Remembering Bishop Yambasu

On August 16, 2021, on the one year memorial of his death, we gathered to remember Bishop John K. Yambasu. To be honest, it still feels unbelievable that someone with so much life could be gone from us. Today on what would have been his 65th birthday, I want to rerelease two things: the tribute I wrote to about him two months after his death and a 2018 podcast interview that I recorded with him.

Bishop, you really were the best and I will always look up to you as one of the greatest leaders of your time.

Remembering Bishop John K. Yambasu

It’s been over two months since Bishop John K. Yambasu died and I still don’t have big or beautiful enough words to describe who he was or what he meant to me. There are too many words that could be written and still not enough.

I woke up on August 16 to see the words “RIP Bishop” from one of my students. He had died just hours earlier on the road to a funeral outside Freetown. Sierra Leoneans, like most Africans, understand the importance of a ministry of presence in their bones. They know how to show up. Bishop Yambasu spent his life on the road about that ministry. I can’t say I didn’t get a twinge of worry every once in a while when I saw this Bishop’s comings and goings. Nobody said it out loud, but we all knew that it was a risk. He knew it too. But he was about the work of serving the Lord. He was about the work of showing up.

Since there’s more to say than time to say it, I’ll just share the three things I admired about him most.

Bishop Yambasu was a Laugher
The first thing I heard about Bishop Yambasu was from my Bishop in Central Texas, Bishop Lowry. Before I said yes to Sierra Leone, I wanted to know something of the Bishop I’d be working for. Bishop Lowry was the one who first told me that thing that I would soon know and love Bishop Yambasu for: he loves to laugh. Over and over again I saw him cut through tension or worry or anger or failure with laughter. It lightened every encounter and it made even the most difficult discussions easier.

My first week in Sierra Leone, there was a group of us in one of the offices at the UMC House (Conference Office). The Bishop came into the room. If you spend any time in church work, you know that that’s a thing that changes the atmosphere. America, Sierra Leone, wherever you are, the atmosphere shifts when the Bishop comes in. I was still trying to figure out what kind of Bishop he was and how to act. Do I stand or do I sit? Should I talk or should I not? He noticed and with a twinkle in his eye, asked me if I’d like to try what he was drinking. It was a malt drink, very popular in Sierra Leone and most of the world really, except in the US. And he knew that too. I said I’d love to try it. He gave a new cold bottle to me. It looked like a can of beer. I took a sip. He asked if I like it. I said yes. And without looking at me he announced, “It’s 13% alcohol.” The room erupted with laughter.

I’d had one before in Panama, so I knew he was kidding. I mean, I’ll admit, for a second there I wondered. But what’s more important is that from that moment, I was part of the team. He made it clear, with a good laugh, that I belonged in that room.

The Bishop and me in his office, after I interviewed him for my podcast.

Bishop Yambasu was a Peacemaker and a True Follower
Bishop Yambasu had a way of becoming everyone’s dad. He was certainly that for me. Once, out in the provinces at a new church opening, we were doing a march pass (kind of a parade) to get the attention of the town and show that something important was happening at the new UMC up the hill. It was maybe a mile or two’s walk in the heat of the morning. About halfway in, my driver came and collected me. The Bishop had pulled me from the march because he was worried how I’d handle the Sierra Leonean sun. I obeyed, but I wasn’t happy about it. Doesn’t he know that I’m from Texas?! We have hot sun in Texas too, you know. But then halfway through the four hour service that followed, I started to feel it…exhaustion and dehydration from that hot sun. I was not well. Doggonit if he wasn’t right. Like dads always are.

At the march pass before the bishop pulled me out.

About a year ago, we were all on our way to an event outside of town and I happened to run into the Bishop at a gas station. He was in line behind me and bought my Diet Coke. When we came outside, my driver informed me that they didn’t have diesel at that station so we couldn’t fill up. I worried out loud that we might not have enough to make it to the next station. The Bishop pointed out that there was another station just down the road. I said, “Oh I don’t go to that one. They gave me mixed gas a few years ago, so I don’t use them.” The Bishop smiled and said, “You know, Katie, forgiveness is a Christian virtue.”

I’ve seen this Bishop live out that ethic of peace and forgiveness time and time again. Where I would have written someone or something off, he pulled them in. Where I would have drawn lines, he made compromises.

There has been an ongoing dispute over land given to the UMC long ago that some others claim the rights to. Even though that was settled in court fair and square and the land clearly belongs to the UMC, Bishop Yambasu gave over some of the land in order to maintain peace with our neighbors.

When the UMC was looking at an ugly split, Bishop Yambasu gathered leaders from every faction to try and hash it out. He started out spending his own money going back and forth to the US to try and make peace. He gained the attention and support of one of the greatest mediators of our time who donated his services for free because he believed in this Bishop. It took someone who grew up in one of the most religiously tolerant places on Earth to do something like that. Sierra Leoneans live and breath Christian/Muslim brotherhood and sisterhood. It’s in their blood.

It took someone who believes so deeply in the way of Christ, the Prince of Peace, that he would extend an ethic of peace even to a gas station.

When he told me to forgive that gas station, he said it with a fatherly smile but he meant it. He expected that if I’m Christian, then I will live out an ethic of Christian forgiveness and peace wherever and whenever it’s called for. Forgiveness is a Christian virtue. And if we are truly Christian, we will be about that work.

At the church opening, the Bishop pulled me up to do the last baptism. He was always going out of his way to include me.

Bishop Yambasu Played the Game in Order to Subvert It
I don’t think I was quite prepared when I first came to Sierra Leone to meet the nuances, implications, and consequences of colonization here. I come from a colonized country, but American colonization’s legacy is very different than others for many reasons, not the least of which that many of us come from a direct line to the colonizers and not the colonized. Even though I’m American and Sierra Leone was colonized by the British, here I represent the colonizer and the history feels close enough to touch. There are many still alive today who remember what life was like before independence.

One of the complicated consequences of colonization is Sierra Leone’s relationship to the English language. English is equated with civilization and the ability to speak English well gives you entry into the company of the elite. There is a certain aura around the language and a prestige given to people in other lands whose first language is English. This isn’t unlike many Mexican Americans I know whose parents refused to speak Spanish to them as children as a way of giving them a leg up in the US.

I find this tragic, to be honest. English is a fine language, but it’s not more special than any other. It’s counter-intuitive to me that my ability to speak one language if it’s English is more impressive or important than another’s ability to speak three languages if they sometimes get a verb tense wrong in English. Three languages is better than one. But still if the English is even a little bit broken, people are often written off.

Bishop Yambasu grew up in a small village outside of Bo. I don’t know this for sure, but likely his first language was Mende and then Krio. Likely, English was his third language. And it was impeccable.

Last year when I flew home, I needed a letter from his office that stated I’m a humanitarian worker in order to get an extra bag for free. This was a formality and VERY low on an important Bishop’s priority list. Instead of asking him to write a letter, I wrote it and went to him for a signature and official seal. Bishop Yambasu read over the letter before he signed it. He stopped at an unnecessarily complex compound sentence and asked for clarification. I pointed that the subjects, objects, and verbs all agreed. And then he told me how I should have written it to make it better.

I’ll confess (and I do mean confess) that I bristled a bit when he corrected me. English is my first language after all. And to make matters worse, he was right.

But the more I've thought about it, and I think about it about once a week, the more I am humbled and impressed. This man is my superior in every way, in authority, in title, in faith, in intelligence, in talent, in grip of the English language.

I was never brave enough to talk to him about this, so I don’t know if I’m right. But every time I think back to that little exchange, it makes me smile. Because what I think I understand about him now is that this was a man who grew up under that thumb of colonialist ideas that say that Sierra Leoneans are a lesser class of people than those who colonized them. In this system, their only hope and help is to become more like the colonizer. Speak the language, excel in their circles, learn to live and function within their cultural expectations. And he did that. Better than anyone I’ve seen. He did that. But he did it without losing sight of the fact that it was all a lie. He did it without losing the conviction and the truth of the inherent dignity of his own language, his own culture, his own people. He played the game so well that nobody could question him. And in doing so he subverted it.

When Bishop Yambasu started the process for what would become "The Protocol of Reconciliation and Grace Through Separation", some asked Bishop who gave him the right to do that. There was no official body who asked him to do that. Nobody gave him permission to gather people together to try and mediate a solution. I remember him telling the story of being questioned. Always with a smile. He simply referred back to the UMC Book of Discipline: a bishop anywhere is a bishop everywhere.

He knew the rules of the game that colonialism asks all of us to play…some of us set up to be winners and other losers. He knew it all. And he played it better than anyone so that when the opportunities arose he could subvert the whole system.

And the Apostle writes, "Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord’” (1 Corinthians 1:26-31).

I don’t think the Bishop knew that day he was offering me an invitation to join the cause, but, intentional or not, I accepted his invitation. Because of him, I can’t go back to seeing the way I used to see. I can’t go back to just accepting the rules of the game. He made me realize that I too have a part to play in subverting the system. And that day, I said yes.

Thank you, Bishop Yambasu, from the bottom of my heart. I’ve already prayed for a double portion of your spirit. And I hope every day that I can live up to your giant faith and integrity. God keep you close, until we meet again.