Cape Coast Ghana

During the BGU course in Ghana, we took a trip to the Cape Coast Castle, which was the sites housing the most slaves during the transatlantic slave trade.  Cape Coast Castle housed, loaded on ships and sold literally hundreds of thousands of men, women and children.  I journaled my thoughts for class.  That journal is reproduced below.

01/23/2010

Today we traveled to the Cape Coast in order to tour the Cape Coast Castle and see the site of one of the great tragedies of human history.  It was from this castle that thousands of abducted Africans were housed in dungeons before boarding ships that would carry them to live and die as slaves in the Americas and the Caribbean. 

Even upon entering the facility, I felt as though I was entering a prison.  Despite the barracks converted into tourist shops and the ticket window that soften the feeling in presenting the place as a museum, the essence of the place remains.  The first stop is the dungeon.  You descend into the bowels of the Castle and into the holding spaces designed for the slaves.  A strong imagination is not necessary as the physical space, though excavated and cleaned, still has an odor, still has a claustrophobia, still has a stone stench that presses in and is still able to remind the dweller that there was a time when the door behind did not open and lives inside where no longer theirs.  It hurts to be there.  To stand on the hard pressed floors and feel the tight rock-walled room and imagine 200 isolated men living in their own waste looking up at a slit in the wall 35 feet up that imitates a window is an oppressive experience.  And I’m just on a tour.  Even hiding behind the lens of my camera cannot keep the hard feelings from soaking my soul. 

We would see other rooms.  Many of them like the first, but of different dimensions and shapes.  One holds men, another holds women, one is for pre-departure another for disobedient slaves, one is windowless, one has big windows but an iron gate all of them leading towards the same future of bondage beyond horror. 

Above ground and above the slave holding cells were various cannons, platforms, offices, barracks, and living quarters.  I was amazed at the near serenity of the castle above ground in stark contrast to the harsh environment below.  From here you can see and hear the sea, feel the breeze, look at boats and sky and waves and wonder.  At one point we made our way to the captain’s quarters and the bedroom.  While standing there, looking out the windows, I noticed that from that vantage point you could not see the inner courtyard of the castle, rather only the beach and sea below.  I suspect it would have been easy to forget, from this bedroom, the tragedy being exercised on the people being dislodged of their humanity just a few feet away. 

To come to such a place with such a rich and tragic history produces a rush of emotions.  For me, so much of what I felt was a wash of shame.  I think that this was especially poignant because I was with Africans and African-Americans and by their presence I became profoundly aware of my whiteness.  The point at which I felt this most strongly what when Dr. White had us stand in the dungeon where the women who had been violated by men like me were held.  Then in that place we sang ‘Amazing Grace’.  I was embarrassed to sing.  Embarrassed to stand there.  Embarrassed to be a Christian. 

The reasons for my embarrassment are not new reasons to me.  I know that I belong to a group that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the name of money, country and religion.  And to say that I didn’t take part or that those things were so long ago only serves to distance myself from the pain and skirt the responsibility and culpability that rests at the feet of every American and British Christian.  Now, a few hours removed from the event my thought is that it is good for me to feel the shame.  For several years now I have understood that in many ways the hand of the oppressor is my hand, yet by God’s grace.  And I have understood my call as a Christian leader to be one who stands, speaks and acts on behalf of the oppressed, poor and marginalized.  But such a posture and such a calling can lead me to believe that I have somehow moved past feelings of guilt and shame.  I think it is like a Christian who is reminded again of the depth of depravity and the great grace that has been extended.  Just as I need to be reminded of the sin from which Christ saved me, not to be condemned but as an antidote to pride, so too do I need to remember that my collective history is tainted with slave ship captains and plantation owners as well as with abolitionists and freedom fighters.  There are both weeds and wheat in my field.

Working towards Dr. Watson

In January I began, what will undoubtedly be a long and difficult journey.  I started a doctoral program.  If I do this right and well, in 3, or 4 or 5 years, you will have to refer to me as Dr. Watson. 

I enrolled into Bakke Graduate University’s Doctorate in Ministry in Transformational Leadership for the Global City program.  The title is a mouthful.  But basically, it focuses on equipping Christian leaders to minister effectively in global urban environs.  I’ve been looking at this program for a few years but have not been in a steady enough situation to be able to begin.  But with the encouragement of my family, the counsel from a dear friend and mentor, Randy White and the blessing from my church, I took my first course; in Accra, Ghana.  It was amazing. 

As part of the course, I was required to journal 2-3 pages a day over the course of the 12 days I was there.  Below, are excerpts from the first few days of my journals:

01/19/2010

First day of class and I’m surrounded by 13 other students; 5 Americans, 4 African, 3 Chinese and 1 Canadian.  We begin with a series of introductory remarks and orientations.  Then we go around the room and introduce one another.  Although many of us have been interacting online a good bit prior to the course, it is good to put live faces and real voices to Facebook pictures and posted online comments.  Joel in person is like Joel online, but taller.  Dorrie and Melissa look different than their pictures and sound different than they write.  I’m glad to be in the class with all of them.

Salomon is from Niger, in my opinion, by far the most difficult of all the places represented.  It took me 2 days by plane to get here.  It took him 3 days by bus.  He’s wise I can tell.  I can’t imagine the difficulties he’ll face as he goes through the program.  When I begin to complain about how hard this gets or how much I have to do, I’m going to think about him sweating like a madman for 3 days on raggedy piece of shit bus, having to pay bribes at every boarder crossing all because he has a call from God on his life to be an agent of transformation in a place that is hotter than hot and that most people don’t even know exists, and the ones that do know can’t pronounce his city correctly. 

Phoebe is a pastor in China and frankly I have no category for her.  I’ve never met a Chinese pastor that pastors in China.  All the Chinese pastors I know pastor churches in San Francisco.  And all of them are men.  And secondly, I can’t say that I know a single female senior pastor.  In a country where I’ve heard they abort female fetuses, to have in front of me a female Chinese pastor, living in communist China and who leads a congregation twice as large as my own; well, I’m impressed.  Awed really.  Even though she didn’t come by bus.

01/20/2010

I’ve never met Stefan, but I have been in the same room with him.  And when you’re around someone as great as Stefan that’s got to count for something.  He’s the founder and Executive Director of the Tswane Leadership Foundation.  I first came to know of Stefan and his work when I was in Fresno working for a sister organization to his, the One by One Leadership Foundation.  That would have been 8 years ago now.  Though we share many common friends this is actually the first time we’ve met face to face.  And quickly I came to realize that he’s one of those people that has a great deal of wisdom, strength and tenderness.  All of which lay just below the surface enough, that you could pass him in the airport and not notice at all.  But if you talk with him, and listen, it bubbles up, catching you almost unaware but not off guard; you’re able to glimpse the depth of his soul as well as his intellect - both of which come from a deeper story and a richer life that he gives you peeks at because to give the whole story in one sitting would overwhelm.

 Then there are the stories that I tell myself.  I was reminded of those stories while riding around Ghana.  There is a grand narrative of West Africa that I have bought into and experienced.  My very last experience with West Africa was not good.  I was a wounded by the uglier side of the culture and it has served to confirm the African Grand Narrative that is dictated and propagated by a source other than Shalom.  If I’m not careful I’ll let that narrative be the only narrative I hear and that I tell, even if I only tell myself.  The tour did not speak to the things that still anger me about my previous experiences; about corruption, about lies, about shifting responsibility that leads to no one taking ownership, about the ways that I, as a white person, am viewed only as a container of money and thereby dehumanized in the same way that Africans have been viewed only as a receptacle of pity and aid and likewise dehumanized.

01/21/2010

[As Christian leaders] our blind spots will not be identified by others with the same blind spot but by those who see and hear differently.  Thus, we listen to the artist, the engineer, the welder, the banker, the rich and poor, the city and the history of our faith.  So much of the work of reflection for the urban Christian leader will take place in the between places of the City and the Church, the Genders, the Races, etc. 

 01/24/2010

We finished up our tour of churches at Christ Apostolic Church.  This fellowship began several decades ago and is firmly trenched in the faith-healing and Pentecostal expressions of Christianity.  They proclaim themselves as the ‘Mother of Pentecostal Churches in West Africa’.  This church I did not observe as with the others.  This church I experienced.  And the experience caught me completely off guard.  When I walked in the congregation was fully engaged in worship; and by fully I mean fully in the most Pentecostal and charismatic senses of the word. 

The situation surrounding our leaving Nigeria and our denial of return is a painful one.  There remains a lot about Nigeria that hurts me and angers me.  But, on that Sunday at the Christ Apostolic Church, I found a great measure of healing.  Healing to things that I didn’t know were still wounded.  In that service, though we were there only for a few moments, God brought to mind areas of my heart that needed soothing with the balm of the Holy Spirit.  I find it completely just and merciful, that God used the mouths of West Africans to sing to me a song that I had forgotten.  I find it appropriate that I was healed in a church that was founded on a belief that God, by faith, heals the broken.Dancing, kneeling, twirling, toungue-speaking, weeping.  And they were singing a song I knew. It was a song that I had heard literally 100 times.  It was sung nearly every other day in Nigeria and upon hearing it, in this place, a flood of emotions and memories came over me and I was overwhelmed. 

Justice Arrives

Robert and Noemi left on a Monday.  Justice arrived on Thursday along with his mom and dad and ‘uncle’.  Darin, Meeghan and Justice came out from California to spend a weekend with us.  Justice’s ‘uncle’ Shaner came out as well. 

Lisa and I were introduced to Darin & Meeghan by a mutual friend, Shane Claiborne nearly 4 years ago.  They, along with Shane, have been incredible friends walking with us over the years; through our relocation to Nigeria, the difficult return and the nomadic months, the respite in Marin and then the move to Memphis.  During the nomadic months especially, the Darin and Meeghan opened their home and we spent several weekends with them as well as some days with Shane in his community in Philadelphia.  These 3 friends have shown to us, in incredibly consistent ways, what it means to be a part of a beloved community, despite distance.  They have faithfully prayed for us and kept up with us despite our ever changing addresses. 

So, now that we have a new address, we thought it would be good to have them all over.  Shane was speaking at a few places around Memphis so it afforded us an excuse to all be together.  It had been, really a few years since we’d all been in the same place with a relaxed pace.  Often times we have to squeeze in meals together at a conference or retreat setting.  This time, the pace was slower, and the time sweeter.  We ate great meals that Lisa prepared, visited the civil rights museum, ate barbeque in north Memphis, talked a lot, told stories, laughed, cried, prayed and hoped for another chance to all be together again.  When they left, my heart was sad to see them go, but refreshed that they had come.

Robert & Noemi

When Lisa first joined the staff of IVCF she had a dual role as Urban Project Director and as Campus Minister at Fresno State.  Her first year on staff, she had a staff partner that assisted with the campus work at Fresno State.  After the first year, her partner left staff leaving Lisa to fly solo on campus. 

The higher ups in IVCF figured they would just end the Fresno State chapter, let it lay dormant for a year or two, and wait for reinforcements of additional staff in the coming years.  Lisa appealed and recommended they don’t close the chapter but let her continue to serve the dual role and invest primarily in the student leaders that were a part of the Fresno State IVCF chapter.  The higher ups said, “ok, good luck with that”.  Lisa remained faithful and invested heavily in the student leaders.  Robert and Noemi are two of those leaders.  Now, they are serving as Intervarsity Staff.  The IVCF chapter remains today and is strong.  Additionally, Robert went on to pioneer an IVCF chapter at Fresno City College, which also is strong despite its newness. 

Robert & Noemi have remained friends with Lisa and Lisa continues to pray for and encourage them.  We were excited to have them visit our new home and new neighborhood and to worship with them at Living Hope.  They stayed with us for a few days.  The visit, as are most visits with folks you love and miss and love being around, felt short.  When they left, I had a deep sense of pride, the kind of pride one might have in their children or in a family member.  I am proud at the leaders that they have become.  And proud of the way they are following Jesus.  I was proud of my wife, who had invested in them years ago, even when most would have stopped because they wanted to or had permission to.  I was proud that she continues to invest in them now,, years later.  

And I was full of joy, because in between then and now, the Kingdom of God had come near and we all noticed, and rejoiced because of it.

A Cuban Bob Vila

We closed on our new house and one of the first things we did was set the date for the House Warming Party.  Now, mind you, we had a bunch of painting and a slight remodel we wanted to have done prior to the party, but, being new homeowners we were optimistic that all this could be done with relative ease and with little money.  Long time homeowners are collectively shaking their heads at the naivete of the above statement. 

The good thing about setting the date of a house warming party before you move in, is that it forces you to have the house all moved in and ready to go before the party.  The bad thing is, things can happen.  So, me and the 3 guys from Fountainhead Construction Company (which I highly recommend by the way) were at the house until midnight on the eve of the party finishing the mudding, sanding, painting, cleaning, decorating, sprucing, etc.  At 6:30pm the following day, the house looked fantastic, filled with 50 of our closest friends and smelled like fresh paint and a Douglas fir. 

A week later we had our first overnight guest.  The Minturns stopped over in Memphis to spent a night or two with us.  Todd & Carrie served with Lisa at IV during our time in Fresno where they continue to live in our old neighborhood, love their neighbors and give significant leadership the IVCF movement in Fresno and throughout the central valley & central coast.  It was great to see them again, and see our boys playing together.

A few days after that, Lisa’s Dad & Grandpa (Papi) arrived up from Miami.  I don’t know how long of a drive that is, but unless your running from the law, I don’t think you want to do it in a day.  Lisa’s Dad, Oto, is a Cuban Bob Vila.  He swirled around our house, painting, repairing, improving and fixing stuff that I didn’t know was broken.  By the time he left there were parts of our house that looked completely different and bore the marks of being touched by a true craftsman rather than the simple brush strokes of a first-time home owner.  

They brought with them part of the roasted pig from the Noche Buena celebration two days prior.  Lisa headed up to the Hispanic market, returning with black beans, yucca and Pilon and we feasted like generals in Castros court.  I’m still smiling from that dinner.  This was Papi’s first visit to Memphis since we moved and our first real time together since Abuela’s passing.  I was delighted to see him, and have our family spend so much time together.  The boys had a blast and it was fun having them around. 

We rang in the New Year with Papi & ‘Grandpa’ as the boys call Oto.  Then the next day they made their way back to Florida.  A day later Robert & Noemi arrived and we had overnight guests #7 & #8 (we’ve been in the house 3 weeks at this point). 

Robert and Noemi drove over to Memphis following the Urbana Missions Conference in St. Louis.  It was a fantastic visit and beautiful time of catching up and reflecting back.  I’ll recap that story in the next blog.