Christmas Letter

Christmas 2016

Last year Christmas day found us in Madagascar. Our very dear friends Pam and Gideon Peteresen invited us to climb the mountains to the east of the Zurcher Adventist University (UAZ) campus. We had a student along since none of us speak Malagasy so he could translate for us. We crossed the highway and walked down into the valley where we crossed a very angry looking river on a couple narrow logs.

Sylvia Crossing the River on Logs

Then we hiked along a narrow mud ridge separating two rice paddies. We passed several homes and some communal graves. We climbed the steep slopes of the mountain until we finally came to a grass covered meadow that sloped fairly steeply back towards UAZ.

Wil in Front of Our Flat at UAZ

While eating our delicious lunch we idly watched a tropical thunder storm pouring rain on the UAZ campus then realized that it was coming directly towards us.  However there was nothing we could do to escape its path. In due course we were soaked to the skin. The trails were all on red clay, which now became extremely slippery, and our shoes built up great layers of clay.

At the University Gate

We spent three months at UAZ as English teachers to the freshman and sophomore students. We also toured a rain forest and a dry forest, both of which sported several Lemur species.

Ruffed Lemur

In many ways our stay in Madagascar reminded us of our 5 year stay in Tanzania way back in the late 1960s. If you wish to read more about our experiences in Madagascar, please see the Sojourn to Madagascar entries in December 2015 and January to March 2016 blogs at http://wils-thoughts.blogspot.com.

Two Ring-Tailed Lemur Babies Riding Piggy-Back

We found the people to be very friendly and helpful. The 150,000 Adventists in Madagascar are quite conservative and often spend all day Sabbath at their churches. UAZ is serving an essential role in providing leaders for the church and its missions in the Indian Ocean and increasingly to the Francophone portion of worldwide Adventism. It was a great privilege to have a brief chance to help their program. If you are interested in volunteering in Madagascar, contact Pam Petersen at headinghomesoon@gmail.com

One of Several Churchs Founded by UAZ Students

Allée des Baobabs in Madagascar at Sunset

Returning From the Trip to See the Baobabs and Lemurs With the Bairagees

On our way home from Madagascar we spent 17 days in and around Cape Town, South Africa. We spent most of the time with long time friends. We toured Butterfly World on our way to climb Paarl Rock. Joy didn’t feel up to climbing, but then, spurred on by our example, she and Rodney joined us at the top where we had a grand panoramic, if smoggy, view of the Western Cape including Helderberg Mountain and Table Mountain.

Rodney & Joy with Sylvia on Paarl Rock

Joy and Rodney are Pam’s parents. On Sabbath Lincoln, Rosemary, and Gwen hosted a potluck with his Sabbath School class. Many of the members are our friends, so it was a great reunion.

African Penguins

The first part of the next week we tried to visit Cape Point but picked a holiday to do it, and half of Cape Town was also trying to get there, so we watched kiteboarding at the Cape’s most popular beach instead. We also stopped at a breeding colony of African penguins. They were called jackass penguins when I was a kid because their call sounds like the braying of a donkey.

With Rodney & Joy in Kirstenbosch Gardens

We reveled in the beauty of Kirstenbosch Gardens that specializes in the beautiful and rich Cape flora. Heather took us out to a posh resort in Arniston where we were able to tour Cape Agulhas and the area surrounding the southernmost tip of Africa.

With Heather at Arniston

The next Sabbath Gideon had invited us to his mother’s home in Ottery, a suburb of Cape Town. Gideon and Pam had come from Madagascar especially to see his mother since she was very sick with cancer. The whole Petersen family showed up, and we had more excellent food than we could eat. We toured Cape Town in the afternoon with Pam and Gideon.

Lincoln and Rosemary took us around to their special sites during our last three days. We drove through four beautiful mountain passes and stopped for lunch at Gideon’s Famous Franschhoek Pancake House, not to be confused with the Gideon in previous paragraphs. We also got to pet alpacas and llamas. Now it’s your turn to figure out what the difference between them is.

With Lincoln & Rosemary Feeding Alpacas

Against my better judgment, I allowed myself to be elected the president of the Fellowship of Adventist Missionaries to Africa (FAMA) at the meeting held in 2014 at La Sierra University. Just before we went to Madagascar, our very capable editor passed away. So in Madagascar I spent a lot of time and energy trying to get the FAMA address list. Then I sent out several Newsletters mainly to apprise our members of our next meeting in Fletcher, NC.

We left home on May 17 to drive to the FAMA get together which started on June 2. We headed towards Indianapolis and then south to Tennessee and eventually our niece’s home in Roanoke, Virginia. En route we got to visit relatives and very good friends. When we didn’t overnight with people we knew, we “camped” in Walmart parking lots. We were driving our F-150 pickup with a cap on the back that covers our bed. We suffered from some very cold nights as well as some extremely hot nights in these parking lots.

FAMA Meeting in Fletcher NC 2016

Thanks to excellent help from many sources, our FAMA meetings were very spiritually rewarding and allowed us to form new friendships as well as renew many old ones. The meetings lasted from Thursday night until Sunday morning, the first weekend of June. When we left there we drove south from Fletcher and paid a very brief visit to new FAMA Newsletter editor, Lorna. She is proving an excellent editor with lots of new ideas and artistic talent.

We continued south to Orlando, Florida. In April we had spent a weekend with a group that facilitates Bible translations in many parts of the world where the Bible is still not available to people in their mother tongues. We stopped at Wycliffe to see firsthand what was happening. Wycliffe Associates has pioneered a radical new translation technique that relies on native speakers of these languages. The average time for translating a Bible has been around 25 years per language and is very expensive. The old technique is too expensive because translators must be supported by others all this time.

 The new technique produces a very passable gospel of Mark in the target language in about two weeks. It uses a computer printer to produce a copy that is passed out to Christians who speak the target language. These critique it and then encourage and support their translators who, with due diligence, can turn out the New Testament in less than a year and the whole Bible in two years. Since the expenses are borne by the local churches, they feel an integral part of the whole production. We are very excited by the obvious blessing of the Holy Spirit on their efforts. Their goal of having a copy of the Bible in every language that people want a translation in by 2025 now seems to be a real possibility.

Wycliffe Associates Bible Translators

We got home before our 51^st wedding anniversary on June 27. A month and a half later I, Wil, came down with West Nile Virus (WNV), a mosquito borne disease. It originated in Africa but is now found in almost all of the states in the U. S. The county health department here keeps close track of the spread of the disease. WNV hit me very hard. I remember taking a group from the church to the San Bernardino County Museum on August 18 to see their new mastodon exhibit. I was feeling sick on that day. Then I remember essentially nothing until the second week of October. I was in hospital for three weeks before they finally diagnosed WNV. It is a rare disease in Riverside County, where I was the fourth person diagnosed with it this year. I hallucinated a lot and spoke absolute garbage. Then they put me in a rehabilitation center for another 6 weeks, where I slowly regained my senses and learned to walk again. I lost 30 pounds (14kg) of muscle during those weeks in hospital. I just wish the loss had been around my waist!

Sylvia Supporting Wil in Rehab

The picture was taken after a total of eight or nine weeks in hospital and rehab.

A headache and dizziness have haunted me constantly ever since my memory kicked in again in early October. Recently I had another MRI done on my head to try and pinpoint the cause of the problem. From reading on the Internet it appears that these symptoms may be with me for a year or longer. My family has been very supportive, especially Sylvia and Elwood who have spent long hours day after day with me. I returned home the end of October. Since then I have been to Joshua Tree National Park three times. I don’t have the muscular strength to climb anything, but I do enjoy the hikes that are somewhat level. I also spend time almost every day hiking in the hills around our home. Our dog, Cleopatra, who has been with us for over 15 years, is ailing and has a hard time doing the longer walks.

Thank you for your prayers for our well being and my healing. We covet your further prayers on our behalf. We pray that you will have a lovely Christmas and a prosperous New Year, 2017. We treasure each of your greetings.

Our Address is still:

Wil & Sylvia Clarke

5547 Wentworth Dr.

Riverside, CA 92505

Phone: 951-687-4556

e-mail: wil.clarke@gmail.com

Sojourn to Madagascar Part 6 - Into the Rut

Sojourn to Madagascar Part 6

Into the Rut

New Year’s Day dawned under a heavily overcast sky. I walked down to the library to see if I could use their Internet. The previous evening I had gone to the Faculty Lounge and had gotten an error message on my U.S. phone that I had never seen before, “No voice, message and data on this plan—Do you want to change plans?” Well, I didn’t want to change plans. Thinking that it might be the Internet, I went to the Library first. There was no WiFi.

UAZ Library

The Library is about a kilometer (6 city blocks) from the house, whereas the Faculty Lounge is almost exactly 200 m (about 1 city block). Furthermore, I walked right past the Faculty Lounge to get to the Library. I walked back to the Faculty Lounge and behold there was beautiful WiFi. This was New Year’s so none of these places were open, of course. I stood outside the Faculty Lounge and called Elwood, Fred, and Jason. They could hear me fine, but I couldn’t hear them. Then I called, Julia, Esther, Jan, Jud, and Elvina, and their calls were crystal clear. My phone had also forgotten that it wished me to change plans.

By this time the sky had cleared up, and a good tropical sun was smiling down on us. After our Christmas experience I knew we would have to pay for the beautiful sky! For starters there was no hot water. They had installed a hot water heater--when it became too embarrassing not to. Nonetheless, my spirits were high as I walked back to the flat.

With the sun so beautiful against a deep blue sky, I suggested to Sylvia that we walk around campus and take some pictures of the university and the gorgeous wild flowers that spring uncultivated all over. We ate breakfast and hung clothes on the line after having washed them the day before.

Fools, we should have acted on that impulse. The clouds rolled in about the time we wanted to start our photo tour. They unceremoniously but quite spectacularly dumped a half inch (12 mm) of rain in 10 minutes. Then it rained on and off for the rest of the day. It was cold and dismal. So the spirits that had soared aloft under the blue sky crashed abruptly, all on the first day of the year.

Sylvia discovered that she had lost both her American and Madagascar phones. She had lost her American phone somewhere on campus the day before and her Mada phone the next morning. We prayed about it. Then we phoned the latter and found it lying in plain sight charging in the bedroom. We couldn’t do that on the yellow phone. We walked up and down campus looking for it and asking people if they had seen it. The next morning she found her yellow phone on the floor next to the bed. Undoubtedly it had been in the bedclothes for almost 36 hours. She had made the bed, and it didn’t fall out the first morning either.

Monday the 4^th we started our teaching duties in earnest. I met with two classes first thing in the morning. Sylvia conducted worship for the language department staff and faculty at 7:30 that morning. I had been asked to talk about my New Year’s Resolutions as a part of the chapel service at 11:00. I told the students that I considered them to be special and to have a brighter than usual future. After all, they are trilingual and in university whereas most of the country would never get a college education. They had an excellent chance to marry someone who is also educated. They were Christian with a hope of life eternal. They seemed to receive the talk well.

A typical day goes something like this.

5:30 I get up, take a warm shower, and often eat breakfast before Sylvia gets up.

7:30 Mon, Tues, and Thurs there is faculty/staff worship. Sylvia makes about half of these.

8:00 Three mornings a week I’m scheduled to teach. In January the nursing students are out in the hospitals doing an internship. In February I will teach them from 8:00 to 5:00 on Wednesdays. I expect to be really worn out that day.

For the last two weeks I have spent upwards of two hours a day wrestling with the Internet—or more accurately, with the lack of Internet.

12:00 we eat in the cafeteria about half of the weekdays. Lunch is a paltry $1.00 each. It consists of a tray with 6 impressions. The large center one holds the rice that is placed there by filling a large soup bowl with rice and then inverting it on the tray. In three or more of the other impressions there is a protein, a vegetable, and a salad. Otherwise Sylvia cooks for us. Sylvia tends to be the chief cook and I the dishwasher.

Cafeteria is the last door on the left. The Faculty Lounge is the second door from the right.

Sylvia teaches two more advanced classes for six units a week and one remedial conversation for an additional one unit/hour. This means she has a lot of papers to grade. My classes, 8 units right now and 13 units next month, are conversational. I give them a simple quiz which takes only a minimal amount of marking. Both she and I have spent a considerable amount of time in class preparation.

In order to get Internet, we have to go to the Faculty Lounge or the Library. At the Library we are competing for bandwidth with a lot of students, so we normally go to the Faculty Lounge. Furthermore, the Library is a half mile (0.8) farther away. On the average we have 3 or 4 power outages a day, at least during the rainy season. Also the Internet connection is flaky at best. Last week Thursday I spent the whole day in the Faculty Lounge, and the only thing I got for my time was a huge chunk of frustration. So both Sylvia and I spend a lot of time doing essentials that a straight forward Internet would do in a couple of seconds.

6:00 We normally have supper at six, although this can vary a lot.

10:00 Goal for retiring for the night.

Our first 10 days in Mada we had rain every day. We hardly ever saw the sun. On Christmas Day we had beautiful sunshine in the early morning but rain the rest of the day. Finally, during the first full week of 2016, we had several days when it didn’t rain. We had two glorious evenings when the Milky Way stretched across the sky, and the two Magellanic clouds were bright. They’re two island galaxies that are associated with the Milk Way. Canopus, a first magnitude star, caught my attention in the Milky way right overhead, and the collection of brilliant stars connected with the Southern Cross were just rising in the low south-eastern sky. Those two evenings have not been repeated since.

Southern Cross and the Magellanic Clouds[i]

On several mornings I have gone outside about 4:30 and seen the magnificent pageant of the planets: Jupiter high in the sky still close to Leo; Mars racing past Spica on its mission to tangle with Antares (in Greek Mars was called Ares); and currently Venus and Saturn make a nice trio with Antares in Scorpio. It would be great to see Mercury to finish out the classical planets all in one quadrant of the sky, but that would be asking too much of the Madagascan sky in the midst of the rainy season. Clouds always form a ring around the horizon.

In the conversation class for first year English/Communication majors, I gave them a quiz the first week:

1. Write your name clearly so that I can read it.

2. Draw a picture of your left palm.

3. Do you want to fail this class?

Nine answered “no” to the last question, five answered “yes”. I repeated the last question several times. This means that over one-third of the class either have a death wish or do not understand English. They theoretically have had at least 4 years of English instruction in high school.

Sylvia gave the same quiz to one of her classes, and one student complained that since he was left handed he couldn’t do question two! [Editor’s note: For this class, I asked the 3^rd question in the negative: “You don’t want to fail this class, do you?” and all of them answered correctly with a “no”. Here they are sometimes confused by how the question is asked. I tell them to answer the FACT, not just the question as worded.]

I tried to use a data projector in class. These are stored in the registrar’s office. The one I borrowed gave a beautiful picture, but the volume was so low only the kids in the front row of the class could hear it. After class I borrowed a second, older projector that allegedly has good sound. However, there was no sound cable, and I didn’t bring one. Its picture was much poorer than that of the first projector. I think my students are destined to not watch a movie in my classes.

Pam has loaned me a small loud speaker. I used it this week and played Esther reading Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink. I had to stop it after every two or three sentences to explain what the English meant in the sentences. It’s a kid’s book, and it is the audio book with the most basic English I have along. This way they hear two people’s pronunciation. Esther, our daughter, reads with very clear diction and excellent expression.

Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink[ii]

I have given every student an assignment to speak for one minute in class next week about something they really love to do. I gave them an example by talking about climbing in Joshua Tree N.P. I’m really curious to see how well they do. Here’s where their years of English should pay off.

As I was leaving the Faculty Lounge after another frustrating session with a very reluctant Internet, a tall young man caught up with me. Most Malagasies are several inches shorter than I; Romain was about as tall as I was. He asked if he could talk with me. I said, “Sure, walk along with me as I go to turn in the key to the Faculty Lounge.”

“No!” he implored, “I am busy teaching math in that room.” He pointed to the room next to Faculty Lounge. I knew there were high school students in the room because they were all in uniform. I stopped.

“I understand you know mathematics?” he queried.

“I taught it for over fifty years.” Word gets around.

Romain went on to explain that he has a degree in Agricultural Engineering and an MA in Agronomics. He is presently studying theology at U. A. Z. and teaching math for the academy here. He mentioned that he had very little math and has a number of questions on several different topics that he doesn’t really understand. He wanted to run these questions by me.

We set up a time for next Tuesday as starters.

On Friday,15 January, while I was sitting and writing on this document--and more or less fluently cussing the deplorable state of the Internet, two students timidly stuck their heads in the door and asked if they could speak with me. Since this room is for faculty, students are not welcome there. Since I was the only person in the room, I invited them in. They were Meola and Denis and are in one of my classes and also in one of Sylvia’s classes. So instead of cussing the slowness of the Internet, I gave them somewhere between a half hour and an hour to practice their English. They wanted to know how to improve their knowledge of English. That’s why we came to Madagascar in the first place.

I encouraged them to get hold of a recent translation of the Bible in English, then sit down with it and their Malagasy Bible next to each other and read the English Bible, consulting with the Malagasy text only when they didn’t understand. I have used that technique successfully in learning several different languages including, German, Dutch, Swahili, and Spanish. It backfired with Dutch because I got hold of a Dutch translation of the same vintage as the King James Bible, and Dutch has also changed a lot since the 17^th century! When Elwood and I spent 5 days in Holland, I caught on to my mistake very quickly.

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[i] https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2823/12643022353_4635c84221_b.jpg

[ii] http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1178941045l/857961.jpg