Retreating in Jos

David hangin’ out at the boarding lounge in Addis Ababa waiting for the flight to Abouja, Nigeria.

It might not occur to just anyone to choose an area of violent conflict and recent massacres to have a team building retreat, but MCC reps are not just anyone.  I am writing late this evening from a retreat center on the outskirts of Jos Nigeria where Rebecca and I (and Oren and David) are participating in MCC regional meetings known as CWARM (Central West Africa Regional Meetings).  Countries in this region for MCC include Rwanda, Burundi, Congo, Burkina Faso, Chad, and Nigeria.  It was Nigeria’s turn to host.

Planning to meet as a group of representatives from these diverse countries is no mean feat.  It is notoriously difficult to fly between Central and West African countries as they are really not linked by any air roots.  For us to get to Nigeria, for instance, (which is to our North west by about 5 hours by plane) we had to fly first south and east to Nairobi, then north to Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) spend the night, then fly west to Abuja Nigeria, then drive 4 hours by cab to Jos. 

The rep from Congo went South to Johanesburg! To get a flight to Lagos, then another to Jos. 

(I was talking to the rep who serves both Burkina Faso and Chad, which are adjacent, but to get between them one has to take a flight to Paris and then back!)

In short, it is a challenge to get together.  The purpose of these meetings is for us to talk to our area director and advocate for our programs, as well as support each other through difficult times.

We had our first day of meetings today and shared reports of highs and lows of our program for the past 12 months.  All I can say is that if you think you are having a hard time, take a moment to listen to someone who is having a worse time and you find a lot to be thankful for.

My heart really went out to the reps in Nigeria who are based in Jos.  The conflict here has been flaring up violently since January and they are faced with very tough choices about how much risk they are willing  to face personally.  There have been reports of suicide bombers in areas near their work, and even a bomb threat at their children’s school.  Constant curfews are making any kind of work and schooling, not to mention shopping for basic necessities more and more difficult.  While the reps do not feel like they are directly targeted, it is still a hard choice to decide when the risk is too great, or even if it is possible to do anything in the current instability.  Their big question is the worst over?  Is it getting better?  Will it stay like this indefinitely?  Or deteriorate into all out war?  There is really no way to predict the answers to these questions.

The conflict seems to be a war of identity between 2 ethnic groups one called Christian the other Muslim.  And there have been alternating raids and massacres by one group against another with increasing regularity.  It is interesting, coming from Burundi where I see two groups in conflict (tutsi and hutu) to which I feel no sense of belonging.  In this context I profess a family connection to the group called Christian.  And I am aware that the tension between Christians and Muslims internationally has been on the increase.  And yet, I cannot feel that this conflict reflects anything more than a kind of cultural  team sport.  I do not feel that Christians murdering Muslims have God or truth on their side any more than I feel the reverse is true.  I believe this conflict is cultural and generational but not a battle between good and evil.  Or I should say that I do not believe that the good are on one side and the evil on the other.  It is a tragic story of revenge and retribution which is a cycle that is extremely difficult to break.

As a Christian working in a small NGO that specializes in peace making and conflict transformation, it is hard to know where to begin to address this kind of conflict in the midst of a raging crisis.  I do believe that God revealed himself fully to us in the person of Jesus, but I do not believe that this ‘truth’ will be emanated through violent conflict.  The power of the Gospel is in showing His redemptive love for all people, it is not through victory in a savage turf war for land and resources.  I fear though that Christians more and more believe that precisely this hostility between Islam and Christianity is a struggle for faith around the world and the victory of the Gospel will be a military one. 

OK. Enough preaching.  It is just hard to be on a border town on this conflict and not feel angry about people being incited to kill each other by cynical politicians in the name of God on both sides.

So what is it like here?  It was good to arrive at midday in Abuja to catch a cab to Jos because it gave us a chance to see the terrain.  Abuja is hot, dry and flat.  It is a big city with a modern airport.  We drove in a minivan which met us there to Jos, in what is called Plateau State.  The drive was long and we passed through numerous military and police check points.  The roads are all 4 to 6 lane highways and the drivers drove insanely fast and dangerously.  We passed through some of the areas where the recent massacres took place.  Jos is at a higher altitude than Abuja and it reminded me a lot of New Mexico or even Mexico.  There are many jutting hills and mountains, many look like they are composed of stacked boulders.  It is dry and hot in the day but gets quite cold at night.

The retreat center is actually a school with some guest houses.  It also  has some conference rooms, a playground, and lots of boulders to climb on which Oren loves.  It is hard to keep him safe though, because he has great confidence in his ability to climb just about anything.

It is good to see our colleagues and Oren even has some playmates among the 2 other families here with kids who are just a bit older than him so that is fun for him.  There are also 2 child care workers to help out, while we are in meetings, with David.

Security concern is ever present as the school is surrounded by a 10 foot chain link fence with razor wire on the top.   The front gate is heavily guarded, and apparently there are guard dogs that are let loose on the property after 10pm at night.  Nonetheless, the center is relaxing and the kids are really enjoying themselves.

We are glad to be here on time.  I did not mention that the 2 day trip gave us some concern for a timely arrival.  On our first leg, we flew to Addis Ababa with a stopover in Nairobi.  When we got to Addis we the plane stayed in a holding pattern for a long time because of bad weather.  The pilot assured us that if it did not clear we could go to an alternative airstrip in Djibouti.  That did not give Rebecca and I much assurance since we knew that would mean we would miss our connection.

Fortunately we did land shortly after.  In Addis, Ethiopian Air put us up for the night in transit at a hotel.  That is something I was very grateful for, traveling with kids.  The kids liked the hotel, especially the taxidermed lion and leapord that sat at its front entrance.

Addis is a really huge modern city and is a place I hope we can come back to sometime to see.  I hear so much about Ethiopian culture and I am interested in seeing it more.  But this was not the trip.  We left town the next morning about 6am and, as I said, got to Abuja about  6 hours later.

We will be here a total of 6 days before our 2 days of travel to return.  We get back home midmorning on Easter Sunday.  That was not good timing for us, but we had little choice given the limited flight schedule.

So that is the short, hopefully interesting story of our trip here.  We are definitely schooling our children in good travel behavior and they were actually quite patient with waiting in line at customs,  immigration, security and in the boarding lounge.  We are also improving in the art of toting 2 kids and 5 carry ons around without having to make 2 trips between points or without the aid of an airport cart.  Hopefully the trip home won’t offer any unexpected delays.

A Really Good Day

I am beginning this blog well after midnight tonight and the power is already off.  I have noticed that our battery life is getting shorter, so I will probably make this brief.  I am tempted to collapse this whole entry into a discussion of today.  It was by all measures a really good day.  But there are some other interesting things that happened this week, so I will do my best to mention all of them as well.

The main deviation from the norm this week was my ascent up country to Gitega on Thursday where I spent the night and returned Friday.  We do have 3 partners up there and it is time to sign MOUs (memorandums of understanding) for the grants that begin this fiscal year.  It honestly does not make for a very exciting trip, but it is necessary. 

I did not go with Rebecca and the kids because we wanted to keep Oren in school all week.  He will have to miss an entire week of school soon because of an upcoming trip to Nigeria, but I will come back to this.

I did go up with Yolanda and Jean Claude. Yolanda is our SALTer seconded to Moisson Pour Christ, where Jean Claude also works.  They were going up to do a peace training with University students and asked for a lift.  I also wanted Yolanda to see some of the work of one of our other partners so we mada a plan to meet Friday morning for a visit to the commune of Bukira Sazi to see the work of one of our partners up there.

The trip was, as I said relatively uneventful but relationally exhausting as I spent many hours in  a short space of time catching up with the work of our three Gitega partners, seeing some of their projects, working through the particulars of the memorandums of understanding, all in French of course.  I stayed at the conference center of one of our partners and slept somewhat fitfully on an uncomfortable bed.  I was glad to head home Friday afternoon and got home before the kids ate dinner. 

Oren and David were apparently on their best behavior with Mommy over the days I was gone.  Oren really does his best when he is in a very regular structured routine.  So school days are very comforting to him in a way.  The big change that is happening between them is that they are really beginning to play together.  David is very keen on doing whatever Oren is doing, but now can actually ‘do’ some of the things Oren does.  Most impressive is his ability to jump on the trampoline.  I am surprised that as a 15 month old he is beginning to do this.

Last week I put a step up next to the trampoline he can get up on himself.  He loves to climb on it and we have to pay close attention to him.  (There is a net around the tramp so he cannot jump off of course.)  But now he and Oren can jump together on the trampoline which is something he loves to do.  They get each other really worked up laughing and falling over. 

When  David is not on the trampoline he is often in Oren’s room looking at his books.  He really loves pictures in books and will often go in alone to look at them.

Saturday was spent at home as a family.  I did the morning yoga stretch class then played with the kids.  Rebecca and I were both asked to preach this week, her in the morning and I in the afternoon so we also switched off trying to find time to finish our sermons.  In the evening we invited our friends over, the Thomas’ (Danish friends) and the Tanja and Stephan the German family as well.  We had a lot of children as they all came with their kids and we had Timmy also.  We had a very nice enchillada dinner together and the kids played on the trampoline and watched videos.
Oh, almost forgot, Jodi was also here.  She arrived on Saturday for a short visit to Bujumbura for examine week at her school.  She is picking up some supplies then heading back up country. 

We all had a good visit, then Rebecca and I worked late into the night Saturday to be ready for Sunday.


Sunday was one of those rare, nearly perfect days.  We went to church in the morning where Rebecca preached a very moving sermon on what it means to pray.  She talked about how real personal prayer is a kind of abiding with God.  Not coming as a petitioner, but as a close friend to whom God wants to make his will known.  She counseled the congregation to practice ‘listening prayer’ a prayer that is primarily spent in silence, perhaps meditating on a passage of scripture, and just listening for God to speak.  She reminded them that we are not beggars seeking crumbs from the Divine table but we are friends invited to sit with our Lord at his table.

It was very well received and is quite a radical conception of prayer compared to what one often hears here.  But I think the point was to invite people here into an intimacy in prayer that might make God less of a ‘big man’ and more of a friend.  (She did have to acknowledge the cultural differences we attach to the word friend as well.  In our culture a ‘friend’ is someone with whom we share interests, and an emotional connection, while here a ‘friend’ is always someone upon whom one can rely for financial assistance when the need arises.  In fact the idea that this might ‘taint’ a friendship is a very western idea.  To Burundians it seems that a friendship that does not involve mutual financial support is little more than a shallow acquaintance.)

After we left the service we decided to go swimming at Club du Lac T between services.  Oren has been wanting to go in the big pool and does go in and hang on the edge or swim between 2 corners.  Sunday was a major breakthrough though as he finally TOOK A BREATH WHILE SWIMMING WITHOUT TOUCHING THE BOTTOM!  He has been able to kick between two point for a while, but he has not been able to get his head up while swimming.  This was a great thrill for us as we have been hoping to see him accomplish this.  He received a small cup of ice cream from the restaurant for his reward.

We went to the afternoon service after a brief pass by home to change.  The afternoon service was surprisingly well attended and after some good worship music I preached a message on a Christian approach to conflict transformation.  Despite the fact that I did not think I was that well prepared I really felt the Holy Spirit overtake me as I began and I swear I preached the Gospel of liberation like Martin Luther King!  It went far better than last week’s discussion on stumbling blocks.  I was happy about that since I felt a bit disappointed about it last week.

What probably made the sermon effective were the many testimonies I have picked up of profound transformation made possible through forgiveness and reconciliation in the Burundian and Rwandan context.  I had many stories of murderers asking survivors for forgiveness and receiving it--And the reconciliation bringing healing to a whole community.

My premise was that conflict is a normal part of human interaction, and that rather than seeking to avoid, the Christian challenge is how to use it to bring about a transformational restoration of relationship, a deeper intimacy than what the individuals or community had before.  There are many examples of this in the Bible from Joseph being restored to his brothers in Egypt to our model in Jesus who won our salvation through the violent act of crucifixion, which of course, I believe, brought about a reconciliation of us to God that could not have been accomplished any other way.

So that was the gist of it.  Rebecca kept David amused on the slide while I preached.  (He can climb the ladder himself now.)  It was a really good day.

On a final note, I mentioned that we are trying to get visas to Nigeria.  For better or for worse, they finally came through.  (There was some hope that we would be denied and not have to go to this conference which is in Jos, Nigeria a place where there has been serious interreligious conflict—Christian and Muslim.  Last week 500 Christian villagers were killed near Jos.  This was retribution for similar massacres of Muslims by Christians.)

But God has made a way, we have our tickets, passports and will be leaving on Friday.  We will be gone for 8 days, so the next time I write I will be in Jos.  (If you don’t hear from me it could be because I do not have an internet connection.)  Please pray for us as we do have some concern  about the safety of travel.  We do have confidence in our colleagues who are there and are telling us that we should not have any trouble.

Thoughts on Educating Girls and a Trip to Kigali

David and Oren in Kigali.  Not many great pix this week, but they do like to get away from Bujumbura and explore new venues now and then.   Weather here continues to be hot, high 80s to 90 during the day.


As I sit here at 11pm starting this entry, I am amazed at how far we have come from the days earlier this year when I would rush to finish by 10pm before the power went off then would spend at least an hour on a dial-up connection to get the few pictures and text to upload onto the server.  Not that we are so far away from those days, something can always go wrong.  We do continue to have nightly black outs, but with a solar battery and a faster internet connection, it almost feels like I am in another country.

I do have to say, there is something to having a slower internet connection. (Our 'high-speed' here is still only about a megabyte every minute and a half).  There is a lot less temptation to web-surf or spend hours on the computer reading the latest spin on the political scene.  The little I get honestly makes me glad I am missing much of the blow by blow political debate in the US these days.

I did run across an excellent podcast recently of Bill Moyers interviewing Greg Mortenson.  He is the author of Three Cups of Tea and Stones Into Schools.  He is the guy who is building schools one at a time in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan (for those who don't know.)  I was interested to hear that his childhood was spent in Tanzania where his dad was a Christian medical missionary.  Here is a link to the broadcast: http://video.pbs.org/video/1387129274/ 

What he says about educating girls is one of the most thought-provoking things I have heard in recent days, and I believe his experiences would be born out in our context in Burundi as well.  To paraphrase: "When you educate a boy, you educate an individual, but when you educate a girl you educate a comunity, because she will educate her children when she is a mother, and will even teach her own mother as she is learning in school."  He has found this to be true even in very conservative Islamic communities where women have few rights.  It is good to hear a really inspiring story and such a contrast to the partisan political hype that seems to be such an obsession in the news these days.

Generally life here is good in that way.  Despite the underlying concern about the political climate here and the threat of insecurity, we don't spend a lot of time listening to the news daily.  I do have some email services send us updates on the situation in the Africa Great Lakes region on a weekly basis, but do not keep up with the news daily.  It gives life here a slower pacing in some sort of way.  When I check in from time to time though, I am always surprised that actually things don't change a lot from month to month despite the steriod driven pace of the media.  Maybe I am just slowing down because of age, but I do like the slower pace of information here now that I have been weaned off the high speed internet 'crack' I used to crave when I lived in the US.  For those of you still there, maybe a 'fast' from media would be a good spiritual discipline to try for what remains of lent.

Actually this week was fairly uneventful despite the fact that we made a trip to Rwanda.  We left after school on Wednesday (actually after some more dental work I had) which meant we left Bujumbura around 3.  It is later than we have ever gone, but we figured it would not be much of a problem.  Little did we know that the border we liked to cross closed at 6pm.  We arrived at 6:15 and were told they were closed.  We begged them to let us through which fortunately they did, since I am not sure what option we would have had besides staying the night in the car.  Driving back to Bujumbura after dark was out of the question, and there is really nothing by the way of guest houses near where we were in Kirundo.

We got into Kigali around 8pm where the Africa New Life Guesthouse had dinner waiting for us.  Oren of coure was thrilled to be back there and even David seems to recognize it and ran around to do the things he remembered from the last time he was there.  We settled in for the night and made arrangements to meet with partners the next day.  It is the beginning of our new fiscal year so among other activities we have to sign new contracts for the grants we are giving them this year.

We went to Friends Peace House the next morning where we saw Ruth and Krystan and had some meetings with our partners.  Among the topics of discussion was the security situation in Rwanda and what contingency plans need to be in place to protect Ruth and Krystan if things get worse.  It was good to hear, from some of our partners, that they did not think that the recent grenade attacks were indicative of a larger breakdown of stability in the country.  They seemed to accept that in these countries some violent episodes around elections aimed at creating fear and intimidation were not abnormal, but that generally things in the country seemed quite normal and stable.

I was happy to know that this was how our partners were feeling.  On the other hand, I did find out from our Guest House staff that pretty much all of the short term mission trips they had anticipated from the US this year were precipitously cancelled on hearing news of the recent problems.  So I do think, that if instilling fear is the objective, the attacks are hitting their mark to some extent. 

Ruth and Krystan seemed to feel fine about thier situation at this time.

Besides meeting with partners, I was drafted into participating in the graduation ceremony of the Mwana Nshuti program.  This is a trade school that we support for street children.  It does a very good job of getting street kids placed in foster situations and given training in numerous skills including sewing, welding, farming, english language, hair cutting, as well as some peace and reconcilliation education.  They graduate a class every year.

I was expected, of course, to represent in an official capacity and sat with the other VIPS at the front of the room where the ceremony was.  It was not too long, and we chose to have Rebecca stay outside with the kids, so it went pretty well.  The kids who were graduating danced, sang,  some VIPs gave speeches, then I was asked to read the names of the graduates as they came up to shake my hand as well as the hands of several others on receiving a certificate for completing their program.  (I noticed with interest that 24 of the 25 graduates this year were girls.)

Afterwards we all drank a fanta (coke) which is an important part of any ceremony here, be it a funeral, wedding, graduation, etc.

We left Rwanda on Saturday morning and took a long way home so we could visit several potential sites for a partners retreat this May of June.  The trip back to about 8 hours so we arrived tired to our home in the evening.  (We were pleasantly surprised that Robyn and Yolanda had bought some bananas and avocadoes for us to make smoothies when we came home.)  The kids were shot though and we struggled with them in the hours before bedtime.

Sunday was better as far as the kids, but was a busy for Rebecca and I.  We both had responsibilities at the English fellowship in the afternoon.  I was preaching and Rebecca was leading Sunday school.  We enlisted Robyn to help us with David during the service.  She was happy to oblige.  I shared some thoughts on 'stumbling blocks to Christian character.'  It was a topic assigned to me, but I found it quite interesting in my preparation.  I felt like I had some good insight into this from my experience in the Kairos prison ministry.  Somehow though, I feel like it did not make much of an impression here.  I am not sure if it was just poorly delivered, but the looks on the faces of people there seemed to suggest they were a bit perplexed or perhaps bored by it all.  Well, I will get another chance next week as I will be sharing again, this time on Christian responses to conflict.  This is probably more up my alley as an MCCer.

This coming week will be more of the same as far as work.  We need to get MOUs signed and I will probably go up to Gitega this week to do that with our partners upcountry. 

I should add a quick footnote after writing about reading the signs of the times on last week's entry.  It is good to get a range of perspectives on this.  We did learn, that the official UN perspective is far more optimistic than we would have thought.  Apparently the conditions now are far more stable than even the 2005 elections at this point in the campaign promise.  Nonetheless, there is still some anxiety among the official expat. community and it even seems that most of the mzungus in Oren's school will probably leave the country from May to September.  There is even rumor that the school may close early.  We don't know what will happen, but we are not planning to take Oren out of school early.  Despite what I wrote last week, we are alert, but not giving in to unjustified fear.  We are committed to being here and supporting the mission of our organization, which has a ministry of 'walking with' the marginalized, poor, and vulnerable, and to bring in word and deed the gospel of peace.

Reading the Signs of the Times

"Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that it is near, right at the door. I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened"     --Mark 13:28-30

This week my daily devotional readings have been focused on the time of judgement, and reading the 'sign of the times.'  Jesus often tells his disciples to not have their 'head in the sand' about the unfolding history around them, and not to caught off-guard by a time of tribulation when it is coming.  The timing of these passages seems divinely coincidental as we have had more than a few conversations about reading the signs of the times here in Burundi and Rwanda.

Many of you may know from previous entries that we are in an election year here; in fact both Burundi and Rwanda are going to be having elections this year.  There is, even at this early point, a real feeling of anxiety starting to express itself amidst the population here (Presidential elections are in June).  I have personally talked to many friends here in Burundi about the election and its outcome.  (This is the first fully democratic election since the 1993 crisis and 14 year civil war that ensued.)  Opposition groups (including former rebel armies cum political parties) are currently held together in a tenuous peace, but there is a lot of question about whether an election will fragment the country again.

This was a major topic of conversation this evening as we went out for pizza with Zachee and Bridget.  We were at Ubuntu again, thanks to their half-off pizza from 5 to 7 pm, where Oren and Timmy could run around on the grounds, David could follow the beautiful crowned cranes that stroll freely around, and we could enjoy some catch up time with our dear friends.  This evening we were also able to enjoy a particularly spectacular sunset over the lake.  Perhaps this will become a tradition on Sundays after the afternoon service at the Rainbow Center.  (The photos on the site are all from the evening at Ubuntu.  The mountains are in Congo across Lake Tanganyika)

The setting was beautiful but the conversation was tense as we are seeing unmistakable signs of destablilization that threaten to pull our region into violence during the election.  The latest concern are a series of grenade attacks in downtown Kigali (including the places where we shop when we are there.)  Bridget was advising us to be sure we have an emergency contingency plan in place for Ruth and Krystan if things deteriorate further.  This is difficult for us because they are our service workers but we are not even in the same country with them.

This is also difficult because while we have many concerns about Burundi, our sense was that Rwanda was relatively stable, so these grenade attacks have caught us a bit off guard.  We are going to go up to Kigali this Wednesday to talk to our partners at Friends Peace House and work on an emergency plan for Ruth and Krystan.

Among the topics of conversation was who on earth stands to gain by trying to destabilize the countries in this region.  Sadly the answer is, as is often the case, that diaspora elements (radicalized nationals living outside the country) have access to money, and feel they have much to gain and relatively little to lose by funding and arming groups to create chaos in these countries.  This is true in Congo, Rwanda and Burundi.  Even more sadly, it is hard to get the international community to pursue these threats vigorously.

Paul had to crash, so Rebecca is writing a bit from this point on:

One of the major problems of democracy in Africa is related to the problem of scarcity. Whoever wins the election gets access to the pie. If you win office, you get to "eat." In fact, in many cases, if you win, you get the whole pie. It's a very different situation in North America. As flawed as our political proces is, it would be unimaginable to have one political party refuse to step down because it lost an election, no matter how contentious.

Public office in the US is generally understood as 'stewardship' over such things as the national treasury, federal preserves, etc.  In most African countries winning the election is seen as receiving 'ownership' of the nation's wealth.  The treasury belongs to the winner and his constituents.  (It is their turn to 'eat' is actually the expression used here to describe a transfer of power.) This is why in most African states transfer of power is accompanied by a great deal of violence and instability.

So, if you win, you get all or most of the pie. And there really is only one pie here. (Ther is no really lucrative private sector to seek ones fortune in here.)  So there's little incentive to let someone else take your pie. And if you don't happen to own the pie, you have a lot of reason to fight for it. Yes, when you use violence, you knock the edges off of the crust, maybe you lose a bit of the filling, but some pie is better than no pie, right? At least that's the logic that seems to underlie the motivations of certain groups we have heard of that are armed and ready to respond to unfavorable election results with violence.

This metaphor of fighting over a small piece of pie is evident even in more mundane circumstances of everyday life. In most situations (at the bank, paying utility bills, at the visa office, at the grocery store) you need to be willing to use your elbows or you'll wait forever for service. People do know about standing in line. But there is a sense of urgency about everything that somehow causes people to fight to get ahead. People crowd around and butt in front of each other. People will literally stand behind you and shove their bill and their money over your shoulder and into the cashier's window to pay ahead of you. For us North Americans this is bizarre and irritating. But we have faith that the pie is big enough for everyone. We believe that if we wait in line, we have a right to get service. Here, people's behavior, as annoying as it is, is really the most rational response to the real situation. Here, the pie is NOT big enough. If you're in line when the bank closes and you haven't done your business, tough, come back tomorrow. If you're waiting for food handouts, the quantity is limited. You have to get what you can get while you can get it. There isn't enough for everyone. I think this mindset is very deeply ingrained here in a context of deep scarcity and it governs people's behavior in realms from paying bills to driving downtown to pursuing political power.

So the real question is, could there be a sense of the greater public good that would restrain political parties from practicing fraud or violence in the pursuit of power? We have often felt that Rwanda is making very good progress. It is a secure country, with a stern police force, priding itself on becoming a stable environment for business investment. Government policies are often surprisingly progressive, even more forward-thinking than those in the west (the famous example is that plastic bags are outlawed for environmental protection). Economic progress is marked. And yet, for the second time in a month, grenades were thrown in the street in downtown Kigali.

How do we read those signs? Who stands to gain from this? How serious could it get? What are the repercussions for the region if things become unstable in Rwanda? Or in Burundi? And what can we be doing about it? Are there ways that our local partners could continue to urge their constiuencies to keep cool heads and make good decisions? People all over the region continue to carry the trauma of past violence with them. There is an understandable instinct to trust no one and fight for survival. Could those trauma instincts somehow be overcome so that the people seeking power cannot manipulate the population into participating in the destruction of the whatever little pie we have here in Rwanda and Burundi?

Maybe Paul will have more to add, but I would really ask for prayer for our region of Africa. It is incredibly unfortunate that Burundi, Rwanda and Congo are all due for elections in this next year. Instability in one country inevitably sets the others off-balance. Power is up for grabs all over the place here. Please pray for Christians here to remember their first calling. Pray for us as leaders of our organization to support our local partners well. And pray for us to have wisdom in reading the signs of the times for the well-being of our team of volunteers here.

So, time for a little contrast! On Tuesday morning, I prayed together as usual with a group of mothers from Oren's school. We pray for our kids and their teachers and for the school in general. I asked for prayer for me and Oren because we had been fighting a lot recently -- he has been going through a phase of disobediance and defiance. In the afternoon, I took the kids with me to get David's yellow fever shot finally. Oren agreed to go help cheer David up. But I failed to find the place, sadly, on that afternoon.

On a side note, I did eventually find it on Friday and got my vaccine from a dirty little fridge in a dirty little room in a back building of an unmarked nurse's training facility. I watched carefully and only let them give me the vaccine when I saw the nurse open a brand new, self-contained vaccination pack with a fresh needle. This is the only place to get this vaccine in Burundi. The good side was that it only cost $2.50, better than $150 stateside. David is destined for the needle tomorrow...

In any case, to console Oren for the loss of getting to see David cry from a shot, we went to the Cercle Hippique -- the horse place. And the kids and I had a wonderful afternoon! We played a bit on some tires. We went in and greeted the horses, and quickly, Oren decided that his favorite one was an old mare named Laura, but whom he named Gaga Chocolate Starhead. She was incredibly gentle in her stall, letting the kids touch her and stroke her and just delight in her as she poked her head over the gate. Most of the rest of the horses were let out of their stalls to run around the grounds but she was kept in because she's been retired from riding. One of the grooms gave Oren some grass to feed her and he was really excited about that. He took another ride on a different horse, and was able to take three or four circuits of a big paddock. Then we climbed around on different steps, played with Gaga some more. David squealed at every horse he saw. He found an old black cat and got right down on his belly to look at it in the eyes. I think he wanted to know what it was like for the cat. He is really an animal lover! After a while, we got some sodas and sat on the spectator steps, watching three Belgian girls have their riding lesson. It was exciting to watch them canter around the paddock. Finally, we headed home around 6 pm, with Oren talking about how he might take Gaga home with him sometime. And we hadn't had a single fight the entire afternoon!! As our final reward, we saw a hippo in the water as we drove past the lake.

Paul is back to finish off the entry:

Just to finish off, the rest of the week was busy.  One of our big projects this past week has been trying to secure a Nigerian visa so we can go to an MCC conference at the end of March.  We have encountered a bit of an impasse, to wit: "You can't get there from here" at least according to the Nigerian embassy.  Certainly that is true in terms of flights in that we have to fly in the opposite direction to Ethiopia to get a flight to Nigeria, but also in terms of visas.  But now, the Nigerian embassy here has told us that they cannot issue visas to ex-patriates living in Burundi.  They only give visas to Burundian nationals here.  We asked if they would make an exception and they said we could bring a letter from our embassy.

When Rebecca went to the US embassy to get a letter requesting a visa.  The US consular officer was shocked and offended that the Nigerian embassy here at that policy for US citizens.  They said they would raise this matter with the embassy on a diplomatic level but would not give us a letter personally as that would set a precedent that they do not wish to follow.  Long story short: We are out of luck.  We really do not have time to send our passports away, and we need them here anyway to travel to Rwanda this week.

We are now trying to pursue other connections with the Nigerian embassy, such as friends who attend our church, etc.  Please pray for a miracle in this matter as we have already spent several thousand dollars on plane tickets.

I am going to close by telling readers that in the weeks and months ahead I feel a need to exercise restraint in putting political content into this blog.  I am careful not to name names or divulge particular information we are privy to on the ground here.  This will be necessary in the weeks and months leading up to the election.  This blog is meant to be a description of life as a missionary family and I need to try to keep it on that level.  If you want to know more about the unfolding electoral drama here, I will add links in the future to other news sources that are watching this region.

Also, please keep us and our team in prayer.  I am realizing that in a crisis, I am not in a position where I can just flee with my family.  We have a team here of 3 families as well as several individuals whose well-being we are responsible for.  This may lead to some hard decisions in the future and divine courage.  Specific prayers for our Kigali trip this week would be welcome as well.  We will go as a family, but will probably not take our kids on shopping trips in the downtown mall after hearing about these recent rashes of grenade attacks.

Bonus photo,  Here I am teaching the yoga/stretch class on our porch in Saturday morning.  Oren decided to join in and help me teach.  (Yolanda was the only one there this week.) He did the whole class, and then continued to teach me a bunch of his own exercises afterwards that he made up on the spot.  I was surprised how creative he was!  For those of you who read this from the dance world, it was like trying to learn a movement sequence from Merce Cunningham or Dan Wagoner.  He effortlessly connected a really clever series of non-sequetorial movement together and gave me detailed instruction of how to go from one thing to the next.