Clerk's revelation: boulder's a hippo By Parker T. Williamson The Presbyterian Layman Friday, December 11, 1998 HARARE, ZIMBABWE - Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (USA), found himself staring down the throat of a giant hippo just days before the World Council of Churches opened its meeting in Zimbabwe. Kirkpatrick and his son, David, had joined a canoeing expedition on a relatively calm section of the Zambezi River, just upstream from Victoria Falls. Cliff was in the stern of the canoe and David in the bow. "We were the last canoe in the group," said Kirkpatrick who quickly discovered the painful reality that too much office work and too little exercise had diminished his fitness for the trip. "We were working hard just to keep up," he said. As the flotilla rounded a bend in the Zambezi, the Kirkpatricks spotted several hippos along the bank. This was not the only wildlife they had seen in this hippo- and crocodile-populated section of the river basin, and it was no particular cause for alarm, because the distance between the main stream and the shore allowed a comfortable margin of safety. "I noticed that the canoes ahead were moving around a big rock," said Kirkpatrick. But as he and David passed, some 25 feet away, the rock changed its shape dramatically. "It opened huge jaws, made a loud noise that sounded like an engine. Then it submerged and started after us." Cliff said he and David paddled like never before. "It's amazing what you can do with a little motivation," he said. "Looking ahead, we saw an area of white water, and we headed straight for it." Kirkpatrick remembered a briefing in which they had been told that hippos don't like the rapids, so they reasoned that if they could beat the hippo into the turbulence, they might escape a more personal encounter. "I was never so glad to see white water in all my life," said Kirkpatrick, who had been flipped out of his canoe in a stretch of rapids earlier in the trip. The hippo experience apparently didn't dampen Cliff's enthusiasm for the Zambezi. A few days later he and David launched a rubber raft and ran the rapids in a canyon below Victoria Falls. "Our greatest challenge there was not the water, but climbing out of that canyon after the trip was over," he said. Kirkpatrick said that after all that paddling, his hand and arm muscles were so sore that he had difficulty holding a pen to sign documents at the WCC registration desk.

Recent reports on the World Council of Churches and daily coverage of the 50th Jubilee assembly in Harare News From Around the Church News Updates Home, · Archives, · The Presbyterian Layman, History of the Lay Committee, · Letters & Editorials, Book Reviews, · Resources, ·Links