Eldoret #4

Well hello everyone,

Today is Thursday here and it was my last full day of teaching in Eldoret. Because teaching goes slower than expected, since almost every thing I say or read must be translated into Swahili, I chose my lesson on Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well (Jn. 4:1-42) as the lesson for today. It was my longest lesson, simply because the context must be made pretty clear for the proper understanding. So I first dealt with the history covering the relationship between Judah and Samaria, so that the class would understand the enmity that existed between the Jews and the Samaritans. Then I had to spend sometime to explain what the Samaritans, and also many Jews, understood by the word “Prophet”. The Samaritans understood from Dt. 18:15 that there was going to be no other prophet between Moses and Messiah. So when the Samaritan woman exclaimed, “I can see that you are a Prophet” she actually says "you are Messiah", even though she is afraid to start discussing what that implies for her. She has to get back at that subject via a detour, so she asks the Lord, "Where should we worship? Here on Mt. Gerizim or in Jerusalem?"  When Jesus answers that question in a totally new and radical way, the light goes on and she says, “I know that when Messiah comes he will explain everything to us.” With this statement she refers back to everything the Lord has revealed to her so far and she begins to believe. And then Jesus responds by saying, “I who speak to you am he.” At this point her whole world changes and the sun breaks through her clouded existence. She no longer cares that she was treated as the outcast in town. So she runs back to town to proclaim that she has found Messiah. When they come out in strength to meet this men whom she has identified as Messiah, the miracle is that they too believe and beseech Jesus to stay for a while. So he and the disciples agree to stay for two more days and many more come to a saving faith in Christ.

Now where it gets pretty interesting is that, in spite of their cultural differences, the disciples stay, and reconciliation takes place between them and the Samaritans. They have to eat together, talk together, and does it go too far to say they held hands together and prayed? The point though was that the class began to see that there are currently “Samaritans” living among them, and so we worked together to identify them. We identified Muslims and other tribal units living among them, and even prostitutes and drunks. It was very interesting to hear one of the pastors explain, “You know we must do something different with the Muslims than we do now, because what ever we do now certainly is not working. We only hate each other more every day.” This was just great. They were getting it! 

Also today we made a lot of progress toward understanding that women are indeed real people, equal but different from men. They really responded when I took them back to Genesis where the LORD GOD says, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper suitable for him.” Many take this to mean that the woman is inferior to man because she is only a helper. Then I showed them Ps. 27:9 where David sings, “You have been my helper,” where the you refers to the LORD. And of course the famous line uttered by Samuel, “Here I raise my ”Eben-ezer”, (“ezer” is Hebrew for helper) to commemorate Israel’s God given victory over the Philistines. So is God as helper of man inferior to man? Well they saw that this was not very likely indeed. So I believe that we made a lot of progress to instill more respect and appreciation for women.

Then also what has been pretty good has been the help I have gotten from Miriam’s friend Stella. I don’t believe I could have done it nearly as well without her. It still is hard for me to understand English spoken with a Kenyan accent and so she really helped me by repeating the question in American English. Also with her some students in the class were able to ask their questions in Swahili wherein they are much more fluent. Also, her biblical insights and cheery disposition made working with her a very good experience.

To close the day out they sang once again a beautiful hymn with wonderful harmonies and beautiful antiphonal parts to it to thank me since they had experienced such a wonderful day. This lesson on the Samaritan woman at the well just blew them away. It was so great to help them see inside the mind of the Samaritan woman and reason out why she said what she said, and then to appreciate the response from the divine mind of Christ was truly awesome. It has been a great teaching experience in a wonderful facility with a very special group of students, who have grown in their understanding of the Word and who I believe are truly changed. Then they also were just great in how they also reached out to Lois and me in song and prayer. I really love them.

Well that must be it for today,

Hans