Social Engagements and a Goma Update

Peter and Linda Taylor at their engagement party at our house last weekend.

Among the many blessings I experienced last week, the opportunity to be in Bujumbura the whole week and to go to the pool every day for a swim before work was probably the best.  I think this is only the second week since our return that I was home for the whole week.  I was especially grateful for the opportunity to swim because if you have been following this blog you may remember that our regular swimming venue, Entente Sportif is undergoing a 3 month renovation that began at the beginning of November.  It took some serious investigation to find another pool because there are very few here.  The one in our neighborhood is closed between 8 and 9 am for cleaning which is the only time Rebecca and I have.  Fortunately Rebecca got a special dispensation from the owner to let us go and swim during cleaning time.  This is really awesome for us because the cleaning is not disturbing at all and the whole pool is empty while we are there!

Rebecca in the office.

I enjoyed every aspect of our daily routine from taking the kids to school in the morning to picking them up at noon, sharing lunch together, then partaking of afternoon activities or returning to work depending on the day.  Rebecca and I have both felt behind to the point of negligence with regard to office work.  We have been out of town so much there is a long back-log of emails and other reporting.  We slogged through that over the week. 

Oren has two activities now that meet twice per week.  He is continuing karate, but has also added soccer.  I would say he is not a prodigy in either, but the karate does give him more opportunity to be immersed in French and to exercise, and he really seems to enjoy going to soccer. 

Friday is particularly active extra-curricular day as I have 3 dance classes during the afternoon while Oren is at soccer practice.  Since he practices right outside my studio and many of our friends have their daughters in ballet or sons in soccer, it is a very nice kind of social afternoon.  My adult ballet class in the evening is also proving to be very satisfying.  All the classes have 10 or more participants many who have had dance before. 

The weekly routine has also allowed us to have family tea time again several times per week, although Oren’s soccer practice goes until 5:30 so that is not always possible.

The weekend had some fairly major social events, one of which we hosted. It was an engagement party for a missionary couple who actually met here. Peter Taylor and Linda Taylor (same last name), both retired teachers, had come here from different parts of the world (he, from Australia, she, from Colorado) to offer their services teaching. Peter has been working at the Montessori school these past 2 years and Linda has been doing English instruction at various places around Bujumbura.  They had not known each other before they came here.  Rebecca and I had come to know Peter through our small group of which he used to be a part, and both of them attend our church.

Many of us had begun to notice a budding romance, but they officially declared their engagement this fall. They plan to marry in the US, but since they met here many of us felt they should have an engagement party here in Burundi.  Rebecca and I offered to host it since we have a big house.  The big day was this past Saturday and we prepared the house for a large group, putting extra furniture out on the porch ordering a cake arranging flowers, etc.  It was actually quite a big production. 

Guests starting arriving about 3 and we had about 50 people all told including kids.  It was also a potluck so there were many snacks that others brought.  It was a very integrated mix of ex-pats and Burundians as they have many friends and colleagues here who were very excited to celebrate with them.

At about 4, we all sat around together in the living room and shared memories and stories about seeing the development of the relationship.  Peter and Linda filled in some details of the courtship and future plans.  It is likely they will stay in Burundi together for several years.  There were some jokes from ex-pats about whether Linda would hyphenate here name (Taylor-Taylor).  The most surprising and amusing anecdotes came from the Burundians.  Overwhelmingly the reaction was amused incredulity.  They could not imagine why on earth an older person would get married at all.  It just does not happen here, particularly an older woman.  (Incidentally, neither was previously married.)  To Burundians marriage is only meaningfully understood as an institution in which to produce children.  The idea of a marriage without children seemed to them an absurd idea.  But on the other hand they were very excited to see how happy their friends seemed to be about it.  (Peter and Linda did note that they have been blessed with more children than they could ever wish for through their work here)  We ended the session with prayer for the couple and had cake together.   (for more photos of the party, click here.)

After the party our South African friends Tim and Jeanette stayed around and helped us clean up and stayed for dinner.  We talked about plans for Christmas and we will most likely go together to a lake in Uganda for a shared holiday between Christmas and New Year’s. 

We got to bed late after cleaning up and went to church on Sunday morning.  I helped with David’s Sunday school because there was need of a few extra hands on deck that day but Rebecca was able to hear the sermon.

We spent the middle of the day at home playing with the kids.  We felt they had been somewhat neglected by us in all the preparations of Saturday.  We played some board games including a family game of Sorry that went through the deck at least 5 times.  Oren eventually won. 

We hosted small group in the evening where we continue to deepen our understanding of the book of Micah and how it applies to our lives now.  It is hard to read his strong condemnation of corruption in the church and state and the greed of leaders selling the homes of widows and orphans and not feel there are not parallels hear in our current context.  I observed that it is interesting that we tend to see God as overwhelmingly concerned about our sexual morality and forget that he is also a God who rages over economic injustice and exploitation of the poor, vulnerable and marginalized and condemns their exploitation by the rich and powerful.  He also condemns institutions of justice on earth who favor the rich and influential over the poor.  (I am happy to see that he does not fit comfortably into the liberal and conservative boxes we like to try to stuff him into.) 

We had an interesting discussion about whether the church as whole can have a prophetic voice or whether that comes from an individual.  My observation was that as much as we like to imagine ourselves as Christians as prophetic in our responsibility to ‘speak truth to power’ real prophets who do this often pay a high price for their words.  Many in the Bible were imprisoned or killed and in our time men like Martin Luther King or Nelson Mandela were killed and imprisoned as well.  There are very few individuals I know who are willing to risk that much in invoking God’s justice before the rich and powerful.  I also think it might be harder for a prophet now to be heard over the mass media din that seems to render all opinions equally valid and irrelevant.  Why kill a prophet when you can just change the channel?

After the small group we went out that evening to have pizza at Ubuntu.  We usually do not go out on Sunday after small group but there was a good-bye party for one of our friends.  Astrid Withrow, the wife of Travis will be going to Netherlands for a time to do some work.  We have known their family for a long time as they are all part of the missionary community and have been here for the past 4 years.  They are eventually going to return to the US but there are some delays for the rest of the family as they are waiting for adoption papers for one of their daughters.  Adoption here is quite frankly a long and difficult process that verges on the impossible.  It takes years and there is some dispute in court about how long she has legally been in their custody.  We are praying for a quick resolution this, and quite frankly a miracle.  We are sad to Astrid have to go ahead of the family for income reasons, and we will miss them all when they eventually go.  They have been a blessing in the ex-pat community with their 5 daughters and their powerful children’s ministry.  It was a nice evening with another huge gathering of ex-pats, many overlaps from the party for Peter and Linda.

This has been another travel week and Monday after school I headed up country with Jennifer Price and one of our partners from Help Channel Burundi to Buta.  This is a Catholic seminary and monastery that is famous for having a shrine to some young seminarians who were murdered during the civil war.  They were asked to separate by ethnic group so the tutsis could be killed.  Because of their shared faith, though, they refused to separate and all were martyred together.  I have a previous blog entry about it here.  (The Duke Pilgrimage)                                                .

The reason I am here this week is to participate in Help Channel’s strategic planning meeting.  It has been interesting to hear them construct a vision statement for the next 5 years and to participate with them.  I do admit that I am not happy to be away from home again and will return on Wednesday.  There is no internet up here so this blog post will be going up a bit late.

Late Update from DRC:  We have been following with concern the continuing advance of the M-23 rebel group in Eastern Congo, apparently supported by Rwanda and Uganda according to a recent UN report.  They were approaching Goma, just across the border from the town of Gisenyi in Rwanda.  Our worst fears were confirmed when Goma fell into rebel hands yesterday.  Our MCC DRC service worker (name omitted) was in Goma when they attacked the city and he apparently spent the night in some kind of bunker hearing mortars and fire fights around him. He was able to flee to Gisenyi on Tuesday and is going to be in Kigali with our team there today.  He will plan to return to Bukavu via Rwanda today.  Prayers for him and for Eastern DRC are needed.