Ordinands from 'out of town'

            The final trip to Gaborone of students from Matsiloje, Serowe, Letlhakeng and Lobatse – ordinands too far away from Gabs to come to our regular weekday classes – is this past week. They have come before: My first week here in January (see my ‘St. Augustine Theological School’ posting below), again in March, and now in late April. They will sit for exams in mid-May.

            This has not been ideal, and we all know it. Regular classes, with time to reflect between them, week after week, is far preferable educationally to full days of seven different courses, one after another, followed by weeks of little to no contact. But it’s not clear what the solution is. We don’t have sufficient funds to be traveling north, which would be less demanding on our students. Oddly enough, it turns out to be cheaper to have them come here, and they have to get away from work and other responsibilities.

But we do what we can. Each day begins with Morning Prayer, and then away we go: This term its Biblical exegesis, the Pentateuch, the synoptic gospels, the doctrine of the Trinity, sacramental theology, the history of the Reformation, and ‘ministerial calling and spiritual formation.’ 



Fr. James Amanze in class

At lunch we head to the Y.W.C.A., which has a cafeteria with food that is inexpensive and filling and, to some extent, traditional. As the day ends, the ordinands return to a Catholic retreat centre, where we have found lodging for them.



Bonny Bashe welcomes Karen Spencer

            Thursday night they remain until I finish my class with our Gaborone ordinands – Fr. James Amanze urges me to finish early! – and then the School hosts a welcoming reception for Karen, who arrived a week or so before. Fr. James has some fine things to say, and he is followed by Bonny Bashe, the president of our student association, who does as well. It suddenly occurs to me that they will expect Karen to say something, so I whisper the news to her.

Karen does fine. Really, very fine. And happily, she resists the temptation to say that what she really missed in the three-plus months I have been gone is that I do most of our grocery shopping and cooking. I am grateful for that.

Friday Karen and I have the ‘out-of-town’ students over to our place for dinner. Fr. John Hamathi, our other lecturer, and his bride come, along with one of the student’s wives and another’s university daughter. It is all very relaxed and pleasant until I ask what we at St. Augustine’s could do to improve their experience.

There is awkward laughter, then a few exchanges in Setswana that no one translates for me, then silence. But as the conversation moves on, one comes over and sits next to me. He leans over. ‘We need to be placed in congregations under a priest while we are in this program,’ he says. ‘Those in Gaborone are, but we are not.’ He is right. There are good reasons why this is the reality, but he is right. I thank him.

As my final Saturday class winds to an end, I wonder if I will ever see these men again. They will probably remain in Francistown for their exams, and we may have someone there invigilate for us. And then, only a few weeks later, Karen and I head back to the United States.

I have prepared a final handout, which contains the wonderful General Thanksgiving that appears in our American prayer book. It’s the one written by my liturgy professor at Virginia seminary, Charlie Price, a man for whom I have had the greatest respect and affection. At the end of the class, we stand together and offer that prayer.

There are two parts of the prayer that I am especially drawn toward. ‘We thank you for setting us at tasks which demand our best efforts, and for leading us to accomplishments which satisfy and delight us.’ I have reminded the ordinands that they have faced demanding tasks here at St. Augustine’s, and they have accomplished things that really should ‘satisfy and delight them.’

But I also love the next part of the prayer: ‘We thank you also for those disappointments and failures that lead us to acknowledge our dependence on you alone.’ I cannot remember any other prayer in which we thank God for ‘disappointments and failures.’ It’s part of Dr. Price’s great wisdom that has us say this today.

Then we end with the prayer for Africa that is in our prayer book here in the Church of the Province of Central Africa. ‘God bless Africa…,’ we say together. And then we go on our way.

Art for five-year-olds in Mogoditshane

            Wife Karen has not been here in Botswana long before we travel out to the St. Peter’s Day Care Centre in Mogoditshane.

            Gladys Mudereri, the director of the Centre, is always welcoming. The periodic reports of the Centre are filled with stories of volunteers who add to the energy and, well, joy, of the place. All of whom, it seems, receive a gracious welcome. Her greeting to Karen is no different.

            Mma Mudereri – well, Mmaruti Mudereri, for a priest in Botswana is Moruti, and wives of priests, including Karen, are Mmaruti – anyway, Mma Mudereri and Mma Spencer set out to plan what Karen might do. By the time we leave (I am simply Karen’s driver, as she has not yet embraced driving here), the two have decided that Karen will do some art classes with the three-, four- and five-year-olds, will do workshops with teachers about art in the classroom, and may have a session with the caregivers of these orphans and vulnerable children.

            Our first quest is to discover if there are any art supply stores in Gaborone, and if so, where. We go to the Craft Market, where we find a gallery owner and several local artists having coffee. We join them. We learn that there are two stores here. If they don’t have what she needs, they say, the only alternative is to go to Johannesburg, where there is one store that these artists obviously love.

            The idea of a drive to Joburg quickly grows on me, but I am to be disappointed. The two shops here may not have a great inventory for professional artists, but they are reasonably well stocked for art in schools. Karen picks up some things and we head home.

            I know that Karen has become settled in Gabs when the coffee table is covered with her art projects and my cookware and cooking utensils are coated with glue and coloring. Her first class – with five-year-olds – is to be papier mache. She blows up thirty balloons, tears my newspapers up (most of which I have read), and begins to make homemade glue.

            The St. Augustine Theological School is soon coming to the end of the term, and I have some final course preparation to do and some concluding handouts to write. I have visions of driving Karen to St. Peter’s, where I will find a quiet corner to work on my laptop.

            No.

‘When I think of all the things I have done for you in your work,’ she begins. And she is right. During my time at Greater Birmingham Ministries, the Washington Office on Africa, and the Diocese of North Carolina’s School of Ministry, well… the list is quite long. My making a case for my plans really doesn’t hold up.

            The children are remarkably attentive as Karen shows them what they will be doing. They are making papier mache fish. I quietly pray that they know what a fish is. That is not a safe assumption in a desert country.

But they happily set out on the task. There are plates with Karen’s glue in the center, ample quantities of strips of newspaper in front of each child, and balloons rolling around on the table in front of them. Soon there is a quiet buzz in the classroom as they begin to glue strips of paper onto the balloon.

Many of them actually manage to cover the balloon – which is their goal – before the class time is over. The teacher, her assistant, Karen and I all assist a bit, spurring them on by adding paper ourselves. I see Karen smile when I tell one child that she needs to put glue on the paper before she tries to stick it on, but then I see her roll her eyes when the child persists and I say, ‘Well, dry is good too.’ There are other diversions. Those boys who clamored for a large balloon discover how much more work it is to cover big ones, and one child finds it fun to wash his hands in the glue. But they are remarkably diligent in the task.

            We hang the finished papier mache on a string I have strung between a cabinet and the windows. The line is low enough for the boys to reach up and tap the balloons – it’s low enough for the girls, too, but for some reason they don’t try – but I can’t get the line any higher. The teacher may have a challenge here before Karen returns for the next stage, adding colored paper, and tail, and eyes and a mouth.

The Botswana Immigration saga

            I am the proud owner of a sticker in my passport that says ‘Republic of Botswana – Permit – Residence – Extension.’

            This is a good thing. My first 90-day visa expires tomorrow, the same day I am meeting wife Karen at the airport. My Diocese of Botswana colleagues and I both agree that my fleeing across the border the day Karen arrives to be with me here might be seen by Karen as an issue. The Dean of the Cathedral of the Holy Cross observes encouragingly that the South African border is very close by and she could come across and visit me, but I’m not sure that will resonate with her.

            So now I have it. It’s been quite a saga. I show up at Immigration on March 25 and find the computer system down but – thanks to Diocesan Secretary Ben Motlhalamme’s presence – I learn that they are content with the papers we have assembled. I take him to the office, return, the system is now up, and I clear that hurdle. I look to the adjacent counter, Revenue, and discover it is closed until noon. I return at noon and am told to return at 2:00. I do, now at the end of a long line. Finally, close to closing time, they accept my money for a 90-day extension, and I have the papers to prove it.

            I am to return after Easter to secure a stamp in my passport, and I do. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The computers are down all day. Friday they tell us not to bother to come. Monday Immigration is chaotic and I give up.

            Yesterday I come once again, early, prepared to wait as long as it takes. I bring a 600-page book, water, snacks, and a banana. But... I don't get to eat a bite or read a page. I end up with a ticket numbered "1" and after a few minutes, during which the official sighs and leaves her desk with my file (an ominous sign), she returns, attaches a visa sticker to my passport, and I'm home before I know it.

How strange.

Easter at St. Carantoc's

            Easter Day at St. Carantoc’s in Francistown, Botswana’s second city in the north-eastern part of the country.

            I was the preacher and celebrant here in 2010, on the day in which they honored their saint.  That sent me scrambling to figure out who on earth he was – a sixth-century Welsh abbot who crossed the Bristol Channel with his ‘portable’ altar made of stone and the boat sank and he went looking for his altar and there was this dove that took away shavings he was using to light a fire and where the dove went is where he built his church, and I think there was a dragon in the story somewhere.

            Put in that light, preaching on the Resurrection of the Lord seems a piece of cake.

            There was no priest in 2010. Now Fr. Raymond Kawaya, a former Roman Catholic priest from the Congo (DRC), serves the parish in Francistown. He generously invites me to preach and celebrate.

            Gordon Cosby, the founder of the Church of the Saviour and its Servant Leadership School in Washington, D.C., died a week or so ago. Mindful of his gift to the church universal and to so many of us, I preach the predictable things about the empty tomb, and then move on to ask: ‘What do we do after Easter? Today we say, Alleluia, Kreste o rudile. O rudile e le ruri. But, what do we do tomorrow?’

            I remind the congregation that on the day before Jesus died, ‘he washed the feet of his disciples. And when they complained that he should not be doing that, Jesus taught his disciples to be servants, just as he had been a servant to them.’ I tell them that ‘I believe that our happy celebration of the risen Christ is but the first step in our witnessing to the Good News. Our next step is to find ways to be a servant, to serve, not to claim authority over others, but to serve.’

And then I bring it home: ‘Priests are not rulers over the rest of us. Church wardens are not rulers. Lay leaders are not rulers. The head of the Mothers’ Union is not a ruler.’ That – the reference to the Mothers’ Union – is when I notice some knowing looks exchanged among the women wearing their smart-looking white MU jackets and black hats. ‘They, we, are called not to rule but to serve,’ I conclude.

Whenever I am in a parish, either here or in North Carolina, I talk beforehand with lay ministers as to what they typically do and do not do. Here I ask what they sing – Gloria, Sanctus, and so on. At St. Carantoc’s, I need not have bothered to ask. They sing everything. They sing the Nicene Creed. And they start without any lead from the priest.

The choruses and the settings are wonderful. It may be that their music is the high point of this Easter for me.

The Eucharist proceeds without any major errors. I am getting a bit more comfortable doing part of it – mainly the one-liners – in Setswana, and Fr. Raymond is managing the thurible, much to my relief.  And I don’t spill any wine when I lift the chalice at the Doxology, as I did in 2010, only to hear the assisting lay minister gasp.

As is common here, the children dash up to the altar for a blessing at the end. I enjoy that.

My daughter and her family are here. I notice the congregation is helpful to them, passing them a bilingual prayer book and Setswana hymnal from time to time. Jon is invited to say a few words during notices, and he does the Church of the Nativity in Raleigh proud.