburam. Traffic was a breeze ... it only took an hour each way.

The camp is not what you picture when you picture a refugee camp. In fact, all in all, it was in a lot better shape than Mallam. Twelve years ago, when the camp began, it WAS what you usually picture ... lots of tents and the like. Today there are no tents, just a fairly permanent settlement of 40,000-45,000 Liberians mixed in with some Ghanians who have either moved in or who were already on the land.

As we arrived, huge busloads of people were leaving for Accra. Turns out its World Refugee Day today and the UN was paying for these buses to truck people to this big event at the stadium in Accra.

We were greeted by Benjamin and Theo, two friends of Bordi's. Ben is his roommate in Accra and Theo lives at the camp. Theo was our main tour guide and knew the answer to just about every question we threw at him.

The camp basically looks like a Ghanian town. In some ways, it's in better shape than many Ghanian towns because, although there is no running water, there is electricity to much of the camp and the U.N. has built some pretty decent buildings ... including a nice school building.

We got a tour of the clinic/hospital, which seemed to be pretty decent. In the labor and delivery room (a room about the size of the larger bedroom at Rockwell House), there were two mothers with their day-old babies ... which were born at the same hour (must have been a hectic time). They were adorable.

We walked by some of the school buildings. The U.N. has helped build many of these but they are managed by the Ghanian education service. There are the same problems here as everywhere ... not everyone goes to school because not everyone can pay the fees. There was a beautiful new school building built by the UN a year ago, but it stands unused because there is a big argument between the Liberian and Ghanian communities. The Liberians say the school was built by the UN for them and so it should be all Liberian. The Ghanians (who make up about 8% of the camp population) say that it is their land and the school should be mixed. No result to the conflict so the building stands empty.

The situation in Liberia has cooled somewhat over the past 6 months, so there has been some voluntary repatriation and OPE is also processing some of the hard-core persecution cases for resettlement in America and elsewhere. But many of the residents are OK with staying. It would be a stretch to say they are "happy" to stay ... but they are safe there, and the prospect of returning home only to have to flee again should things turn bad (and things have had a way of turning bad) is pretty daunting to many.

The highlight of the trip was the walk to All Souls Anglican Church. All Souls has attached to it a "child development center," which is basically nursery school through Grade 3. While we were there, the women's group at the church was just setting up an outdoor picnic/party as a fundraiser for the church and school. The head of the women's group is also the principal of the school, so she and I spent a lot of time together talking about the school, walking around, seeing the classrooms, the church, the whole thing.

The school has about 130 students, and school fees are 240,000 a term or 720,000 a year (roughly $78), but there are still lots of people who can't afford that ... and they can't afford to charge less because they are just scraping by.

The school was impeccably kept. They didn't have a lot, but you could tell what they did they kept good care of. It was very impressive. I took a whole bunch of pictures, which I'll try to post tomorrow.

It was easy to see that the money the senior class gave me for the refugee camp needs to go here, so I will make arrangements for that to happen. Actually, this looks like a great place for ECM to have a relationship with. I could see students coming over here and helping teach. I could see us setting up a scholarship fund for students here. Lots of stuff.

As we were getting the rest of the tour and heading out of the camp, we ran into the junior warden from the church ... who then ran and found the senior warden and the priest and met us at the trotro station just as we were about to board. We had a great conversation and they want to invite me back to preach (probably at a Wednesday evening service the night before Robin gets here since Emmanuel has me pretty booked up on Sundays.). I was thrilled.

Mackinnon and Ann are going to go back several more times, and I might join them on one of those occasions plus the Wednesday evening. They want to do some work with some of the children trying to see how much they actively remember the things that happened to them and their families in Liberia. As a refugee herself, Ann is uniquely qualified to do this -- and it's a really good project for them to take on together.

I'm here at the cafe with a whole gaggle of the Crossroads students -- who were dying to get on the internet. They are pretty amazing. They're all in college or just out and with one exception they've all traveled to different places in the world before. I mean, not just Europe, but SE Asia, Indonesia, Africa, The Carribean, Central and SOuth America. You name it. They're already better adjusted than I am!

That's it from here. TOmorrow is my second crack at Ghanian Anglican liturgy and then I hope to post some photos before internet silence takes over for a week. Love you all!

|
Mike at 6/19/2004 12:55:00 PM

Didn't go to Budrumburam on Friday. Ann's cousin, Borbi, who used to live there, joined us Friday morning and said we would be much better off going today (which we are) because Fridays and Tuesdays are market days and the traffic is terrible. So we're doing that trip today.

Instead, we did the tourist thing. Borbi, who has lived in Accra for about 4 1/2 years, was our tour guide. First, we took a trotro and taxi to the Kwame Nkrumah mausoleum and museum. Nkrumah was the first president of Ghana after independence and, although he later had to flee the country after he was overthrown (and died in exile in Guinea), he has come back into good graces and now is well-revered. In addition to being the first president, he was also a big pan-African activist (trying to create unity over the peoples of the whole continent).

Funny thing happened there. When we paid our fee and walked in, the first thing we noticed was that around the statue of Nkrumah there was a whole group of children singing to someone ... and also a couple policemen with AK-47s hanging around. Must be someone important here, we thought. Turns out it was the new Lt. Governor of Maryland, here to talk trade. Well, Ann was laughing because she is from Maryland and one of the LG's aides overheard her and introduced us to him and had us pose for pictures with him (he was traveling with two photographers).

The museums here are very sparse by Western standards, but having Borbi with us was great because he filled in a lot of gaps.

After that, we went to the cultural center, which is really just a bazaar for all sorts of crafts. It's like Nogales on steriods ... everyone pulling and pushing you into their stalls and trying to sell you things at way more than they are worth. Ann is a brilliant negotiator and I was able to draw on some of my Nogales experience to get a couple things for the boys at decent prices.

Then we went to Osu, the tourist district where all the Europeans hang out ... VERY different from, the rest of Accra. Actual stores that you can go into that are air conditioned and that take VISA cards. Very strange.

From there, we caught a cab to the W.E.B. Dubois museum, which Mackinnon had heard of and really wanted to see. After some delays at the front desk, we were admitted and, after we were joined by a young woman from the U.K. who was in Ghana teaching English in the Eastern region, our tour began.

Then our tour abruptly ended as our guide got a call that he had to leave us because an important visitor had arrived. A few minutes later, the Lt.Governor and his entourage (which included the VP of Ghana,we later found out) arrived ... which was good for a few laughs. We finished the tour with them.

The coolest part was that the executive director of the museum came out and helped out with the tour. The ED is none other than Kwame Nkrumah's youngest son. We hung out with him and a resident pan-African scholar there for awhile afterwards as he indoctrinated us into the basics of pan-Africanism. Pretty cool.

Caught a taxi back to the trotro stop and then a trotro back to Mallam. Tried to post at the internet cafe but the server crashed pretty soon after we got there.

The Crossroads students were there when we got home last night. 10 of them, all women, all looking tired and a little shell shocked. I'll see more of them tonight, I imagine.

Tomorrow, it's celebrating (hopefully with a little more polish) at Christ the King. Monday, Mackinnon, Victor, Josephine ("aunite Jo", James' assistant) and I head out for the Western Region to visit the HIV/AIDS programs there (it's her regular quarterly visits). We'll drive all day Monday and Saturday, stay in the district capitals (3 different ones) and do day trips Tuesday through Friday.

Gotta post this and go as we need to be off soon. Thanks for all the comments. Keep 'em coming! (THough I probably won't be able to post at all next week).

Love you all.

|
Mike at 6/19/2004 04:17:00 AM

What an amazing day.

Got to the bus stop just as the bus to Accra was getting there so we were able to hop right on (and, unlike last time, where you would have thought the bus was the last chopper out of Saigon, there weren't people almost crushed against and under it as it pulled up!).

We got to the Opera Square office EARLY (amazing!). I even had time to stop off and mail a postcard to the boys. We then went and saw a wonderful woman who runs a catering school that CENCOSAD has used to help train people (kind of like the places we saw on Tuesday). Really cool woman ...had her first kid when she was 16 and through sheer determination has made something of herself-- owning her own business. The odds against that in Accra are pretty daunting.

We then saw a whole stretch of alley/road that CENCOSAD helped get paved. Much of the roads in Ga Mashie are dirt/clay ... so when it rains (like now, in the rainy season), it turns to a big mud bog. That's bad for a whole bunch of hygiene and mosquito reasons but also because it discourages customers for the businesses that are on those streets, thus further depressing the economy.

What CENCOSAD did was really cool ...they didn't just spend a bunch of money to have the roads paved. They paid to have trainers come in to train local people in how to pave a road. Then they paid for the materials and equpment and employed the neighborhood people to do the job ... and it looks great. I'll post a picture of it Saturday (Mackinnon and I are considering another trek to Busy Internet then).

Then we went to a meeting of the HIV/AIDS peer educators ... a really cool group of young people. The most troubling thing was that it was 10:30 in the morning and none of them were in school ... mostly because they're parents couldn't afford the school fees. There were so many kids not in school and on the streets this morning.

After that, Bridget (who was our wonderful tour guide) told us that we were going to a palace to see one of the tribal elders. The tribal system is alive and well here. Although the government has official authority, the tribal chieftains and elders have a great deal of unofficial authority -- which often outweighs the official.

I really didn't know what to expect. I mean, I didn't expect some guy with a big wig and a painted face and a bone through his nose like on Gilligan's Island. I mean, I'm dumb, but I'm not an idiot. But I didn't know what to expect not so much in terms of dress, but in terms of how I should address him, how deferential should I be, what would his attitude be toward outsiders like me coming in and spending time in the community.

Well, we showed up at the palace (which, for Ga Mashie, really is a palace, though by American standards, it kind of looked like the place where my accountant works), and ceremonially greeted with handshakes and bows a group of men who were sitting in the front room just hanging out. I think they were some sort of sub-elders, they had some position, but I don't know what it was and only one of them was speaking English. Bridget got into a conversation with one of them, who would occasionally lapse into English and say a little bit about what they were talking about. It seemed like Bridget was trying to convince them that I was somebody who should be there -- she was saying I was an Anglican priest from America and that I had met Bishop Akrofi and that we had gone to the same seminary. The man seemed skeptical.

Turns out that it didn't matter at all what any of those guys thought, because the tribal elder came in the room apologizing for being late for our meeting. I whispered to Bridget "how should I address him?" and she told me to call him "doctor". I thought, "Doctor, OK." Well, we got upstairs and we sat down and he started talking and it turns out that I should call him doctor because he IS a doctor -- did undergrad and medical school at Howard University, spent 20-30 years working in D.C. and New York City doing women's health and other medicene. Now he's retired and back in his old neighborhood trying to help out and teaching comparative religion at the Anglican seminary.

He was the coolest guy. He was able to talk about the problems of the neighborhood with the perspective of someone who has seen the world but also knows the neighborhood intimately. He was the first one who mentioned a drug problem (mostly marijuana), which we later found out from Bridget is rampant and isn't so much a medical concern as much as it just encourages people to remain apathetic and not try to work hard. Anyway, the guy was awesome and we talked for almost an hour. He is incredibly liberal theologically -- something I haven't found a lot of over here. His big crusade is convincing people that all major religions are legitimate and educating people on the foundational truths behind the major world religions and how they are similar and how they have often used each other. We had a great conversation, needless to say.

Afterwards, Mackinnon and I took Bridget out to lunch at a nice restaurant on the ocean -- the waves literally crashing on the rocks right below us. It is the first time since I've been here that I've just spent way more money than something was worth -- 135,000 cedis for lunch for the three of us (for a lunch that probably should have cost half that). I couldn't believe I was paying that much but didn't feel that bad because I knew Bridget probably didn't get to eat at places like that often (besides, even though she works her tail off, she hasn't gotten paid in six months because the UNICEF grant hasn't come through). Anyway, as we were walking away and I was doing the mental math, I realized that my extravagance was spending $15 on lunch for three. I've adjusted so easilly to the currency and prices of things here.

It's easy to see how locals jump on white people to see if they are easy marks. If all you do is hang out in Osu (the tourist area, where everything is overpriced), then you aren't going to blink at spending way more than you should for things. When Mackinnon mentioned that she didn't mind spending a little too much, Bridget said "No. Don't pay that. Don't give your money to those cheats. Better to give it to people on the street who need it."

Anyway, tomorrow we head the Budrubuam, the Liberian refugee camp that has basically become a permanent Liberian settlement here in Ghana. Then Saturday off. Sunday is celebrating at either Christ the King or St. Luke's and then all next week leaving Accra for the Western Region.

More photos coming Saturday, if we can schedule a visit to Busy Internet around the World Cup qualifier (go Ghana!).

Love you all. AND PLEASE LEAVE COMMENTS!!!!!

|
Mike at 6/17/2004 11:21:00 AM

Today, we got up early and drove out of Accra to Ho, which is in the Volta Region. It was a 3.5 hour drive through some really beautiful country. When we got there, we attended a long meeting of reps from the different NGOs in the region that are working on HIV/AIDS and reproductive health. The regional director for health ministries for the regional govt. was there, so everyone was really excited.

It was an interesting meeting ... NGOs here are really struggling for funding. CENCOSAD is in really bad shape right now because about 80% of its funding comes from one foreign aid source, which has already released the money to the Ghanian government, but the government (Ghana Health Services, to be precise) isn't releasing it to the NGOs because it is still looking for the right mechanism to release. In the meantime, salaries aren't getting paid and funds are really, really tight.

They also told some stories about people living with AIDS and the stigma they suffer from and the ostracization that remind me of the U.S. in the 80s only a lot worse. And of course, the big problem here that we never had in the U.S. is the orphan problem -- 700,000 in Ghana alone ... and Ghana's HIV infection rate is a low (for Africa) 3.6%. And the people who are doing the most to fight it are these NGOs that are being held together by duct tape and good wishes.

Given all that, the most amazing thing is that these people are dauntless. I truly believe the only thing greater than the obstacles in their path is their determination to overcome them.

I was going to go back to Ho this weekend to do the rounds with the NGO folks visiting people living with HIV/AIDS, but since that's pretty much what I'm going to be doing in all my visits to the Western part of the country all next week and since it would require Josephine, James' hard working deputy director, to make an extra trip she wasn't otherwise going to make, I told them not to worry about it ... that I would stay in Accra this weekend. Besides, the Crossroads students (10 college students from around North America) are showing up Friday night and I think they could probably use some help around the villa this weekend. Some of these students are just out of high school and others are freshmen and sophomores in college and for many (most?) it will be their first time in the developing world. I know this would have freaked me out when I was 19! Anyway, I just have a sense I can be of some help staying put ... especially since I'll be on the road all next week.

On the way back from Ho, we stopped at the dam on the Volta River that supplies 90% of Ghana's power (and that formed Lake Volta, the largest man-made lake in the world). We got a tour of the outside of it and then when the tour guide discovered that James used to be his tutor in school, he said that when we came back with Robin, he would give us a special tour of the inner workings of it.

The country up there is so beautiful ... big hills (they'd pass for mountains in Missouri), with lush green everywhere. A lot of small towns spring up alongside the roads. Not as much concrete, more mud brick and thatched roof houses. We passed any number of schools that didn't have buildings and so the classes met under the shade of big trees (but they were all still in their orange and brown school uniforms).

Tomorrow is a LONG day. Bus into Accra and spend the whole day wandering around Ga Mashie seeing and filming different CENCOSAD project sites, and other efforts. James is really excited about this video ... I'm trying to get him to temper his expectations seeing as I've never made a video before. Hope the software can cover a multitude of rookie mistakes.

Gotta run now. It's late and bed is calling for morning will come early (the Pentecostal church outside my window has moved up their choir rehearsal time from 5:30 a.m. to 4:45 a.m.!)

|
Mike at 6/16/2004 03:55:00 PM

It's Monday night in Mallam.

Yesterday, I preached and celebrated at Christ the King Church (and also led a Bible study group when I sat down to it and asked "who's leading this?" and was told "you are!"). The church is basically a shelter with a dirt floor and a roof held up by posts with bricks around it up to your knees but the rest open air. That was actually the best thing because it's kind of up on a hill and the breeze was GREAT.

We got there a little after 8 and things didn't start until 8:40 because we have to get all the benches, altar, and everything else either from the villa or from another house about a block and a half away. Then we have Bible study (three groups -- one for english speakers, which I led, one in Ga and one in Twi). Then a lay pastor leads Matins (the whole service is VERY British Anglican ... 1928 prayer book is the most similar thing for Americans) and after that we had the Eucharist -- Anglo Catholic with incense (thank goodness for my experience at Christ Church, New Haven. Somewhere Jerry Miner is smiling).

Preaching was a pretty surreal experience. You preach a sentence or half-sentence and then have to wait while it gets translated into two different languages ... and then sometimes the translators would slip into the wrong language and they'd laugh and correct each other. You really just had to kind of go with it because it was impossible to get into any kind of rythym. I think in normal time, my sermon would have been about 10 minutes, but it ended up being more than a half an hour!

The music was really cool. Some native stuff, but a lot of it was hymns out of our hymnal (the C of E hymnal, actually), that would start out all staid on this casio keyboard they have and then about the third verse, the drums and clapping would start and they would really start to jam with it. Really cool.

We were welcomed so warmly. No surprise there. Oh ... Frieda dressed Mackinnon up in authentic Ghanian garb -- got a great picture, which I hope I'll be able to post. Anyway, everyone was so welcoming. after the service, we had to pose for pictures with every different consituency group in the church.

The liturgy was pretty much Rite I, but just different enough to consistently trip me up. They were very gracious and said it was fine!

Last night, I went with james to the board meeting of a local independent school. Being here with James is absolutely amazing. I get to do things like this that no tourist would ever get to do and see real slices of life.

The meeting wasn't dynamic by any means. In fact, it was ample evidence that board meetings are pretty tedious in any culture. But what was interesting is that we have many of the same problems in our schools that they have in theirs -- lack of parental and community involvement, trying to stay up-to-date technologically but struggling with costs, hoping their students do well on standardized tests, etc.

Tomorrow, I'm heading back into the Gameshi neighborhood (where we saw Theatre for a Change) to see some vocational training programs and some of the peer-to-peer education things that CENCOSAD is doing. Wednesday, I'll be heading up to Ho in the Volta region (about two hours away ... I finally get to leave Accra. HOORAY!) for a meeting with stakeholders in the reproductive health ministry there. Thursday it's back to Gameshi to do more filming. Friday it's going to Budruburam, the Liberian refugee camp that has basically become a permanent Liberian city in Ghana. Saturday and Sunday, it's back to Ho to spend time at a facility for people with HIV/AIDS and (I think) preach at a local church and meet the bishop of that diocese.

Not a lot of rest time, but then again, even though six weeks seems like a long time sometimes, in reality it's not and there is so much to see and so much to learn. When Robin gets here, we'll take a MUCH more leisurely pace. I've already got some things planned and Lisa, Rachel and Anne have been great helping me plan stuff.

Then there's always days like today where everything was Ghana Maybe Time and we sat around and didn't accomplish much (though I did get in a good conversation with one of the practicum students about American foreign policy. The attitude here pretty much seems to be that the American government is arrogant and does whatever it wants but the American people are wonderful and they love them.) I'm saving some interesting editorials from the Ghana newspapers to bring home!

Going to sign off now. Night has fallen and the A/C is out at the internet cafe, so bugs are starting to pour in through the open door. Good thing I got my DEET!

Love you all.

|
Mike at 6/14/2004 01:32:00 PM

Here are the pictures. Robin, if you are reading this, I tried sending you a bunch of these in email. Only one email got through (maybe two) and it filled up your mailbox, so all other emails are bouncing from your mailbox (which is why I'm writing you on my public blog). I won't try to send you any more pictures, but I have a long email to send you and ones for Schroedter and Hayden, so as soon as you download the big file with some pictures on it, I'll send those (I've got it saved in my inbox in its returned form).

OK ... on to the pictures. They're not in a really good order. IN fact, the one I wanted to lead with is at the bottom because I posted it first. I hope this gives you a good snapshot of what's going on with us here and where we are.

I have to go because my battery is running out -- I trucked my laptop on a tro-tro to Busy Internet. But when I plugged my surge protector in it blew up so there's no way I'm plugging my computer in and the battery is about to die!

Love you all!

|
Mike at 6/12/2004 11:22:00 AM

There are small children EVERYWHERE in Malam ... and when they see us coming, they often flock to us, love to touch us, walk with us holding our hands. They call out "Obrunee" (I have no idea how to spell that word!), which means "white person" in Tri (a widespread local language). Even the parents will call out "Obrunee" when we go by to let the children know. The children always say hi ... ask us our names, which they are really good at remembering when we come back. They treat us like royalty, which a lot of times just makes me feel so guilty because I don't feel worthy to receive such treatment. James explained to me that they are just so grateful that we would come from so far away to be with them. Many of the children go to school ... in the morning and afternoons you will often see them in their school uniforms. Some can't afford the school fees, though. James was walking on a morning this week and found a young girl in her school uniform crying. When he asked her what the problem was, she said that her mother couldn't afford food for breakfast, so she was having to go to school on an empty stomach and she was hungry. And this is not neglect --which does happen --, the mother works hard and the money goes to school fees, books, clothes and other things. Of course, we have this problem in America too. I remember the kids Robin taught at Grant. Anyway, this was taken Saturday morning, so even if these kids are in school, they wouldn't be in uniform.

|
Mike at 6/12/2004 11:14:00 AM

When you go down the road a bit (less than a minute's walk if you don't get mobbed by children when you come out of the villa gates) and turn right, this is what you see as the road makes its way toward the central Malam road. Malam is the name of this community. It is a Muslim name that means "cleric" ... and the big yellow building is the mosque. This was originally a Muslim community (hence the name), but the Muslim population is now about 1/3. Most of the population here is Christian, with some (I think) of the local tribal religions (the tribal faiths are called fetishes, and they have fetish shrines and fetish priests -- haven't run into those yet). James introduced me to the Iman (sp?), the Muslim cleric and he was very friendly and greeted me warmly -- especially when he found out I was a Christian priest. Muslim-Christian relations here are outstanding ... a real atmosphere of mutual respect and love. It's wonderful. The other buildings in the picture are houses and/or shops (you don't usually go into the shops, they are more like booths).

|
Mike at 6/12/2004 11:12:00 AM

This is the courtyard of the CENCOSAD villa, facing the wing that is James and Frieda's house (where Mackinnon and I are staying).

|
Mike at 6/12/2004 11:06:00 AM

This is me and Godfred, one of the players in the Theatre for a Change acting troupe. We saw the TFAC players yesterday (see the entry below if you haven't already). Godfred is amazing and lots of fun. He does this all volunteer (the actors get a small stipend for travel ... about $2 American) and is passionate about the work and connecting with the children. He was very, very disappointed that I didn't know any of the rap music he likes -- though he did try to teach me some. Like all of the TFAC troupe, he comes from the neighborhoods in which they work. What makes CENCOSAD's work so great is not only the work they do but that this isn't some outside agency coming in, this is people in the neighborhood (starting from James, who grew up here) coming together to try to help each other and owning their own situation.

|
Mike at 6/12/2004 10:54:00 AM

Here's a sign on the beach ... you'll probably have to click it to enlarge it to read it. It's nothing special, but I show it as an example of the HIV/AIDS prevention advertising that is everywhere. And not just on signs and billboards ... in the newspapers, on the radio and TV. They talk about HIV/AIDS all the time.

|
Mike at 6/12/2004 10:50:00 AM

This is the view from the fourth floor office of CENCOSAD in Opera Square in Accra. If you click on these photos, they get bigger, so you'll be able to see it better. Basically, the square is a big dirt carpark which turns into a lake/mudbog during the rainy season (which is now). The streets are lined (as most of them are) with marketers selling their wares. If you are white, they assume you have money (and, of course, they are right), so you really get hassled to buy stuff. Being here is a unique experience both of being a racial minority and a person of extreme privilege. Oh, and David, no "Curry in a Hurry" near here ... but EVERYTHING is curry in a hurry!

|
Mike at 6/12/2004 10:48:00 AM

No photo post from CENCOSAD would be complete without Victor. Victor is James' driver ... and so his job is to drive us all over Accra and wait while we do what we're supposed to do, and then drive us to the next place. Driving in Accra is an extreme sport -- people are absolutely insane. It's far worse than Manhattan or Boston and I will never complain about St. Louis drivers EVER AGAIN. Victor picked me up at the airport and drove me back to Malam the first night and I thought I was going to die. But I soon realized that he is simply the most skilled driver I have ever seen. It's like the car (and not a small one, a big, blue VW truck) becomes an extension of his body. We joke that in his hands, it turns into the Gadgetmobile, because he can squeeze between and through things that you would swear it couldn't get through ... and without a scratch. He knows Accra like the back of his hand and is always taking sudden shortcuts when the traffic ties up through strange back streets. All of this sounds nuts, but if you know what a terrible passenger I am, let me say I feel so incredibly safe riding with Victor. He works so hard ... everyone here does ... and he is always in good spirits. His extended family lives right next door to the villa. His wife makes clothes, so you can find some cloth you like in the market, take it to her and she will show you patterns and designs and take your measurements and make you beautiful clothes.

|
Mike at 6/12/2004 10:44:00 AM

There are children everywhere in Malam (just everywhere, period). They run up to us and follow after us and want to touch us. They ask us our names and remember them. Many don't know much English, but they know "how are you?" so we are always hearing "Obrunee! Mike! How are you!" to which you say "fine" then return the question. It's like a little ritual. The child in the middle is Kofi, whom I have gotten to know a little bit. He was very excited that his picture was going to be on the internet and seen by people in America. So, Kofi ... you're a star!

|
Mike at 6/12/2004 10:35:00 AM

This is a scene right outside the gate of the villa. It is a dirt road that winds through to a paved road, which goes through Malam (and also leads you to the main road). There are goats wandering around everywhere (many belong to James and Frieda). This shop is a hair salon where they also teach people to be hairdressers (there are a LOT of hairdressers here and, no surprise, all the women's hair looks really cool). Malam is full of little shops like this ... you don't really go inside, they are more like booths and the business is done on the front (they're very small). Most people live right where they work, in small houses right next to the booth.

|
Mike at 6/12/2004 10:33:00 AM

This is the main living area of James and Frieda's house. We hang out here at night, do devotions here in the morning. You can see the dining area in the back. Mackinnon's room is through the window you see on the left (you can see the light on in there. The door in the middle of the picture leads to a foyer type room from which you get to my room, Mackinnon's room and the bathroom.

|
Mike at 6/12/2004 10:30:00 AM

Here's my room ... note the paper hanging on the top middle of the window -- that's a toy Schroedter made for me. When the ceiling fan (not pictured, but believe me -- it's there!) rotates it moves around like a mobile. It's a very comfortable room and VERY spacious by Malam standards. Hospitality here is amazing!

|
Mike at 6/12/2004 10:27:00 AM

Here we are! Mackinnon, Nii Oteu, Nii Abeu (in back), Frieda, James and me standing outside the front door of the villa

|
Mike at 6/12/2004 10:25:00 AM

Couldn't get to an internet cafe yesterday, but I found one in Malam (the community where the CENCOSAD villa is) today, and Mackinnon and I are gleefully checking email! It's no Busy Internet (satellite and high speed), but it's a lot better than many!

Two days to catch you up on. I'll try to be brief.

Yesterday, we went to the Overseas Processing Entity -- the agency of Church World Service that processes refugees on behalf of the U.S. State Dept. for all of West Africa. They deal primarilly with refugees from Liberia, but also from Sierra Leone and some other places. The most amazing people were the "cowboys" ... the ones who meet with the refugees and take their persecution stories. We talked for awhile with one in particular ... mostly about how they could really use some counseling.

We learned a lot about the process of what happens to refugees ... which I won't get into now. Basically, it's a group of amazing,dedicated people who work incredibly hard trying to help the most vulnerable people on earth.

That was brought home last night when we sat around the villa talking with James and with Anne, a public health grad student at St. Louis University who is also a Liberian refugee. She told us not only her family story but gave us the basic history of the conflict in Liberia.

So many of the stories involve children being separated from their parents ... something that I am particular vulnerable to being emotional about as I miss my own children so much after just a few days! It is amazing and infuriating to me that our government and others has and continues to play with government and rebel factions like they are pawns in order to get the most favorable military and trade deals ... with innocent people being slaughtered and dislocated and families split apart in the process.

I've asked Anne if she would come share her stories with us at ECM ... and talk to us about what it is like to be a refugee -- hopefully this will stir up some interest in Andrew's and others' work at the INternational Institute(let me know what you think of this David ... and by the way, David ... we talk about you ALL the time!)

Today we went to a performance of one of the "Theatre for a Change"groups. It's a local group of volunteer players who go into schools and do street theatre about HIV/AIDS ... then they do a tag-off where they replay the scenes and the audience members have a chance to go up and strategize how they could have solved the problems or resolved the situations better. It was incredibly effective. The people leading it were VERY charismatic and the children were eating out of their hands. It went on for almost two hours and the kids were into it the whole time (age ranging from 7-8 to 14-15)

At the end, they introduced James (CENCOSAD sponsors this troupe) and he introduced me, and this whole school of children sang me a welcome song about how all nations are dear to creator God. I just stood up there and fought back tears. It was so beautiful.

I took lots of video of the performance and got a great interview with one of the players for the promotional/fundraising video I'm making for CENCOSAD.

Other stuff ... finally got a fan in my room ... HOORAY! Also, I got a call today from the pastor at James' church, asking me if I would "say mass" on Sunday. I said sure. Later, I found out that means preaching (they expect a 20 minute sermon ... I'm sure HOpie would tell them that was no problem for me!). I later found out that one reason I was asked is that the priest for that church got called away to sub at a larger church that morning ... so Sunday morning, I'll be flying solo at Christ Church, Malam. Should be interesting. Gotta have a crash course on Ghanian Anglican liturgy tomorrow!

I'll sign off for now so I can write the boys and Robin. Miss everyone.

|
Mike at 6/11/2004 01:01:00 PM

We found her!

We reached Mackinnon by phone in Wisconsin as she was heading out the door to go to the airport ... she gave us the wrong dates ... or James got them wrong, or something. Anyway, we pick her up at 7 tonight!

What a great meeting today with Bishop Akrofi -- the Bishop of Accra, who has been elected primate of West Africa (but has not yet taken that office because of some canonical problems with the election that are really ticky=tack and will be resolved). I didn't know how formal he would be so I dressed in my clericals (damn those cotton-poly blends .. in this heat, the holiness code makes some sense!), greeted him on behalf of Wayne Smith, Bishop of Missouri, and gave him one of the Anglican rosaries that Melanie Barbarito made as a small token of friendship.

He sat down, fully vested, in the bishop's chair in his office ... and proceeded to be as affable, casual and friendly as I could have hoped.

He is an amazingly prayerful person. We talked about the church here in Ghana and in America and it was amazing the similarities. He was talking about how the charismatic churches are growing so much faster than they are, how his church is holding on to old systems and not letting the youth have enough of a voice and staying elite and not bringing the faith to the people. He said that yes, their church is growing, but it pales in comparison to these other faiths ... and that's the story that we don't hear in America.

I was very open with him about how I voted at General Convention -- he said he was there -- and we had the most amazing conversation about it. What happened -- the vote -- was very painful to them, some more than others. But more than anything, he wanted reconciliation because he believes that is the essence of the Gospel. He is a wonderful, reasonable person. We were able to talk frankly about the perceptions of the American church in Africa.

I feel we both agreed that there is a vast middle in between the radical right and left that wants reconciliation, and that if we work hard and continue to build partnerships like the one we are working on now, God's love will prevail.

It was also so valuable for me to hear from this prayerful, reasonable bishop how hurtful some of the talk he heard at General Convention from the left (pro-Gene) was. How -- regardless of the intent -- it felt like they were being told that we had discerned God's will for the church and the world and that when they wised up they would realize it.

It is difficult -- almost impossible -- for me to hear complaints about our arrogance from the far right, who, to my mind have been every bit as arrogant as anybody. But the words from Bishop Akrofi were gentle and kind. I expected to go in and get grilled, but he was so loving. It was the best of what I believe our church can be with each other across this divide and across the globe. We all have much to confess and repent of. We also have much to be joyful about.

He said he wanted to meet with me again before I left ... maybe I can bring Robin or Mackinnon next time.

We ended on a great note ... we were chatting outside as we were getting ready to leave and it turns out we both went to Yale Divinity School (him in the 70s) and even know some of the same people. We laughed and embraced, and at the end we prayed for each other and this wonderful man laid his hands on me and gave me his blessing. Think of that for a second, here I am, one who chaired a deputation that helped do the one thing that we are being told by some will be the end of the church, with one of those who is supposed to have been the most disaffected by it -- and we are talking and laughing and praying together and leaving with each other's prayers and blessings.

I don't think I ever feared for the church, but I certainly don't now. We have a lot of work ahead of us. But if this morning is any small indication, I believe reconciliation and love will prevail.

Big shift -- Stretch of the day ... I ate goat meat! Tasted pretty good ... pretty rich. Kind of feeling it now. Was at lunch with James on this rooftop cafe. Funny thing was that I'm here in Accra, eating goat meat, surrounded by everything African and the music on the loudspeaker was all 80s pop -- Huey Lewis, Air Supply ... that kind of stuff.

Weather here is GOOD! Not as hot as I thought. Pretty humid, but the rainshowers cool things down and make it pleasant. When I go up north, it will be hotter but less humid.

Must go now ... have to try to arrange tomorrow visit with the Overseas Processing Entity (the folks from the UN who take care of refugees in west africa).

Love to you all! Pray for me and my family.

|
Mike at 6/09/2004 10:32:00 AM

Never you mind. She's been found. Thanks, though, if you helped.

Ryan "Not Mike" Wallace

|
Mike at 6/08/2004 06:33:00 PM

Paging Mackinnon Webster...

Can only post briefly. Went to the airport to pick up Mackinnon on the British Airways flight from London ... and she wasn't on it! James didn't have her flight information and I could swear she told me she was coming in today on British Airways from london ... and that's only one flight.

I'm headed home to check my computer in hopes she sent me flight info that is on it. But, if anyone knows her flight information, could you call James' house (where I'm staying) at 233-21-300070 (international, of course).

One thing I know, she's not in Accra!

Had a great day today ... went down to the Opera Square CENCOSAD office and a wonderful local woman named Bridget took us out into the community to meet the "opinion leaders" -- local people who organize the HIV peer educators. Just walked through this incredibly densely populated streets meeting people. Lots of interesting smells (both good food and open sewers!). Did some shopping in one of the many huge markets.

Tomorrow, I go to a meeting of the Theatre for Change group, which does AIDS street theater .. and then I see their performance on Friday. Thursday tenatively I'm meeting with people from the refugee camp.

Love you all. Mackinnon ... I hope you're out there somewhere!!!

|
Mike at 6/08/2004 04:53:00 PM

I'm sitting at Busy Internet ... a (go figure) busy internet cafe in Accra. The good news is that it has hi-speed access. The one in Malam, where I am living, is REALLY slow. One of the students here said she was there for an hour and a half yesterday just checking her email.

I don't think I'll be able to post as often as I wanted to ... mostly because doing just about everything here takes a lot more effort than I am used to.

I arrived in Accra last night, got through immigration and customs very easilly, walked under a giant Coca-Cola sign (you can't get away from it) and out to the airport. The people James sent to get me were about a half an hour late picking me up, so a man named Peter "befriended" me, appointed himself my bodyguard while I waited and kept trying to get me to take a taxi from his friend (despite my insistences both that James was coming and that I would have no idea where to tell a taxi to take me!).

When I got back to James' place -- a 30-40 minute drive through this amazingly lively community ... everyone is out in the streets (and I mean IN the streets) at night -- he, his wife, his sons, and Immanuel, the priest at his church, welcomed me in the traditional Ghanian way -- by giving me life, symbolized by a glass of water (fortunately, it wasn't tap water, so I could drink it!).

I am staying in a room in this compound owned by James' family. There are three students here -- two MSW students from South Carolina and one from St. Louis University -- with many more coming (including Mackinnon on Tuesday!). There is no hot water, which is just fine because very few things have ever felt better than the cold shower I took last night before bed!

The people here are amazingly friendly. James walked me around the neighborhood today (which would not fit any description of a neighborhood that most Americans would recognize ... James' house is in a walled compound and -- though there is no phone or hot water, it has electricity and running water and good living space ... much of the surrounding houses are much more hovelish, lots of roofs made of scrap metal, etc.) and everyone greeted me warmly. I can't remember the last time I had so many strangers give me wonderful warm smiles.

This morning, we had a meeting with some social work students from the University of Ghana who will be doing practicums with CENCOSAD ... it served as my orientation, too. The meeting was supposed to start at 8 am and it began at 9:30 -- my first introduction to what Lisa (one of the USC MSW students) calls GMT ... Ghana Maybe Time. Everything here is late. Nothing starts on time. You pretty much just have to go with it.

What else can I share with you. They sell EVERYTHING in the streets here. And I mean EVERYTHING! When you stop your car, they will come up to you with big boxes of toilet paper or corn or FanYogurt (a fabulous frozen yogurt - yum!) or just about everything. Crossing the street you take your life in your hands. I feel like I do when I'm riding in the truck (I am the only one who wears a seatbelt, so I guess I'm some Ghanadriving nerd!), but I haven't seen any accidents . I think it's like BOston or what I hear about Rome and that is when everyone drives like they're insane, chaos theory kicks in and everyone ends up OK!

Overall, I'm feeling VERY overwhelmed. This is my first experience in the third world and it is like another planet to what I am used to. Just sitting here at a computer writing on the internet is familiar enough that it's a real stress reliever. There is just so much that is new ... not just what I am seeing but the smells and sounds (I fell asleep to frogs croaking and woke up to roosters crowing ... and I'm in the city!) and what to eat and drink (and what not to). Add to that my jet lag and really missing Robin and the kids and having half my heart in Columbia at Jim's funeral today and it's been a day of difficult adjustment. That will get better.

It's also been a great day. I've made great new friends. Met wonderful people. I've been treated with gracious hospitality. We visited St. Luke's church and the rector -- a man in his 70s who looks like he's in his 40s -- took us all into the church and led us in prayers of thanksgiving for my safe arrival.

Wednesday, James is taking me for a meeting with the bishop, whom he said is sure to quiz "the priest from the gay church." Huzzah! (or so Rory, Ryan and Beth would say). I'll be sure and let you know how that goes :^).

Well, my internet time is almost up. I love you all. Keep me in your prayers as you are in mine. Prayers are sustaining.

|
Mike at 6/07/2004 11:39:00 AM

Jet-Lagged at Heathrow

The good news: Terminal 4 at Heathrow is a T-mobile HotSpot.
The bad news: The wi-fi connection fades in and out like an AM radio on a stormy night.

On a 7-hour layover in London before heading to Accra this afternoon/evening. The international terminal at Heathrow is a great place ... kind of like being at the United Nations or IKEA at Potomac Mills. Lots of different people. Lots of different languages. Really cool.

The British are so hospitable. We got off the plane and had to get on buses to take us to the terminal. When the bus stopped at the terminal the opening door apparently jostled some man too much so he -- in his thick British accent -- started going after the bus driver and cussing at him. It was sweet of them to go to all that trouble to make us Americans feel at home!

I do have to say, it's pleasant to hear someone's response to being called a dipshit be "I beg your pardon?"

The Sunday Times had a 2/3 page story/editorial on John McCain and how he should be Kerry's running mate. The stories about Cheney meeting with the CIA leak investigators were reported almost gleefully. Doesn't seem to be much love for our president over here.

Some of my plane reading was the latest issue of "Washington Notes on Africa," written by the Rev. Dr. Leon Spencer, who is the Executive Director. Few, if any, people in the American Church know what's going on in Africa better than Leon. I just checked their website and they haven't posted this latest edition (titled "A personal manifesto for justice in Africa and the United States") yet, so I'll post more about it later. In the meantime, there's still an awful lot of good stuff on the WOA website

Have a wonderful Sunday, everyone!

|
Mike at 6/06/2004 05:15:00 AM

PIRATES 2, CUBS 1.
Mark Prior came off the disabled list to strike out eight in six scoreless innings, but the Cubs blew a 1-0 lead, giving up two runs in the ninth to lose to Pittsburgh.

Jim Fallis died tonight at 7:30 pm in Columbia, MO. I knew he was going to die today, and so as I drove my kids around town I listened through the static to the Cubs game feeling in some way that defies maturity and rationality that it would make some sort of a difference if his Cubbies could pull one out -- especially with Prior finally on the mound.

I remember one day about 11 years ago, Jim and I were hanging out in his office talking about the Cubs when he looked at me and said, "You, when you get to be my age, being a Cubs fan starts to be about mortality." In other words, you really start to wonder if they would ever win it in your lifetime.

From that point on, I started to root for the Cubs for Jim. I really, really, really wanted them to win it in his lifetime. I really, really, really, wanted to be able to call him the day after they made it to the World Series, the day after they won it all and hear the joy in his voice.

I thought last year was going to be the year -- but in true Cub fashion, they broke everyone's hearts ... even Jim's as he was sitting in an Irish pub thousands of miles away.

So I drove around today listening to the Cubs and hoping, on this day that Jim's mortal body would say goodbye, that his Cubs could send him off with a win.

The Cubs broke a scoreless tie in the bottom of the eighth. Todd Hollandsworth hit a run-scoring single and it was 1-0. Three outs and Jim got his W. But with two outs in the ninth and a runner on second, consecutive singles -- the last by Chris Stynes -- gave Pittsburgh the lead.

The Cubs had the tying run on third with two out in the bottom of the ninth, but Corey Patterson (he just HAD to have been Jim's favorite Cubs prospect, he was always talking about him) flied out to end the game ... in typical, excruciating Cub fashion.

I remember when Bob Skinner died, Susie wrote a letter saying we are Easter people living in a Good Friday world. Jim would say that being a Cub fan is a lot like that, too. Jim's life as a Cub fan was week after week of Good Fridays. Why should this Friday be any different. In truth, it shouldn't have been. And, of course, it wasn't.

But Good Friday isn't the end. It never is. Jim is in that Easter now, seeing it more clearly and more fully than even he had seen it before. I'll miss him in this world, that's for sure ... but we're still connected -- we've been promised that.

Maybe heaven is a place where the Cubs finally win (a horrific thought to Cardinals fans!). Literally, I don't believe that, but poetically, I do. Easter is about new life from death, and what fits more with that than the Cubs actually winning?

Maybe Jim and Harry Caray are sharing a beer right now watching that ball Patterson hit get down and roll to the wall and get lost in the ivy for an inside-the-parker and a Cubs victory. Cubs 3, Pirates 2.

If he is at that Wrigley watching that game, God knows, Jim, you've earned it.

Hope the beer is good and cold.

|
Mike at 6/04/2004 11:16:00 PM

When I think about what it truly means to be a priest, I realize how rich my life has been because of the many and amazing priests God has blessed my life with who have formed not just my answer to that question but have formed me.

The names are literally too many to mention, because I would leave someone out. There have been priests I have only met briefly and some I have not met at all that have done this shaping. But when I think of who the archetypal priest is for me, the priest I would most like to be like, the priest of whom I would be thrilled if at the end of my days I could say that I was half as good as, well, it's no contest.

It's Jim Fallis.

I've known Jim for almost 18 years, but it goes far beyond that. When Robin was a baby, Jim, then an assistant at St. Paul's, Indianapolis, baptized her. He was the young priest that Harold Harness, senior warden at St. Paul's and patriarch of Robin's family, took under his wing. Jim became the family priest. Years later, he buried Harold and held the family as they walked through that time that I only hear about in story.

What Jim taught me about priesthood isn't so much something I can put into words -- mostly because he never talked about it. He just lived it. The best I can describe it is as being an open conduit. I first met him when I went to school at Mizzou and he was rector of Calvary, Columbia. For him being priest was not just about dealing with the people who came in his church on Sunday morning, it was about being a presence -- God's presence -- in the whole community.

Lots of people came to Calvary -- many drawn by Jim -- but everyone knew Jim, because he was out there getting to know and loving them. He didn't "talk to them about Jesus" ... he just acted like Jesus, genuinely caring about people's lives, speaking up when there was a social injustice that needed something done, honoring people enough to let them make up their own minds about things and realizing that he could learn from them.

Jim was rector of Calvary, Columbia, but he was also priest at Booche's and Columbia Billiards, the two taverns across the street, and at the many golf courses around town that he and his son, Bennet, blistered on a regular basis. He wasn't this way because of some grand strategy of congregational development ... he was this way because he just let God love people through him, he treated every person with honor and respect -- and he showed that being a Christian and a human being is about living with integrity, love and humor.

Jim knew that the conventional wisdom about not being able to be someone's priest and friend at the same time, was, while based in some sage cautionary counsel, on the whole a load of crap. He was a priest by being a friend. And his friendships allowed him to be a priest in incredibly powerful ways.

And you can't talk about Jim without pointing out that he was a Cubs fan ... and that defined and described him more than anything. For being a Cubs fan is about faith and hope where logic says there shouldn't be. It's about having optimism meet realism in painful ways and persevering through it. It's about being able to feel pain keenly but still approaching life with a wicked sense of humor ... and an appreciation that God has a wicked sense of humor, too.

Testimonials like this usually don't come out of the blue ... usually that come when something bad has happened ... and that's mostly true here.

Bishop Smith called me yesterday morning to tell me that Jim had had a massive heart attack or stroke and been in a car accident and was now in a coma. Throughout the day, as I learned more from people and, finally, as I made it to Columbia and to his bedside, I learned that his prognosis for recovery is very grim. He is being kept alive by a respirator. Most telling is that when you talk to him and squeeze his hand, there is no response. Never in his life has anyone been able to say that about Jim.

Barring something remarkable and, frankly, miraculous, happening, in the next day or so his family will have to be making decisions about the end of Jim's life. So, yes, it is really bad. But there was something amazing about yesterday, too.

I spent much of yesterday on the phone, trying to contact anyone whom I thought needed to know about this. And there are so many people. I talked with Lance Robbins, another priest who has been huge in forming my priesthood, but who I don't think I've talked to for five or six years. I talked with clergy and laity, with Robin's mom and aunts, with so many people.

And when I talked with them, almost all of them started telling stories about Jim. That's not unusual ... when you find out someone is dying, you tell stories. But these stories all had a similar theme: Jim Fallis changed my life.

And the other interesting theme was this ... that the way Jim changed lives was not through anything huge and flashy, but through a word at the right time, being present when they needed desparately for someone just to be there, through just simple, honest, authentic love and honor.

After I left the hospital ... after I had, I knew, said my goodbyes to Jim, I went over to Calvary to say a prayer and then wandered over to Booches to do the one thing that felt right to do for Jim ... to drink a beer in his honor. And as I was sitting down, one of the bartenders came over to me and asked me if I was with the Episcopal church ... and then he asked me about Jim. When I told him it didn't look good, his eyes filled with tears and he started telling me his Jim stories. I mean, I'm just standing there in this pub with a beer, and this total stranger, unsolicited comes up to me and starts talking to me about Jim and the deep effect he had on his life.

We drank that toast to Jim together. I drank it in thanksgiving for an amazing life that I have been blessed to have touch mine and my family's. I drank it for the priest who, as much as anyone, has shown me what my priesthood can be. I drank it for my friend who was also my priest. For the guy who would bring his glove and ball to the office on February 15 because pitchers and catchers were reporting in Mesa. My friend who never kept an "appropriate, professional distance" when I was in crisis, but got down in there with me. The priest who baptized my wife, celebrated Eucharist at our wedding and tried to straighten out my golf swing.

It wasn't a long toast. Just two words. The only words it seemed appropriate to say to Jim and to God.

Thank you.

|
Mike at 6/04/2004 07:24:00 AM