Lessons in Extravagant Giving from the Poor

Oren and David enjoying cotton candy (for the first time) at the large, modern, Village Market Mall in Nairobi.


I noticed I crossed a landmark last week.  Apparently that was blog number 150.  I am wondering how long I can keep up the weekly discipline of writing.  In many ways, as we near the end of our third year, I do not have fresh eyes to see, I find myself tempted to harp on a favorite theme.  I would hate to find that I begin sounding like a broken record about whatever cultural pet peeves I am experiencing here.

Actually the last week was definitely a change of pace from any normal routine as we were in Nairobi the whole week for regional meetings.  We were staying at the Mennonite Guest House which is a very family friendly environment and we had made arrangements for childcare on the grounds while we had our meetings.  This was not a small detail as the meetings were very full and the agenda was fairly crucial to our planning, budgeting, and relationships in the year ahead--being able for both Rebecca and I to focus on the discussion was important.

Without going into all the details, we had some interesting exchanges on restructuring of MCC at the US/Cananda binational level.  (We even had a group conference call via Skype with several members of the MCC executive board in the US and Canada.   The fact that we were able to connect and hear each other was a minor technological miracle here in Africa.)

Since our region (Central West Africa) was meeting in Kenya, we also had some opportunity to talk about some cross regional places for cooperation.  This is partcularly important for us as reps. of Rwanad and Burundi, and the reps. in Congo, because Uganda and Tanzania, which are all considered part of the Great Lakes region of Africa are part of the East African region of MCC.  We share many common themes from advocacy issues (ex. conflict metals, refugees).  We also share some similar interest in food security programs.  Tanzania and Kenya  have some very successful conservation agriculture programs which we are hoping to learn from.

We also had some discussion and debate about how MCC should relate to African Mennonite Churches.  While there is not really an officially recognized Mennonite church in Rwanda or Burundi, there are in the other countries in our region.  The linkages are not obvious even though we are a Mennonite NGO.  The problem is that most of these churches see us primarily as a donor and often ask us to fund any number of pet projects they might have (from church building to vehichle purchase) without much consideration of what MCC's mandate is.  Our fear is that we are likely to foster dependency and create conflict if we are too directly involved with these churches.  (Many are deeply divided internally as well and who is in authority is not always obvious.)  Yet we do want to recognize that there is interest by our constituents at home to help build capacity of these churches.  How to do that though is not obvious, may be very context specific, and was a source of lively debate in our group.

We began each morning with a Holy-Week-liturgy based devotional.  Rebecca led a very moving one about the woman in Mark who annoints Jesus with the precious nard.  She described it well and talked about the challenge to us as often pragmatic, frugal Mennonites, to recognize the importance of seeing the moment for gracious extravagance.  She observed that often when we work among the poor ourselves it is possible for us to adopt an 'impoverished' mindset about what it is like to be poor.  The truth is, in our observation, poor people do not necessarily live a life of constant drudgery unpunctuated by any joy.  In fact, we find that even among our staff we find a willingness to save and borrow for a single big event, like a wedding, (or funeral), or other special event.

Her most poignant example was the day she told us she tried to call our in-house worker Odifax on his mobile phone to tell him not to come one morning.  She could not reach him so when he showed up on Monday morning she asked why he did not answer his phone.  He said:  "I don't have my phone anymore.  I was at church yesterday and after I heard the message I decided to give it as an offering."  (To help those more needy than him.)

Rebecca (and I) were stunned.  A mobile phone like the one he had would take at least a month's wages to replace.  Rebecca resisted the urge to ask something like:  What a waste! or Why in the world did you do that."  (Not unlike the whisperings of the disciples when they watched the woman pour the nard on Jesus.)  Perhaps Jesus would answer our tongue-clciking skepticizm with the admonishment:  "Why are you bothering him?  This man has done a beautiful thing for me!"

Other devotionals included a dramatic reading of the meeting of Jesus and the woman at the well told from the point of view of two samaritan rabbis.  And on Maundi Thursday the kids did a dramatization of the woman who annointed Jesus' feet.  We ended that day by sharing communion together.

The kids spent the days we were meeting making jewelry (beads on strings) play-dough, swinging on the giant swing, and watching the occasional movie.  They had a good time together as the older kids (Val, Sarita, and Greg) helped entertain David and Oren.

The time was not all work and no play.  There were some opportunities to go out and do some fun things.  In fact, while we were at meetings on Wednesday, Oren went out to a giraffe park and was able to feed some giraffes by hand.

The last night of meetings (Thursday) we went together to an excellent Indian restaurant.  We all love Indian food and we had a special time together sharing a 'last supper' with some of our colleagues.  Ginny (and daughter Sarita) as well as Levy, will be completing their assignments as reps. of Burkina Faso and Chad.  They will not be together with us for another regional meeting.  (New reps for Burkina Faso have been found but we are still looking for someone to work in Chad.--anyone interested? :-)  They each received a very nice table cloth with a custom design of the MCC logo and their country name on it.

Since the meetings ended on Thursday, we had the option of returning to Burundi in Friday.  We elected to stay the extra day to do some fun things with the kids.  We decided to go to a mall called Village Market which is indistinguishable from a large mall in the US.  This may not sound like a lot of fun for those of you at home, but it is huge for us here.  Among the attractions was a large water-park with about  slides, tubing, swimming pools and other liquid attractions.  This was the first time Oren or David had ever experienced anything like this and they had a fabulous time.  (As did the other kids in our group.)  Even Rebecca and I took several turns going down the large slides into the splash pools.

We left for Burundi early Saturday morning.  (It is nice to be able to get back home in an hour and a half flight) and we were back by noon.  Felix picked us up from the airport.  Josh Miller, our volunteer for this month, was at our house having returned from work upcountry on Thursday.  Since he had not seen much of the city, we took him to the beach and had dinner there.  It was a beautful evening and we all enjoyed watching the sun set behind the mountains in Congo over the lake.

It was good to be back at our church for Easter Sunday.  In Burundi much of the celebration of Easter tends to happen between Good Friday and Sunday morning with many worshippers participating in all-night vigils.  Still, we had a very nice service and Rebecca taught Sunday school.  Her class has swelled to more than 25 children who all sit on the floor of the small bare room (no chairs of tables).  She is very creative, but acknowledges that the at this point the room is almost too small to accomodate everyone sitting.  She is hoping to be able to divide the class at some point in the near future.

I will end by wishing you a blessed Easter and let you all know that we are now well into our planning for homeleave.  We will be in the US. from June 6 through mid August and have plans to be in Baltimore MD, NY (several places), KC MO, Nashville TN, North Carolina (forgot the City), Seattle WA, and Vancouver, Canada.  Hopefully we will catch up with some of you then.

Symbolic Comings and Goings

Veteran travelers--Oren and David leading the way out of the plane and into the arrivals lounge at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi.






I am writing this from bed in the Mennonite Guest House in Nairobi Kenya.  It is a bit difficult because David is sitting next to me refusing to sleep (as is Oren in the other bed.)  This should probably be expected. They are excited to be traveling and in a new (albeit familiar) place.  The hour time difference is not helping much either.

We arrived this afternoon to find the place virtually full of a who's who in the MCC world.  The occasion for this trip is our regional meetings of Central West Africa. (For economic reasons we are gathering in East Africa but that is another story.)  The reps from Burkina Faso/Chad (Ginny and Levy), Congo (Tim and Suzanne), Rwanda/Burundi (Paul and Rebecca), and Nigeria (Brenda and Mark) as well as our area director (Mark, and regional peace officer (Gopar).  The reps from Kenya (Ron and Martha) stopped by to pay a visit to us today as well.  Several of the reps have families so Oren and David were able to meet friends (Val, Greg, Sarita) whom they have met before in most of the 4 reunions we have attended in the past 2 years:  (Ghana, Rwanda, Nigeria, Burkina Faso)

I have come to appreciate these meetings more as the time in our assignment lengthens.  I do find there are many challenges that seem to face us uniquely as MCC reps-- increasing demands from headquarters with regard to reporting, diminished funding, trying to support volunteers who have varying physical, emotional and spiritual needs.  Not to mention sharing an assignment with one's spouse as well as managing a household and family.  Crises we deal with rarely fit into office hours.

There is much business to discuss, and maybe much of what we struggle with in our particular context is not discussed extensively, there is still a feeling of comaraderie and compassion that permeates the gatherings.

Interestingly as well, our service workers the Horsts are here as well because of a medical issue that was not able to be addressed in Burundi.  So it feels a bit like an MCC Central West African invasion of Nairobi this week.


Our arrival here though seems like a continuation of the pattern of comings and goings that has been going on since last week.  This week, in fact, our house felt like a real hotel with Jodi and Yolanda with us until Jodi left the country on Wednesday, then several partners from Rwanda joining us Wed and Thursday night as they were down here for some planning meetings with us.  On Saturday, a new arrival, Josh Miller, who is volunteering with us for a month, came in by taxi from Tanzania where he had spent 3 months working with the Maasai.  He is in his early 20s and will be working with our partner Moisson pour Christ.  We were sad to leave him the next morning with little orientation, but he will be going up country to work with them on a youth camp on Monday morning.  He seems pretty adaptable given the challenge he was willing to take on in the months prior to this assignment.

To back track a bit, we did say goodbye to Jodi on Wednesday evening as she headed home on Brussels Airways.  There was a small group of us including her cook Helene as well as Zachee, Bridget and Tim.    I received an email from her on Saturday saying she was back in Cambridge and had had a good flight home.  Before she left I was able to do a short interview with her on video about her assignment that I hope to share with some of you all this summer when we are home.

That same evening two of our Rwanda partners came down to stay the night at our house.  They work with organizations that run small savings groups among some of the poorest people in Rwanda.  We invited them to meet with us and several partners in Burundi.  Our goal was to draft a large concept paper to begin a 'conservation agriculture' project in our countries with a fairly large grant.

Conservation agriculture or "Farming God's Way" is something I have mentioned before and is an agricultural technique aimed at preventing soil erosion and limit the use of fertilizer by keeping ground cover in place.  (Basically no plowing.)  It has been successful in Mozambique in increasing yield significantly with less inputs.  The challenge for us here is that it is not well known and not a 'government approved' technique in the sense that they are pushing a very large scale, fertilizer intensive 'green revolution' style of agriculture based on the success of similar programs in Asia and other parts of the world.  The problem is that the latter tends to favor large farmers rather than small ones for many reasons.  Most of our partners work with very small, poor, marginalized people who can barely eek out a living on a small plot of land and would not necessarily benefit from the more 'globalization' focused methods coerced by the government, IMF, FAO, and US AID.

MCC, with its environmental, creation care theology, has been encouraging conservation agriculture training as an alternative that offers better yields with a more eco-friendly technique of water conservation and soil enrichment.  Whether this can be implemented successfully by our partners in their communities in Rwanda and Burundi remains to be seen and was at the heart of our discussion in our all-day Thursday meeting.

Felix joined us on Thursday evening for dinner and our conversations went well into the night on variety of topics, especially gravitating to some of the major differences between Rwanda and Burundi in terms of history politics and ethnic strife.  It was a very rich evening.

Oren has been home from school this past week as it is spring break.  Sadly David joined him at home Wednesday through Friday as he, once again came down with a virus that caused him to run fevers for most of the 3 days.

I was glad that he had recovered by Saturday in time to go a Birthday party at one of Oren's friends' houses.  I did not go as I needed to stay home, pack, clean the house, and make about 10 days of dogfood to put in the fridge for our time away.  (A fairly smelly job as it involves cooking about 3 kilograms of offal then mixing it with rice).

Yolanda was still at the house when we left Sunday morning and will stay there to meet her dad who is arriving on Wednesday.  We will be gone all week and will return next Saturday to be home on time for Easter.

David is finally asleep, albeit fitfully, and I will try to join him soon.  I don't know what time they will wake up in the morning, but probably before I want to.  I will say a bit about our first meeting as a group since I led a Palm Sunday devotional as the first parrt of our gathering. (We are going to make an effort to follow a Holy Week liturgy as a devotional series this week each morning during our meetings.)

We gathered after dinner and sung some hymns together as many of us were traveling today and missed church.  I shared a passage from Zechariah, a prophetic vision of the King of Peace riding into Jerusalem on a young donkey.  I observed that Jesus' prophetic act was done with awareness of this text and was a deliberate symbol.  A consciously 'staged' act to demonstrate his identity.  (in fact, in the book of Mark he pretty much turns back around and goes out as soon as he finishes his entrance on the first day.)  The prophets of the Old Testament were remarkable for their symbolic acts--Jeremiah buying land before an invasion, Hosea marrying a prostitute.

I observed to the group that MCC does consider itself to have a prophetic witness and what we do symbolically may be at least as, if not more important than anything else we do practically.  I gave the example for me of language learning.  I spent 2 years studying Kirundi and am still not conversational.  (I had hoped I would be by now.)  But it has not been a failure because what it has told our partners here about our ministry and our willingness to 'walk alongside' as brothers and sisters is enormous.

We shared as a group other 'symbolic' actions we do (often sharing in the symbols of the culture we are in) as ways to show our identity as a reminder to ourselves and a representation to others.  I think that if we are sincere in our desire to understand and love each other, 'symbolizing' (or ritualizing) is one of the most important things we do in our lives and very possibly will outlive any of our practical contributions.

If I could encourage anyone this Holy Week to do something meaningful, it would be to consider the symbolic acts (habitual or one time) that you do that tell yourself or others who you are and what you believe.  Actions speak louder than words.

Three Goodbyes

Oren has a drawing video for Kung-fu panda characters.  Here is his rendition of viper.  Great for a 5 year old in my opinion.


One of the benefits of the diet Rebecca and I have been on the past 3 weeks is the opportunity to try our hand at making some foods we are allowed to eat but are not easy to find here.  Since we cannot eat carbohydrates or sugar, that leaves vegetables, meat, and dairy products.  We eat tons of fresh vegetables every day, but meat choices are pretty much beef or lake perch.  We have decided to try to be more creative with dairy.

In Burundi there is an abundance of locally produced fresh milk.  Rebecca and I are able to buy it at a stall right next to our house.  You just bring a large container over and they fill it.  (Like a gallon)  When we bring it home, our cook boils it (as it is probably not pasteurized.)  It is fairly cheap, about $4 a gallon.  Also available here is one type of cheese (from Congo) that tastes like a strong gouda.  (And gets ripe--stinky-very quickly)  There is also yogurt available, made locally by a Catholic mission upcountry and sold in Bujumbura.  Ice cream is also beginning to be available at an affordable price thanks to Burundi joining the East Africa Community.

But all the other dairy products, are not possible to get or are fantastically expensive and available at exorbatant prices.  to wit:  Cream cheese, ricotta, mozarella, and any other cheese.  However, as I said, with our diet we have been experimenting with and finding ways to have some of these things by making them ourselves.

Cream cheese and ricotta are the easiest.  Cream cheese can be produced by straining yogurt in a cheesecloth (we use a clean cloth diaper)  We set the cloth in a strainer then pour the yogurt in at night.  By the next morning the cloth contains a large lump of fresh cream cheese.

Ricotta is similar only done with milk.  We add vinegar (about 1/3 cup) to a gallon of milk which curdles it.  We then strain it with the cheese cloth and have ricotta in about an hour.  (If you want Indian paneer just strain a bit longer and press it with a heavy object when dry.)

I also started making our own yogurt yesterday just by adding a tsp. of some other yogurt to a jar of warm milk and leaving it out overnight. Alas, all our home-made dairy products are made with full-cream milk -- so we're still eating a lot more milk fat than would be ideal.

Several of our friends even make their own butter and even skimmed milk.  We have not been that ambitious to date. We'd welcome simple ideas for separating the cream from fresh milk!

Besides making dairy products (and our own dog food) we have had a fairly full week in other ways.  If I would characterize it themeatically, I would say much of our work was around saying good-bye.

I mentioned last week that we said good-bye, for a time, to our South African missionary friends Tim and Jeanette who are on furlough, but this week our biggest good-bye was for our team member Jodi Mikalachki.  Actually to be accurate, it was she who was saying goodbye to the community where her assignment was based.  That is the Hope School on a hill called Nyangungu.

Jodi arrived shortly before we did, and it is hard to believe that her 3 year assignment is coming to an end.  I went up to get her on Wednesday morning.   It is a long drive and I went alone because I anticipated bringing quite a bit of stuff back with her.  I had lunch with Jodi and her staff (2 nightguards, gardener, and cook) before we loaded all of her bags that she will take with her back to the U.S.  I also greeted the priests at the seminary next to her house and thanked them for watching over her as well during her time in the country.

Jodi represents a now-rare type of mission worker: A missionary who feels deeply called to a life of service in a very remote place, drawing her emotional and spirtual support from the local community, learning the language and deeply integrating herself into the life of the community.  Not to be cliche, but I do almost feel I can see into the heart of Mother Theresa when I am with her.  She is empassioned for the people she has worked among.   Although this assignment is ending for her, I have no doubt she will find a way to come back here again someday.

There are 2-3 other mzungus like her in Burundi I know--a dying breed perhaps in the mission field.  They are all women, and while I don't want to stereotype, I believe that this type of long-suffering and compassion seems to be more of a female quality than a male one.  My experience (personal) is that men like to go in and 'fix', train, solve, but not neccesarily 'abide'.  I suppose there are places for both kinds of interventions, but I truly admire those who are willing to abide.



I drove Jodi back to Bujumbura on Wednesday.  (The same day I picked her up.)  We got back to my house about 6:30 pm.  Yolanda was there and the Horsts also popped over for a short farewell visit.  Jodi will actually leave the country this coming Wednesday as there is quite a bit of debriefing we do here with her before she goes back for more debriefing at MCC headquarters in Akron, PA.

Jodi is not the only big farewell we bid this month.  I sadly announce the departure of our favorite Indian restaurant in the world, Khana Khazana.  It arrived here just 2 years ago and made us feel that Bujumbura contained a little slice of heaven.  But it has closed for reasons unknown to me, perhaps difficulty keeping a business open profitably in this country.  There is still a decent Indian restaurant here called Tandoor, but Khana Khazana was the best.

The last goodbye and the way I will end this entry is a tribute to a friend at our church.  His name is Gerard Nzeyimana, a man with a young family, who ran sound for the worship team among other tasks at the church.  He was one of the increasing number of victims of traffic accidents.  He was hit on his motorcycle and died in the hospital after several hours in a coma.

Although he was not a close companion, he was someone who was always willing to help out, and as a mechanic, helped me get my car started on several occasions at the church.  I could tell he always did this out of the goodness of his heart and not in expectation of a 'tip'.  This is not a common experience to me.  He was someone who always greeted me with a smile and handshake when I saw him on Sunday morning.  I know now that he is with the Lord.  But I do pray that you would keep his wife and 3 young children in mind and prayer as the loss of a breadwinner here can be devastating in the absence of a welfare safety net.

I went to the funeral today.  It is interesting to hear the message at a Burundian funeral that I could understand.  (They translated in English for the anglophones there.)  There is a lot more emphasis here on the sovereignty of God and his 'doing' this for purposes we cannot understand but must accept.  It may be subtle but I feel like in our country there is a more nuanced theology of God 'allowing' in the sense that we often do not talk about God inflicting tragedy in such an active way.  God suffering with us.  I do not think anyone has a simple explanation on the 'problem of suffering', but it is interesting to hear subtle diferences in theology between our cultures as Christians.

I will say that Burundians, Christians and otherwise, have learned to endure tremendous suffering over generations and are markedly staid in the face of tragedy, yet resillient as well.  (Sadly, growing up without one or more parents from an early age is almost emblematic of life here in the last 20 years.)  Because of that, I believe that many who can truly relate to the suffering of this family are also able to give them comfort and hope.

As for me, I have known more people who have died here in the past 2 years than I have probably known my whole life before arriving.  As a man over 50 with both of my parents still living, I am a true enigma here.  Today, though, I am remembering that every day of life is a gift, and not to take any of time with my wife and children for granted.

Contradance and a Headbanger

Sunday afternoon activity:  Oren loves painting and drawing and is working in watercolor to paint a piece of driftwood we found in Lake Tanganyika.

I woke up this morning around 6:30 am as usual to make coffee and start breakfast for the kids.  Oren joined me in the kitchen just before 7:00 am, and just as he sat down I heard a loud rumble and the sensation that a large truck just smashed into our house, followed by a sensation of waviness under my feet.  It was a small earthquake (4.8 on the richter scale) according to information on the internet.  There was no damage but I did not know that there were earthquakes around here in central Africa.  (this was begun on Sunday now it is Monday.)

Although it was not a particularly interesting week I wanted to note a few of the high and low lights.  I feel it is almost worth mentioning as an event, weeks in which neither child nor any of our staff was sick from Monday through Friday.  That is extremely rare.

I also find myself in the odd position of feeling that some of what I did this week is too 'classified' to put on a public blog.  I did take some action in helping the wife of our friend pursue justice in the case I mentioned last week.  But I do not feel I can reveal any of the specifics.  I will simply say that the situation this week is still largely unchanged, so please continue to pray that this person may receive justice and at least be freed from prison to begin with, as soon as possible.

This work took some time this week and a lot of emotional energy.

Rebecca interjecting: Midway through the week, we went out on a limb and attended a modern dance concert. There may be two of these per year, produced by the French Cultural Center -- we'd never gone before to any of the interesting concerts hosted there because of our logistical difficulties as the parents of young kids. It was a last minute decision, and we felt pretty bold taking the kids to this arts event. Luckily, David fell asleep on the way, so we only had one child to actively worry about. Although Oren was reluctant to go at first, he was quite enthralled by the little theater and asked if we could come to dance concerts every day (this was before the show started). We were impressed too! The theater had nice seating, sound and lights, even air conditioning and a wooden stage floor. So if any of you dancers want to come produce your work here, there's a venue! The two solos proved to be quite inaccessible to a five year old, though Oren tried valiantly to understand what was going on and asked lots of whispered questions about why the woman dancer was hissing, writhing and crawling on the floor pulling a table around by a rope around her neck. The second piece had scary music, so Oren fell asleep and we just enjoyed being in a theater, taking in some of the arts for the first time in a long time. And, we were home by 8:30!

I think the highlight of the week would have to be Saturday.  We decided, again somewhat last minute, to have a contradance.  We are now getting pretty adept at sending out text message invitations from our cell phone and we had a very good turn out of people this week.  It is interesting to see the cross-section of communites that come together in this kind of event.  We had many of our missionary friends from small group, Bible studies, and Church, as well as many friends from the NGO community who we know primarily from Oren's school.

All told we probably had 40-50 people at our house counting children.  We have been trying to do this regularly enough to start teaching some real contra-dances (and not just square dances) but are still a bit of a ways off from that.  (Hopefully when we are on home-leave this summer we can learn some simpler contradances than the ones we know.)  But still we have a lot of fun and people seem to enjoy coming together for a purpose.

The pot-luck was really fabulous this time and I think most everyone enjoyed the smorgasborg.  The whole evening would have been perfect if Oren hadn't, as the last guests were leaving--(Zachee and Tim), decided to show-off a 'move'.  He stood in front of a chair, and having learned to do a flip on the trampoline, decided to try to flip himself from the floor onto his back on the seat of the chair.  (A big living room chair.)  He missed.   That is, he basically did a dive from standing on the floor directly onto his head without putting out his hands.  I heard the thud all the way from the kitchen eventhough he was on the front porch.  Rebecca screamed when she saw him do it.

I rushed out to see him on the floor screaming and picked him up.  I ran through my mind the plan we would need to have.  What doctor, hospital, emergency air-lift service, etc. would we need to start contacting, and how were we to know how serious it was.  As he calmed down I saw there was no blood, he was not disoriented, and it became apparent that it was not too serious as he was in fact on the ground when he did dive.  I had a typically parental mixed emotion of relief that he was ok and anger at what appeared to be stupidity on his part for doing something so obviously risky.  I do hope whatever he learns from this will stick.

Sunday was a fairly quiet day.  We went to church then came home and did things around the house like cut David's hair.  Our Bible study group sadly continues to diminish as we said a temporary good-bye to Tim and Jeanette, the only other couple in our group.  They will be on a 2 month furlough which unfortunately will end about a day after we go on our homeleave for 3 months.  So we will not be seeing them for a while.

I am not sure what we will do about our small group again.  This is not the first time we have had such a group dissipate as a result of people leaving.  We are hoping to find some new people in the next couple of weeks.

Bonus Photo:  I said last week I would put in a picture of the ballet barres we had constructed and the mirrors I bought for the ballet class I am teaching.  It feels like a real ballet studio :-)