Daily Archives: April 5, 2006

April 5, 2006 · 10:26 pm

Merci Nzambe

I came home tonight pretty tired.  It was a long and busy day and the days lately have been too full – work, taking care of my aunt’s move, wrapping up loose ends, kids and their stuff, sick grandson and having to call his mom in sick to be excused from classes.  Lots of little busy details that I have to remember to take care of.  Glad for my PDA that helps me keep organized. 

So, arriving home tired, I sat down at the computer to quickly check my e-mail before making supper.

I never expected the news I read – Massa is coming.  Not just a notice of the positive decision to send him here but dates and flight numbers of the plane he is coming on. 

Waiting.  It has been 8 long years of waiting, paperwork, waiting, repeating the paperwork, waiting.  Praying.  Reminding ourselves that God had led them to the place they were at.  Praying and waiting.

I haven’t seen these guys since we left the Congo in a hurry back in 1991.  They were Eric’s best friends, like brothers.  They were always around.  The cement cooking stand on my back porch made a good seat when there was no charcoal fire burning there.  Someone was always hanging out there and these guys were often there.  All young guys like chocolate cake or just a drink of water after a soccer game.  There were always soccer games.  And there were the spoils after hunts or fishing trips and I had a freezer. 

There are so many memories.  Having Massa arrive will be like having one of my own boys come home after being apart for 15 years.  It will be so good. 

But we still wait.  We have good news about Massa but there is still Younde waiting in Cameroun. 

Bring him home too, God.  Merci Nzambe.  Na motindo na yo, yaka na ye awa noki.

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April 5, 2006 · 9:36 pm

More on Nouwen

There are some outstanding things about Henri Nouwen I learned from Michael O’Laughlin’s book. 

 

One was the decision made by Nouwen to identify himself with Jesus even if that meant being humiliated and scorned by those active in the academic world.  Henri came out strongly advocating that Jesus was “the Son of God come down from heaven” and the central point in Christian spirituality.  Tolerance of religious belief was something Harvard was proud of.  Celebrating Christ’s divinity was not politically correct and Nouwen began to experience rejection.  He was criticised for “spiritual imperialism” by the students. 

 

Needless to say, this stimulated doubt and depression but at the same time prompted new insights into the “downward” nature of Christian belief.  The road that he was taking did not lead to the “upward mobility” espoused by a generation seeking to become successful and prosperous in the eyes of the world.  It led downward towards humility and simplicity.  Nouwen wrote:

“In the gospel it’s quite obvious that Jesus chose the descending way.  He chose it not once but over and over again.  At each critical moment he deliberately sought the way downwards.  Even though at twelve years of age he was already listening to the teachers in the Temple and questioning them, he stayed up to his thirtieth year with his parents in the little-respected town of Nazareth and was submissive to them.  Even though Jesus was without sin, he began his public life by joining the ranks of sinners who were being baptized by John in the Jordan.  Even though he was full of divine power, he believed that changing stones into bread, seeking popularity, and being counted among the great ones of the earth were temptations. 

 

Again and again you see how Jesus opts for what is small, hidden, and poor, and accordingly declines to wield influence.  His many miracles always serve to express his profound compassion with suffering humanity; never are they attempts to call attention to himself….”

 

 

Henri Houwen began to experience more and more of what it meant to follow Christ on this descending path, finding more solidarity with the poor, oppressed and handicapped.

 

 

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