Dispatch Africa 2024: Traveling for the Bible Institute

I loved and respected Lazaro Kiriama like a wise and learned uncle. He was well known among his peers as a gentle man of quiet strength. I enjoyed his company and never parted without having gained from it. What follows are a couple of light-hearted anecdotes to provide a bit of insight into the heart and character of the man I knew.

I first “experienced” Lazaro Kiriama in the Spring of 2012 when Dr. Stuart Sheehan and I were peddling our wares for the Bible Institute in Arusha, Tanzania. A meeting was being held at a small, lush conference center in the very shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro. Stuart and I were tag-team-teaching before a distinguished group of pastors and church leaders with whom we hoped to partner in chartering our first Tanzanian training location. It was my turn, and I was teaching an abridged version of one of our courses as a sample of what the pastors and leaders might expect in terms of content quality should they elect to move forward with the new location.

As I taught, one of the men in attendance, a dark-suited, stern-looking fellow with the bearing of an elder statesman, interrupted. Anyone could see that my interpreter had been struggling to keep up. He nervously muttered and meandered along, using twice as many words than I to interpret what I had said. The elder raised his hand, waggled his finger at the hapless interpreter. Shaking his head, he said, “No, no, no, no, no!” in a low voice. He then offered a brief correction in Swahili. The pattern continued. Each time the elder suggested a correction, the chagrined interpreter would bow in deference, bob his head, and try again. After six or seven of these mistake – interruption – corrections, the pitiful interpreter and exasperated elder both had reached the limits of their restraint. The elder stood, dismissed the perspiring interpreter, and took his place next to me. With an easy grace, he leaned over, smiled, and said, “Please, ‘tee-cha’, ‘caddy’ on.” Thereafter, the instruction went smoothly and quickly with no further interruptions.  My new interpreter was Lazaro Kiriama.

Some years later, I was back in Tanzania working with Lazaro and his colleagues. This time, my cousin, Dustin Martin, was traveling and co-teaching with me. I’d just begun a three-hour lecture with about a hundred students, and I was feeling pretty good. The hot African sun was rising in the sky, but the full heat of the day was yet to arrive. I was exploring the depths of some theological point. The students were laser-focused, and hanging on every word. Lazaro was interpreting at my side. And just then, an acute bout of the tummy tantrums came suddenly upon me. A startling gurgle of discomfort rapidly arose in my innards. Lazaro heard the rumble and glanced my way. At first, I tried to ignore it, but the discomfort quickly turned into a sharp, roving pain. My face contorted. A hundred quisitive faces stared back at me. I panicked. I gingerly eased myself forward to rest my elbows on the lectern for some relief. I began slowly shifting from one foot to the other, twisting my torso this way and that. I tried every possible position to negotiate my relief. The pain would not relent. I tried talking myself through it. That didn’t work. I tried praying under my breath, “Oh God! Lord, please, no! Not now, not right here! Lord, please! Oh God, no…” Even so, waves of pain kept coming. I began to hyperventilate. My body was spasmotic. I could not stand upright.

At last, Lazaro realized I was no longer lecturing. He saw my hunched figure doing the herky-jerky. Perspiration was dripping from the tip of my nose, and terror had spread across my brow. Lazaro knew I was in trouble. He immediately sized up the situation and sprang into action. He declared a 15-minute student break, threw my arm over his shoulder, and helped me off the stage and out the side door of the church in a dirt alley. We hobbled together across the alleyway toward a dilapidated pink outhouse. The door was missing and we looked inside. We were instantly traumatized and horrified. The most pungent odors were wafting up, not from a toilet, but from a hole in the ground. The acrid stench and the unsanitary condition of the public privy made me convulse. Lazaro turned me around and quickly helped me out of the alley and down a residential avenue. Unembarrassed and caring nothing for his own reputation, he frantically, yet with dignity, beat on garage doors and security gates, one and then another, calling out in Swahili over each wall for someone to come to my aid. The pain was becoming unbearable, and my hope was running out. I knew I wouldn’t make it, and I was ready to give up. I prayed some more. At the last moment (the very last moment, I tell you), a receptive houseboy opened the gate and allowed me access to his employer’s private, indoor facilities.

Lazaro went far above the call of duty as a Council Chairman. Needless to say, I was relieved in the extreme and grateful beyond expression. Spiritual attacks can come in all sorts of packages, but warfare is waged in prayer. Even though I couldn’t see it, the Lord had a plan. Lazaro and I bonded like two soldiers in a foxhole that day. I will miss my brother in arms, who taught one purveyor of agape the actual meaning of the word. With much affection for his memory, may his kind be found everywhere upon God’s mission field, until Jesus comes.