Once in a while I meet a kid who just seems to be different from the others. He or she seems to have some God given gift, to some how have been chosen. Or is it simply that there is some kind of instant bonding, as if our paths were crossing for a very specific reason. When it happens, I never really know why and perhaps I never will, but something compelling tells me to pay attention to that child and not to ask why. It happened again last week in a land so remote it’s as if one were stepping into the pages of a National Geographic magazine. Equian is his name and he comes from a place called Lokipodo, although I first met him at my friend Greg and Mindy Yost’s house in Lodwar, Turkana.

A little fun with some friends

My friend Don Gause and I had pulled our truck into the Yost’s yard after a punishing drive from Mount Matelo some two hundred kilometers to the south in Pokot. Such was the condition of the road that the journey had taken us some eight hours to complete although we had a couple of flat tires to repair along the way. The sun had begun to sink over the western horizon as we arrived yet it was still well over 100 degrees when we stepped from the vehicle to be welcomed by Greg and Mindy to their home in Lodwar.         “So”, Greg asked after greeting us, “are you guys ready for an adventure tomorrow?”         “We had one today so why not another one tomorrow” I replied, wondering what he had in mind.         “Cool” Greg said, “some thing just came up. We brought a guy back from a very remote area in the bush recently, he had T.B. of the bones but unfortunately he died yesterday in hospital. We need to take him back to his family and quickly because there’s no refrigeration in the morgue here so the body won’t last long. I had a coffin made today so we’ll pick him up in the morning and head out. It’s about a six hour drive into the bush country to a place called Lokipodo.”         I looked at him half expecting him to start laughing but he was serious. With a name like that this had to be an adventure I thought. I can’t even make this stuff up

Dad's final resting place

Sure enough, the next morning we headed out for Lokipodo, the corpse of the old man secured in the coffin and strapped tight on the roof rack of Greg’s old Land Cruiser which was being driven ahead of us by George who, at the time, was my personal hero since it was he who had picked up the body that morning. George is apparently the ‘go to’ guy on Greg’s team in times like this. Greg, Mindy, Don and myself followed in a second vehicle along with young Equian. Not until we had set off did I learn the old man was actually Equian’s father and he had been under Greg and Mindy’s care while his father had been in hospital.

Elders at the goat roast

Now I should note here that it’s only 18 months since Lokipodo was first visited by any westerner and, it being Greg and Mindy’s mission is to train leaders and plant churches, Greg was the first white guy to visit there in a very long time, perhaps ever. The road consists of a track really which winds through the bush country. Being used only for animals it was made wide enough for a vehicle just a few weeks ago and was funded by a local politician who had ventured out looking for votes to secure his office. The people had requested he send them someone to teach them about the God who lived in the towns and so Greg got the call.

Equian

Now although the people are very friendly they have hardly been exposed to any western influence save that of the shuka’s (colorful blanket) they wear and sleep with and the all to readily available AK47 semi-automatic weapon. Being pastoralists the men are nomadic and often run into conflict with other tribes seeking grasslands. The weapons are bought from Uganda which is only 25 kilometers to the west, although the Turkana know of no such boarder. In fact, these people didn’t even know they were a part of Kenya, so isolated they had been.

Greg and Mindy

In Turkana, the usual custom for burying the dead is to simply cover them in an animal skin and collapse a boma, over the body. (A boma being a high, thorny fence where animals are kept at night safe from predators.) Our first job then was to gain permission from the elders to actually dig a grave and bury the coffin with the old man in it. George, being of Turkana origin himself, began the negotiations which apparently went on late into the night with the elders. Equin’s father had been a very influential leader but had also been one of the first to accept Christianity. My first job though was to erect a couple of tents before the last rays of light once again disappeared over the western horizon. The job done, our team sat in our camp chairs under a silvery moonlit evening, drinking sweet milky chi that our cook Mutay had prepared for dinner. We talking about the days events and listening to Greg giving us a short history lesson of the Turkana people. Soon we crawled into our tents and I for one quickly drifted off to sleep, far away from familiar things but feeling close to God.

Tie it down tight

The following morning George informed us that the elders had decided that a burial should take place and so we walked to the place where the old man had lived and began to dig the grave near his home. The men of the community wanted no part of the proceedings however since it was way beyond their realm of any spiritual ritual they were accustomed to and who knew what evil spirits could be released they reasoned. They all took off to the bush, not a single man was in site, and only the women remained to participate in the ceremony.         I began to question the reason the men had taken off into the bush before we had dug about three inches below the earth’s surface because it’s about that depth that clay is found, baked so hard in the harsh Turkana sun that it’s one step away from becoming granite. It took perhaps three hours to penetrate one meter deep when it was unanimously decided that was deep enough. Even young Equian helped dig, I wondered what was going through his mind, did he even know it was his father in that box? I stood behind him with my hands on his shoulders trying to reassure him. He looked up, is sad expression told me he knew.

We're off to Lokipodo

Finally we lowered the box into the ground and George gave a message and read some scripture to the women in their native tongue. The whole community formed a line and filed by the grave dropping sand on top as they did. Equian too took his turn, silent, tough, resilient expression still etched on his young face as he said goodbye to his dad. He glanced over in my direction, we were communicating by facial expression, he through more dirt into the grave and walked on.

Finally the grave was covered and we went back to our campsite. The men appeared from seemingly no-where and a goat was brought and duly slaughtered and roasted over a fire. The older men sat in a semi circle while the younger ones did the work. As visitors we were ‘rewarded’ with the choice pieces of the meat. Our bellies full, I was asked to talk to them about the bible and who Jesus is. George did the interpreting and we had a fascinating interaction, in the middle of nowhere, sat around a campfire with a bunch of guys toting AK47’s talking about Jesus. Nighttime once again came all too quickly, the men shook hands with us and drifted away like silhouettes fading away into the darkness. We, their five visitors, headed the opposite way to our camp.

The question arose the next morning as to Equian’s future. He had the opportunity to attend a school whilst in the care of Greg and Mindy and he was anxious to return. His father, I assume, had wanted his son close to him while he was receiving treatment which had afforded Equian the opportunity to attend school for a few weeks. But now, Equian was to take over in his father’s footsteps and some ritual ceremony had to take place to hand over that right. A debate began, Equian’s mother obviously not happy with the prospect of losing her son too. A compromise was reached and Equian was to stay with his mother to be released later to attend school which I felt called to sponsor. We waved goodbye and headed off on the dusty track back to Lodwar.

It didn’t take long for Equian to catch up with us because two days later he arrived back at Greg and Mindy’s home, courtesy of the local politician who dropped him off there. He was so excited to be back. I had wondered what effect the passing of his father might have had on the community of Lokipodo since he had recently embraced Christianity. But in losing his life Equian’s father had unknowingly given his son an opportunity. As his earthly father had lost his grasp of life here on earth so Equian’s life has been grasped by his heavenly father and once again a very bad situation has been turned into good. How wonderful it is to know, that I too am in that same grasp.