|
March 7, 2010 Update
Hamjambo,
Rain all night and rain all morning and we had a muddy
quagmire at the plantation today. At the church we learned that there
had been a death in the family of one of our regular attenders,
Margaret. Her 20 year old niece had come over from Kisumu to visit, but
had taken ill suddenly and yesterday she died. They are a Luo family and
they were holding a wake as is customary for Luos. So before church we
drove on over to their house at the opposite side of the factory. On our
way the muddy road turned into a two-tire track trail that then squeezed
into a narrow foot path and we slid to a stop as we ran out of room.
Then we walked down the hill through the tall wet grass and visited with
Margaret and her brother and prayed with the mourners who were gathered.
To get out I had to turn the car down hill in the grass being very
careful not to get too far down, then slowly back up to try to gain
traction on the grass. Back on the muddy trail we were able to slip and
slide our way back to the church. In spite of all the rain and those
missing for the wake we had 74, including two first time visitors, and a
good service.
The reason for the wake is to try and raise money
to carry the body back to Kisumu for burial. It can cost as much as a
year's salary for some because people are very superstitious about
carrying dead bodies, but because of an even greater fear of being
haunted people are adamant about burying the dead where they were born.
They call this superstition, "the living dead." Since Margaret has been
faithful in our services and singing in the choir, and since the whole
plantation is sort of like an extended family, I suggested that we give
this week's offering to the family to help with their costs and
everybody agreed. Pray for Margaret and her family as they are planning
to leave Thursday to go to Kisumu for the funeral. Kisumu is on the east
shore of Lake Victoria, about six or seven hours away.\
Wednesday
I called immigrations and was treated rudely by the woman that I
sometimes have to deal with. So Thursday I called back and got the man
who has been handling my case. At first he started to tell me about my
lost file, but I wouldn't listen to that. I've seen my file on his desk.
No, he told me, that is my application. It along with about 50 other
applications are on hold because the files with all of our immigration
records in them are lost. I finally understood what this is all about.
People have been telling me for two years my application only
needs a signature from some higher up person, but there's nothing anyone
can do to get it done. It's amazing how hard it is to get a simple truth
out of somebody. The problem has never been my application, neither has
it been sitting somewhere waiting for a signature. The whole file down
in the archives is lost. The curious thing about that, however, is that
the time he showed me my application on his desk, he was thumbing
through a folder with the other applications with missing files, and as
I watched him look for mine, the picture on every application he thumbed
through until he found mine was of a mzungu, that is, a white person. No
Asian or black people's files were missing, just whites. It still makes
me wonder what exactly is going on.
Anyway, I asked him why they
couldn't just make a new file and start over. After all, it's been two
years this last week since I first applied for renewal. He said that's
the very thing the Chief Immigration Officer has been discussing with
the cabinet people above her. I asked, why is it so hard for them to
decide what to do? Well, he said, bureaucracy is slow.
Can't
argue with that, and I guess that's about as good an answer as I'll get
for now. At least it appears that they may be working on it. Please keep
praying.
Lance Patterson |
