Fr. James Amanze, who heads the Diocese of Botswana’s companion link committee, has given some good thought to my coming, and to my work while here. I arrive on Friday, and Saturday morning finds the two of us already sitting down, note pads at the ready, to sketch out what my schedule might look like.
I am here because folk here have a vision for an Anglican House of Studies, one that might train ordinands, help prepare lay ministers, and offer continuing education for clergy. At least I think that’s what they want. The plan is to meet with clergy and lay leaders to hear from them what they think this thing might look like, and a House of Studies may be quite a different animal before we finish. Anyway, they have asked me to help them think through their hopes for theological education.
It doesn’t take long before Fr. James and I are anticipating three workshops; even the dates are set. We are to have one with clergy, another with lay leaders in the south, around Gaborone , and another in the north, around Francistown School of Ministry
The plans are energizing. Well, sort of. Memories of my recent flight come back to me, and I begin to fade. The workshops can wait.
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I have a place to stay, and a kitchen, and I am provided a car, so as soon as possible I make my trip to the grocery, carefully driving on the left. Food “independence” is a reassuring sign of becoming settled, removing reliance upon restaurants and the generosity of others.
Grocery stores in other countries provide a glimpse of their cultures. I browse around. In the “butchery” section there are nicely-packaged slices of “cow hoof,” and some kind of entrails that I don’t want to even think about. Many of the staples are from South Africa Windhoek lager, from Namibia
As I leave a woman sidles up to me in the parking lot, as if she has something illicit to offer. “I have some potatoes to sell,” she tells me.
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I am looking forward to being in the congregation at the English-language service at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, and I slip quietly into a pew. I’m barely settled when I am extricated from my spot, vested in an alb, and placed into the procession to the altar. All this, before 7:30 a.m., and I’m still jet-lagged. I sigh. Not a good beginning.
A good service, though, and after the distribution of the elements at the Eucharist, I watch children come to the altar rail for a blessing. I’m asked to assist. Three young girls are the first at the rail, and I place my hands upon their heads and pronounce a blessing. I’m building up steam to move down the rail when the third girl tugs on my alb. “Please pray for her,” she says, motioning to the second girl. “She cannot see.”
I do so. And I pause to watch the three girls leave together, the two helping the sightless one back to their pew.
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The second service at the Cathedral is the Setswana-language service, with a dash of English tossed in from time to time.
The retired bishop, Bishop Naledi, is the celebrant, and he has Fr. James sit to his left, and me to his right. During the offertory, he leans over to me and says, “I don’t know if you were a Scout, but priests are also always supposed to be prepared.” He looks at me. I respond noncommittally.
“Do you have your English prayer book?” he asks. “I want you to say…,” and here he repeats a few phrases from the Eucharistic Prayer that seem familiar.
I do not know that Bishop Naledi has steadily lost his sight during recent years, and he can no longer read. (He has committed the liturgy for Holy Communion to memory.) Thus, unaware, I hold out the prayer book, asking him to point out what, exactly, he wants me to do. He does not look at it.
The good Bishop leans over once more. “Just start right after the Acclamation,” he instructs, “and just fire away.”
I smile. I’ve rarely seen “fire away” in my study of liturgy.
Then he concludes: “When you come to ‘Jesus Christ,’ stop.”
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