Thinking of Africa...May 2014

Joining FaceBook in late April connected me with my second cousin (once removed), Ruth Barham Bell.  Ruth--born in Northern Rhodesia in 1941 and now living in Canada--and I discovered a mutual passion for family history!  I'd met Ruth's brother Ray and their mother Lois Frey Barham in Zambia (formerly Northern Rhodesia) in the early 1980s when I was working there with Zambia Nurses Christian Fellowship.  Ray was working as a third generation missionary teacher and linguist, along with his Canadian wife Terry.

My cousin Ruth serves tea to her friends in Northern Rhodesia in the 1940s…sweet reversal of the prevailing social practices at the time!

Hunting for sport was not typical among my missionary relatives, but this lion had been killing cattle belonging to Ruth's family and their African friends.  Ruth and her younger brother Ray are pictured with their father, Leslie Barham, Northern Rhodesia, mid-1940s

Ruth generously shared photos from her mother's album, such as those above.  Ruth's father Leslie Barham was a linguist, largely responsible for translating the Bible into the Bemba dialect; her mother was a teacher and master gardener.

I was especially delighted to receive several old photos of my great aunts and uncles, some of whom were pioneer missionaries in the Rhodesias.  I'd been researching and writing about them for many years, finding their stories--set in the context of the British colonial era--instructive and inspiring.  They erred at times, but also loved greatly.

From left:  my great aunt Naomi Lady, her son David, great-great uncle Harvey Frey, great-great uncle Lewis Steckley, Mabel Frey, great-great aunt Emma Frey, great-great aunt Elizabeth Engle Steckley, Arthur Climenhaga, Lois Frey, David Climenhaga, Mary Elizabeth Heisey, John Climenhaga, Emma Climenhaga, toddler Joel Climenhaga; Photo taken at Matopo Mission, Southern Rhodesia, 1924

1959 photo of my great uncle Jesse Lady and wife Lucille (left) with the Frey/Barham family (from right:  Ray, Leslie, Lois, Mabel, Ruth) in Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia.

Much of the month of May 2014, which marked the end of our first year in Ecuador, was spent at my computer.  I completed the book on Haitian women Sally Lincoln (sallylincoln.com) and I had envisioned and submitted it to a publisher.  My cousin Ruth's research inspired to me keep working on the stories of my missionary relatives.  And I gave more thought to writing about my own time in Africa in the 1970s and 80s, a rich experience made even more so, in retrospect, through the illness and trauma that were part of my final months there.

Enjoying early moonrise (look left) from our Loja terrace

Mother's Day lunch on our terrace

 Journal entry:  May 31, 2014

Sleepless night…restless with upcoming travel plans, thinking about writing memoirs and about the course of my life.  Meditating on Psalm 119:  44-45:  "Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage.  I remember thy name in the night, O Lord, and keep thy law." I think of the many houses of my pilgrimage (more than 30) and remember that the most important aspect of place is not the living, per se, but the loving that we do there!