He said “No. It’s because your nose.� I said “oh yeah…thank you.� And proceeded to sing a Jewish tune I know from a Jewish hip-hop band named SoCalled. I think that impressed him. He laughed. I get the Jew thing a lot here, or Prophet Nathan. They love that. Mzungu is translated white person. “Mzunjew� is a new phrase given to me by Rachelle translated, white person who looks Jewish because the African’s think I have a huge snoz. Hey, if Adrian Brody or my man from Scrubs can get girls to like him with that honker than I’m pretty sure I’m golden. Anyways. I spoke on the radio the other day. Some Christian radio station in Uganda that gets 1.4 million listeners. NPR eat your heart out. Jonathan was on the week before me and felt guilty for using the phrase, “all other religions are crap� on live air. I tried not to burst into laughter as I sat in the booth with him. I told him not to worry about it because no one was listening to him anyways. When it was my turn the following week Jonathan introduced me as a fine looking fellow, 5 foot 12 inches, weighing in at 120 pounds. I punched him the van on the ride home after my fifteen minutes of Ugandan fame. Mostly because I’m easily 145 pounds and all muscle. Needing to one up Jonathan with my turn on live air I decided to sign off that day, “This is Nathan ‘Paul Harvey’ Salley, Good Day!� My Uncle Paul would be proud. The radio thing wasn’t ever actually about Jonathan or I though. I talked about it always being the Lord’s season to do a good work in us. About how everything is meaningless under the sun without the one who created the sun. I talked about the “God Bless Us� mentality in church, when at times I feel like he already has blessed us and we need to begin to “Bless God� with our words and actions. I talked about health & wealth preached across the globe which cheapens the scriptures into a God that’s our personal genie or Santa Clause. I talked about the point of being born again isn’t to have all of our problems fixed by saying magic prayers that are selfish in nature. Its so we can rely on Jesus to fill those wholes in our lives, rather than chasing after everything that is meaningless under the sun, a chasing after the wind. I talked a lot about how to view prayer. After that I hopped on a bus from Lira to Gulu to meet up with two other teams working at Child Voice International. Sorry blogs have been lacking. Just wanted to say thanks if you are still reading these things. Did I mention that a rat ran across the room while the m.c. took a nap on the floor during Jonathan’s fifteen minutes of live air. Crazy. That’s all for now, Nathan “Paul Harvey� Salley
I posted these out of order. This is from last month in Uganda. Enjoy.
I met an African man the other day that told me I was a Jew. I decided to go with it. I figured it was because of my stellar beard and black ray-ban glasses Rob Bell would be proud to wear.
