8

Mosquitoes Win

My time in the Horn of Africa convinced me quickly that none of my educational or professional training had equipped me to face our Somali experience. I wrote a letter to the person who was most responsible for preparing me for cross-cultural living:

Dear Dad,

Since we’ve been in Africa, I have found that little in my formal education or professional experience prepared me to love, live, and work with Africans. But growing up in our family, the things that you and mom instilled in me—the need to take personal responsibility, the importance of treating people right, a strong work ethic, the value of working with my hands, rubbing shoulders with ordinary, everyday people—those are lessons and life skills that I use here every day. Even understanding the cycle of life, from the planting of seeds and the birth of animals, the growing of crops and the care of livestock, to the harvesting and butchering of the food we consumed—those experiences growing up help me to better understand and interact with people who cultivate fields or herd camels and goats in this part of the world.

I took for granted so many of the everyday things that I did and learned growing up. But it’s now very clear to me that God intended me to be your son in order to prepare me to live among the people of the world. What I learned working alongside you on the farm and doing construction, I am now using overseas. You trained me in ways that few people are trained and you gave me what college and seminary never could have given me. I just want you to know how much I value and appreciate our family heritage. Thank you, Dad.

Love, Nik

Ruth and I had originally planned to go overseas as soon as I finished my educational training. But when my mother and father went through their divorce, my two youngest brothers and my little sister were still living at home and had to take the brunt of the acrimonious fallout. It seemed best for us to be living nearby for a while in order to provide encouragement and emotional support.

We stayed close to home after graduate school and I became the pastor of a small-town church. There, Ruth gave birth to our first son, Shane. We then moved to another church in another small Kentucky town. There, Timothy, our second son, was born.

Even though I found satisfaction as a pastor, I never really relished my role. I felt that I had the skills to be a pastor, but I never felt that continuing to pastor Kentucky churches was what God wanted me to do with my life.

Sometime in the early 1980’s, we hosted an overseas speaker at our church. When he gave the altar call after his message, Ruth and I, who were in different parts of the sanctuary at the time and didn’t consult with each other ahead of time, both responded by coming forward to pray and to renew our personal commitment to serving the Lord overseas. We had each felt God speaking to us about the same thing at the very same time. We made an immediate decision to begin the application process for overseas service.

I don’t know how much paperwork the apostle Paul had to provide before his first overseas journey. But in the nearly two thousand years since Paul began his ministry, it seems that most denominations and ministries have developed what they consider to be a biblically-based bureaucracy. Our application process plodded along for months before we succeeded in jumping through all the hoops that finally brought Ruth and me to our final face-to-face interview with an administrative committee. This group was responsible for endorsing and approving all overseas appointments; finally, we had an opportunity to talk with them.

The committee members were clearly impressed with Ruth from the start. She told her story of being called to serve God overseas as a third-grader, how her sixth-grade writing project had helped confirm a specific calling to Africa, and how her summer experience in Zambia during college had given her a realistic picture of third-world living and erased any doubts that she might have had about her career plans.

When they asked me the same question about when I had received my call, I looked around the meeting room and simply said, “I read Matthew 28.”

They thought that maybe I had misunderstood the question. They patiently explained that a special calling was required before someone could go out into the world and do this kind of work. I was not trying to be clever or disrespectful, but I responded, “No, you don’t understand. I read Matthew 28 where Jesus told his followers, ‘GO!’ So I’m here trying to go.”

That prompted a thirty-minute explanation about the distinction between the call to salvation and the call to ministry. What was required, I was told, was then a call to take the gospel out into the world, and perhaps even a fourth call to a specific place in the world. Then they asked me what I thought about what they had said.

I was young and naïve enough to think that when they asked me that, they really wanted my opinion. So I gave them my opinion. “Well, it appears to me,” I told them, “that you all have created a ‘call’ to missions that allows people to be disobedient to what Jesus has already commanded all of us to do.”

That wasn’t the best thing to say. When no one seemed to want to respond to my statement, I looked over at my wife, and I saw that she was quietly crying. I suddenly thought, “Oh no, I may have just cheated Ruth out of ever getting to fulfill her calling to Africa—because I didn’t know the denominational code words.”

Somehow the committee voted to approve our appointment anyway. I was thrilled about that, but I simply couldn’t understand the distinction that they were making between these different calls.

And, honestly, I still don’t understand that.

When I share with churches today, I often suggest that people read Matthew 28. When I read that chapter, I notice that Jesus never says if or whether you go; He simply talks about where you go! God may have to give instructions about the location—the where. But there is nothing to negotiate about the command to go—God has already made our primary task perfectly clear. When I tried to explain that to the appointment committee in 1983, I just about ended our appointment process on the spot.

We received our official appointment to Malawi on August 11, 1983. We then had another few months of specialized training and preparation before we were ready to go.

We left for Malawi on New Year’s Day, 1984. We arrived at the airport for our departure with a mountain of luggage. We had already crated and shipped everything that we would need to set up housekeeping for the next four years. But we had to carry with us all the clothes, supplies and personal items that we would need until that shipment would arrive a year later.

The gate agent eyed our huge pile of stuff. “Where in the world are you going?” he wanted to know. We told him that we were going to Malawi for four years and we explained what we would be doing. Motioning toward five-year-old Shane and three-year-old Tim, he inquired: “And those boys are going with you?”

We told him, “They certainly are!”

He looked over our shoulders to see all of Ruth’s family, and all my family, gathering behind us to say goodbye. His eyes filled with tears. He began loading our luggage onto the conveyor belt. He asked our boys if they would like to take a special ride, and then he hoisted Shane and Tim up onto the last of our moving luggage. He then walked alongside them as the conveyor belt turned and went out of sight. He actually let our sons ride the baggage conveyor all the way to the backside of the Louisville International Airport terminal (this was a long time before 9/11!) so that they could see for themselves where all of their belongings would be loaded onto our plane. A few minutes later he brought the boys back to check-in with us—guaranteeing that they would never forget their first plane trip.

The good-byes were bittersweet that day. Ruth’s family was thrilled for us, of course. I think a lot of my family members were still trying to understand why we felt that we needed to do what we were doing.

I was every bit as excited and uncertain about what to expect as my pre-school sons were. I had never been overseas, had never before had a passport, and didn’t know anything about international travel or jet lag.

Arriving in Malawi, we were met by about thirty cheering people —Malawi church leaders and American workers—holding banners that read: “Welcome Ripkens.” It felt like a homecoming even before we knew that Africa would come to feel very much like home to us over the next twenty-seven years.

After a few weeks of studying the Chichewa language, our language coach took us around the country. We got to choose where we would live and work. Although our decision required that we begin learning a second tribal language, we chose to live among the Tumbuku people in the mountains near the city of Mzuzu, the regional capital of northern Malawi. There we helped start churches and worked with nearby Tumbuku churches. We also planted and/or oversaw many Chichewa churches.

We very quickly fell in love with the people of Malawi. They welcomed us warmly and were incredibly open to learning about Jesus. They were also among the most loving, generous, thoughtful, and hospitable people that we have met anywhere in the world. If I had to stay overnight in the bush, villagers would sometimes carry the pieces of a bed-frame and a mattress for miles over rugged trails so that I could be comfortable while I slept.

We could have happily spent the rest of our lives working among the people of Malawi. Our entire family loved the land and its people. Unfortunately, we did not have that choice.

During our second year in Africa, different members of our family began to get sick. Ruth began having severe headaches, Shane complained of a bad belly, and Tim came down with a sore throat. These ailments recurred over and over again. Finally, it was determined that we were dealing with malaria. In fact, every one of us was diagnosed with malaria.

When normal treatments failed, it became clear—much to our disappointment and sadness—that we would not be able to remain in Malawi. One morning, I woke up with terrible chills and I asked Ruth to lie back down in bed to help get me warm. As soon as she got under the sheets, she exclaimed, “Honey, your skin is practically burning me.” She got back up and hurried to the hospital and brought back our doctor friend who had first diagnosed our malaria.

I thought that the doctor was joking with me when he asked, “Do you want to see Jesus, Nik?” I figured that some of my friends had put him up to this. I thought immediately, “I know the answer to this question!”

I told him, “Yes, of course I want to see Jesus.”

He looked at me and said, “If you don’t get out of this country soon, my friend, you may see him in a very short time.”