Don Jacobs, exuberant, wise, and remarkably capable of regarding himself lightly, has written a memoir. Here he candidly explores how he simultaneously held the trust of conservative North American Mennonites and the respect of African Mennonites who chose him to be their first bishop. He writes openly about his parents and their cultural differences, and he locates the source of his ability to swing comfortably between worlds in his childhood home.           Jacobs earned a doctorate in anthropology from New York University, although he gave his life to the church around the world, rather than to academia. He reflects on that reality in these pages. His rollicking sense of humor, his clear spiritual commitments, and his searching questions about his own motives thread through this book. Photographs throughout show him at home with his beloved family, and at home in both North America and Africa. Don and Anna Ruth Jacobs today live near Lancaster, Pennsylvania What a Life! a memoir By Donald R. Jacobs Skyhorse Publishing Copyright © 2014 Donald R. Jacobs All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-56148-758-5 Contents Foreword, 1. Touching Heritage, 2. Shaped in Home and Community, 3. School — A New Culture, 4. Meeting Jesus at Eastern Mennonite, 1944, 5. Teaching in Kentucky, 1946–1948, 6. Feeling Unsettled, 7. Life in Lancaster, 1949–1952, 8. From Lancaster into Academia, 1952, 9. Launching out into the Deep, 1953, 10. A Year in Europe, 1953–1954, 11. Introduction to Tanganyika, 1954, 12. Katoke Days, 1955–1957, 13. From Education to Theology, 1957, 14. Reading Scripture with New Eyes, 15. Being a Lancaster Mennonite in Tanganyika, 16. First Furlough–Retooling, 1959–1961, 17. Second Term in Africa, 1961–1966, 18. Fulfilling Denominational Expectations, 19. Personal and Family Developments, 20. Additional Responsibilities as Bishop, 1964–1966, 21. New Location –Nairobi, 1967, 22. Other Responsibilities in Nairobi, 23. Accommodating to Changes in the U.S., 1973, 24. Family Life, 25. Rethinking the Mission of Eastern 247 Mennonite Missions, 1973–1980, 26. Setting the Course for MCLF, 1980–2002, 27. Global Disciples, 1996–2011, 28. Mennonite Church–At Home and Abroad, 29. Pain for the Church in Tanzania, 1980, 30. Promoting Revival, 31. Working with African Enterprise, 32. Sibling Bonding, 33. Retirement–Time to Reflect, Afterword, CHAPTER 1 TOUCHING HERITAGE * * * LOOKING FOR A PAST "Twila, look here!" I carefully lifted a rough brick from the dark soil and moved my hand across it with the tender touch of an amazed lover. My fingers explored every nick, every bump, every smooth section, while my eyes welled with yearning and hope. I knew it. "Twila, this brick is from Great-Grandma Susanna's oven!" What was driving me, a 70-year-old man, as I forced myself into rough brambles covering an area on which an ancient farmhouse once stood? I was consumed by a compelling need to find and embrace a past that I never really knew, yet I hoped that, if I could somehow recover it, touch and feel it, I could better understand who I am. My sister Twila, scrambling among the sparse, half-buried bits and pieces that lay at her feet, and as excited as I, triumphantly held up what was left of a blue porcelain bucket. Twila, 15 years older than I am, like me, carried a strong desire to embrace a past that we never knew, but one that we could perhaps create and shape with a few shards of pottery that we could lay our hands on. The pot of the past was broken, we knew that, but in our mind's eye we could see how one piece might fit with another piece. Together we dreamed of a past where our grandmother, the infant Almira Blough, saw her first morning, where she drank the milk of cows that grazed the pasture above the house, and how she grew up in that home with four brothers and four sisters. Twila, my partner detective, had recently discovered an old framed photograph of the Blough farm. Together we pored over this precious picture. We were always asking "Who?" That was what we wanted to know: "Who were these people who produced us? Who was that Mennonite housewife who baked bread in the farm oven, and who was her husband, Samuel, and that little one named Almira, our mom's mother?" We had examined the dim photograph carefully. Dominating the scene is a two-story farmhouse on a slight rise. Between the house and the sturdy barn, stand several groups of people. My guess is that the picture was taken on a balmy Sunday afternoon soon after Bishop Samuel Blough's death in 1883. I suspect the woman dressed in black was Susanna, his widow, my great-grandmother. Those trim and substantial buildings were set on a sloping hillside, on the steady, long rise from the Stoney Creek River on which the town of Krings was located, to the plateau of Richland, near Johnstown in Pennsylvania. I was drawn into the setting by the magnet of heritage. Pictures are good; exploring the sit