All Africa Meeting in Zambia

Rebecca Oren and David enjoying cotton candy, a rare treat, on a free afternoon during our regional meetings in Zambia.

I am trying to get, in bits and pieces, news about the hurricaine Sandy that is thrashing the Eastern Seaboard of the US, between meetings and when I am able to get a good internet signal. The circumstances that we find ourselves to today is our last afternoon of regional meetings in Lusaka, Zambia. We have been here since last Tuesday, and like that day we will be leaving for the airport at midnight tonight to catch a 2am flight back to Bujumbura, arriving about noon tomorrow (Wednesday).

Arriving after having little sleep last week was not ideal, as I mentioned in my last post. The flights were smooth enough and the kids were even reasonably well behaved given the late departure. Oren did score some strategic points in immigration when he laid down on the floor in front of the immigration official's booth. They felt so bad for him that they let Rebecca, David and him go on through to the departure lounge while I finished all of the paperwork and security checks. We arrived in Nairobi about 5:30 am and had a 3 hour layover before departing for Lusaka. In Nairobi we were joined by about a dozen other people from different parts of the continent as well as the US and Canada, who were on their way to the same meeting. Nairobi is a hub airport in Africa and many intracontinental flights are routed through there.

nice pool, no water

We got to Lusaka at about 11am and were met by MCC Reps from Zambia at the airport who loaded us into vans and pickups to take us to The Great East Hotel, where we were to have all of our meetings. I did take a peak at it online and we were excited to see that it had a pool, airconditioned rooms, and internet access. The reality was a bit below the expectation. The pool was empty and being retiled. The proprietor assured us it would be finished by 'tomorrow' and now on the last day here, I can confirm that indeed 'tomorrow' in Zambia means the same thing it does in Burundi. (--Sometime in the indefinite future beyond a week.)

Nonetheless the airconditioning did work and there were a few pieces of only slightly hazardous playground equipment on the grounds for kids and a large yard area for playing. Our interest in children's activities was sparked by the fact that much of our days would be spent in meetings and having engaging things for kids to do on-site was important so that we could keep focused on the work. (Child care was planned for as well.)

It probably took a few days for the magnitude and importance of this gathering to sink in. I think it only finally hit home for me on Sunday morning when we visited a local Anabaptist (Brethren in Christ) congregation and were asked to introduce ourselves. Eric, the Zambia representative introduced us by country, we had MCC reps from: Chad, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Sudan, Congo (DRC), Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Zambia, Mozambique, South Africa (Lisutu and Swaziland). From North America we had program directors from MCC US and Canada, as well as about a half dozen other people with various other leadership responsibilities. As I listened to each couple or individual introduce themselves I was honestly a bit overwhelmed to realize that we were the MCC leadership team from all of Africa meeting and now worshiping together. On the first day we did a little exercise totalling up the amount of Africa experience this represented and it was over 450 years collectively.

greeting line after church

I think we overwhelmed the small BIC church we were attending as well as we made up about the half the congregation that day. The service was nice and not too long (2.5hours). We had been told we might be asked to present a song and many of us were prepared having rehearsed two hymns the night before that were a striking contrast to the more rhythmic offerings up to that point, but rendered in truly angelic 4 part harmony. (Mennonites are amazing singers if you did not know.) 

Sunday was not the first day of our time together and I will back up to Tuesday again when we arrived to the hotel and unfilled swimming pool. We did get settled in and the kids immediately found a few old and new friends. From our region the couple from Burkina Faso, Chad and Isa, have a boy Oren's age and a little girl as well. (Conner and Olivia). The exciting news though was the arrival of a new rep for Nigeria, AND a new rep family for Chad! The Austins—Jonathan and Angela and their 4 kids Caleb, Johnny, Hannah, and Lilly, has just arrived on the continent and had come to the All Africa meeting on the way to their assignment. Caleb is Oren's age and the rest are younger, but all the kids really enjoyed playing together throughout the 6 days of meetings.

Africa is divided into 3 regions by MCC, the South, East and Central West. We are in the latter with the countries of Chad and Burkina Faso, as well as DRC and Nigeria. Actually all the families with children are in our region which is nice for our kids because it makes these meetings feel a bit like a family reunion.

We began our first plenary session on Tuesday night after dinner, then met each day as a large group on Wednesday through Saturday in the mornings. In the afternoons we had breakout sessions and smaller sub-regional meetings. Each day had a theme, the Wednesday was on MCC structure and the changes that have happened in the last year, Thursday was on food security and disaster management, and Friday we talked about relating to the local Anabaptist church in our context. (That varies a lot between regions as not all of us have an Anabaptist church in our countries.)

The meetings were informative and gave old and new reps an opportunity to talk with people at the 'home office' about policy and implementation, both practical, logistical questions as well as philosophical ones. (Questions like: Is MCC in its ecclesial mission “The Church” or an arm of “The Church”.) I think we all came away with a renewed sense of shared vision.

There were some special events, on Wednesday night we all went out to an Indian restaurant, on Thursday afternoon we took the kids and others interested to a zoo/swimming pool. The zoo was interesting, it featured lions and other savannah wildlife. One lion was gnawing on the leg of a zebra that I guess had been fed to her. Generally, like in Bujumbura, one can get quite close to the animals and must use good judgment to avoid getting bitten or kicked by ostriches, baboons, camels, zebras, etc.

very crowded pool

The pool was once again not to be. We arrived at the pool connected to a giant water slide to discover it packed with rough-housing kids to the point where we feared for the safety of our own entering the water. There was a nice playground though that the kids enjoyed playing in, and best of all there was a cotton candy stand, a treat that is all but non-existent in Burundi.

Sunday was a day of rest that began with church and ended with a trip to a mall and then an evening at the home of the MCC reps who have a lovely home and garden. I should say a bit about my impression of Lusaka here as our trip to the mall was one of the few times that we traveled outside the compound of the hotel.

I would say in brief that it has perhaps the feel of a large Mexican city, like Tijuana. The modern malls are gigantic and have everything one would expect to find at a mall in the US, including food courts with Subway, Wimpy's, KFC, and other franchises. There are shops like Kinkos, Staples, Walmart, and other first world businesses. There is obviously a Zambian middle class as well as many whites from South Africa and Zimbabwe who have emmigrated here. But there are also areas of the town with traditional markets and poverty. (Hence my comparison to Mexico.) The climate has been pretty hot for most of our time here although we did have a couple of cool days. Generally the enormous size of the city and the availability of all the comforts of modern urban life make it seem a very far cry from Bujumbura. It seems hard to believe this is Africa as well.

The last two days of meetings (this Monday and Tuesday) we divided into regional groups and spent time talking about particulars of our region. Again, it was good to see a full contingent of reps in our region after serious concerns that we would not be able to fill the Nigeria and Chad positions.

Generally the discussions were interesting and we had time to talk with Congo reps about collaboration between our country programs and small ways we might work for peace between Rwandese and Congolese who are currently on the opposite sides of the emerging conflict in Eastern Congo. (Rwanda and Uganda have been accused of aiding and abetting the rebel group-M-23 that is wreacking havoc in Eastern Congo.) There is considerable tension between the two countries right now.

Ruth Clemens, the MCC US International Program Director was with us in our meetings and it was good to have her strategize with us. Since she is also part of our Mennonite Church in Baltimore (North Baltimore Mennonite Church) it was good to see her and here news from home as well.

I see it is about 10pm. Our flight leaves in about 2 hours and I want to get a shower and an hour of sleep before the taxi arrives so I will stop here. The kids and Rebecca are in bed already.

We will be arriving back in Bujumbura just in time to begin our MCC team retreat. All of our service workers and SALTers will be at our house when we arrive and we will be heading to Kigoma Tanzania by car on Thursday morning. Pray that we will receive divine rest in the few hours that we will actually be able to close our eyes.