Home Horizon

On empty nets, tired hands, and the grace to pull again.

Teaching theology students at Bishop Okullu College deep in rural Siaya, western Kenya, has often made me wonder where, exactly, a theology classroom ends. The college, a theological constituent of Great Lakes University of Kisumu, is nestled deep in rural life beside Lake Victoria. From the college, you can see the waters. Rural life has its challenges, but it is also formational. The college offers a strange kind of retreat: away from the community, yet deeper into it.

One day, the students are hidden from public view in classrooms, interacting with theological jargon that the community neither understands nor cares to know about. The next, they are in the marketplace buying food, or along the lakeshore talking with people whose concerns do not arrive neatly arranged under the headings in textbooks. Theology has to make that short journey. It has to leave the classroom and find its feet among people who cook, bargain, fish, worry, and wait.

One afternoon, some of my students suggested that I join them for a walk to the lakeshore. We meant to enjoy the walk and, if we were lucky, buy some fish to take back to the college. The students cooked their own meals in the hostels, so a little fish would have been a welcome ending to the afternoon. One question led to another, someone disagreed, a debate began, and soon we were at the lake.

There was not much to see beyond the usual life of the shore. More urgently, there was no fish to buy. We asked around, and some fishermen told us to wait for the rimba, the nets that were about to be pulled in. We waited. Then as people began to gather around the ropes, we figured out that watching was one thing, but joining in pulling rimba looked like more fun, so we joined them.

Our conversation swiftly moved from pastoral and theological concerns to the work in our hands as we pulled alongside the men and women on the shore, adjusting our grip, finding a rhythm, and asking how much longer the net had to travel. I was particularly assigned the work of rolling the pulled parts of the net neatly into a ball, a duty I understood to require meticulous care and attention to detail. I think I excelled. An hour passed, then another. For four hours we pulled, all of us tugging at hope.

As the catch drew closer, our excitement rose. Buyers also began to appear from everywhere carrying baskets. My students and I readied our money, banking, perhaps a little too confidently, on first priority as pullers. We had already begun to imagine how much fish we would carry back to the college.

Finally, the net came ashore. It was opened, and the fish were spread out.

Alas! There were barely enough to share.

It was difficult to avoid looking around into the faces of the people. Disappointment registered on everyone’s face. The women looked at the few fish, glanced at one another, then looked away. The men looked sideways, as if scanning the horizon for an alternative source of the next meal. My students and I did not know where to look. Those who had been in this situation before seemed to know how to react. We did not.

But something in the eyes of the fishermen intrigued me. They did not show their disappointment. They looked somewhere between hopeful and dutybound. I assumed it was hope that made them begin disentangling the net, ready to launch it into the waters again. They had it prepared in a few minutes.

I also saw a sense of duty in how they handled the little they had caught. It was custom just as it was with hunters, I remembered from my childhood experiences, that however small the haul, it had to be divided among those who had pulled. Even my students and I, who had arrived expecting only a walk and perhaps some fish for supper, received a piece.

But one thing stayed with me: the almost nothing.

And that, perhaps, is The Gospel According to Jarimba – the net-puller. Faithful labor. Shared struggle. Agonizing patience. And the results? Almost nothing.

The gospel according to Jarimba is the message of grace showing up, not in abundance, but in the absurdity of still showing up. It is when we wait for breakthroughs that never break through, but we are still waiting. It is when the nets are light, the fish are few, but somehow Jarimba still pulls and still launches again and again into the waters. It is when we pray and keep trying, but come back with blistered hands and aching hearts.

The gospel according to Jarimba is a student repeating the semester, but not quitting. It is the wounded saint choosing not to be bitter. It is an African student applying again to a Western university, or an immigrant seeking a visa after yet another refusal, disappointed, exhausted, and somehow willing to try once more. It is temptations bringing us down, and scandals tearing our reputations apart, but we still hope God will be merciful. Why? Because in God’s economy, showing up empty still counts as worship.

That afternoon, I had wondered whether four hours of pulling had been worth it. The fishermen did not answer my question. They shared the little they had, gathered the net, and rowed their boat back into the water to cast their nets again. I have thought about them often since then.

In my life, I have always wanted many nets full of answers. But in my many failures, God has made me an answer in many almost-empty nets. Our miracles may not be the perfect lives we envisioned. They may be the fact that even after we are beaten, we are still here: still pulling, still hoping, still standing.

From one Jarimba to you, my fellow Jarimba, here is my encouragement: stand tall. Keep pulling. You may have come back with almost nothing. But you are still here, and somehow, you are still everything.

“Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net.” – Luke 5:5 (KJV).