On Tuesday, I went to Monduli (yes, there and back is about 4.5 hours crammed into dala dalas!) to meet with Pastor Nangole. While he is retired as District Pastor of the North Central Diocese, I believe he still has some advisory or board role at The MaaSae Girls Lutheran Secondary School (MGLSS), being one of the founding collaborators with the late ELCA missionary, David Simonson. While I was greeting him as a friend and seeking his wisdom as a Maasai elder at the beginning of my project, I was introduced to an evangelist from Soit Sambu, which is not too far from the northeast gate of the Serengeti National Park. He was in Monduli with his daughter, who was going to interview the next day for a position at MGLSS. “Evangelist” may be an uncomfortable concept for some Westerners, but here it is the role of a lay pastor who has gone through some theological education by extension (TEE) with some trainings at the center in Olonyo Sambu.
Besides having been in Soit Sambu a couple times with Pastor Nangole, this Tuesday’s visit seemed Providential for a connection with the Eric Hanson Memorial Scholarship. So, let me give some background about this scholarship.
My late husband, Eric, and I had/have a deep appreciation for the work of the evangelists in Maasailand. They are paid a pittance, but they are the ones who are on the front lines of ministry. They live among the people they serve and are very trusted. (The pastors come around once every one or two months to preside over communion, and with a bachelor’s degree, they are paid better and hold a higher status in this hierarchical society.) Eric had one special evangelist friend, and so we’ve always appreciated our connections with the evangelists.
When Eric passed from brain cancer in 2010, I knew that flowers, etc. would not be what Eric wanted. So, I set up a scholarship in Eric’s name at OBA for the children of evangelists, then a few evangelist parents could be released from the burden of trying to pay for secondary school fees. It could encourage them in their calling as evangelists—encourage evangelists and support education for the Maasai—as well as being a meaningful memorial to Eric! Perfect! Now for Christmas and birthdays in the Hanson family, we mainly give gifts to Eric’s scholarship, with a few small things under the tree.
Remembering Eric Hanson
The original scholarship was in partnership with Moringe Sokoine Secondary School, also a Lutheran school in Monduli, because there was no way at that time for me to get students into MGLSS. I knew and trusted the leadership at Moringe, and they were prudently separate from the scholarship committee but provided good transparency and accountability. Ultimately, I knew I could get evangelist’s children into Moringe. The scholarship was to be communicated to the North Central Diocese through Pastor Nangole.
I met the first 2 scholarship recipients at Moringe during one of my visits. However, the head of school informed me that these students came from really weak primary schools, and they were not advancing in their studies. I agreed that they could not keep on and limit the accessibility of another student from having a seat at the school. So, sadly, the evangelists kids were removed from Moringe but not removed from my prayer list.
Thus, my hopes for the scholarship were dashed. I talked with an ELCA missionary about perhaps shifting the program to vocational training, but I didn’t have a good network to make this happen when living in the USA.
Later, with the changes at MGLSS and opportunities to support Maasai girls from rural Maasailand, the scholarship was opened to fund students at MGLSS. (Yes, one is graduating this spring, and I will be there.) While all girls’ education is important, I was a bit discouraged with missing the opportunity to support evangelists’ children. Yet, of course, I was glad to be able to support girls at MGLSS.
This is the background to what seems Providential in meeting the evangelist from Soit Sambu, whose daughter has advanced academically enough to be called for an opportunity to interview. Thus, I have told Pastor Nangole that if she was accepted to MGLSS, I would like to get her sponsored through Eric’s scholarship. I have not met her, and my desire for funding is not a specific person but for funding an evangelist’s child—and other similar candidates. So, with the coordination of Pastor Nangole at MGLSS and Jason, Director of Operation Bootstrap Africa, the 501(c)3 organization that administers the scholarship, there is now one more student at MGLSS. She arrived today at school, the day of this writing.
Please pray for Sara as she gets settled in a new and very different environment, a boarding school very far away from home.
Wow, what a journey for that scholarship! I remember when you established it. Sad that it didn’t work for those two, but glad that there will be one of the MGLSS students, child of an evangelist. Bless you for continuing it. . .great way to honor Eric.