Come out of your cave and be in my presence

GLI participants in plenary.

As Paul promised last week, this is Rebecca writing this week.

The journey to the Great Lakes Initiative Institute for Reconciliation began for me on Friday. I was so thankful that I could begin my day with the precious routine Paul and I have together – swimming, bible reading, prayer. It was a very hectic lead-up to my departure, with an up-country trip Tuesday-Wednesday, and then saying goodbye to my parents on Thursday. I didn’t even have time to help Paul stock up on coffee and powdered milk – but he was so gracious and told me not to worry about him and the boys. So that last swim and prayer together was what I needed to start well. I also had taken a few moments the night before to ask people from my prayer groups here to be lifting me up throughout the week. I knew I would need it!

Asele and Emmanuel, key GLI catalysts
and members of our own church

Paul left me at the airport exactly 2 hours before the flight and I was anticipating having some good time to finish some office work in the airport. Another member of our group of 4 showed up. And then, they called the flight to board – almost an hour early! I started frantically calling the other 2 members of our team. They were in the airport, but were being told they had come too late to check in. On my walk out to the plane, I pleaded with at least 4 staff members to let my colleagues join us. I kept praying and arguing. For a while it looked hopeless. And then we saw our friends running out to the tarmac. Apparently, the Ethiopian pilot is very strict and he wanted to leave early. The staff didn’t like to question him, even if it meant leaving customers behind. So PSA – even at the tiny Bujumbura airport, it is wise to arrive early!

We arrived early enough on Friday evening for me to take a walk down to the shores of Lake Victoria. There were incredible bird-watching opportunities there, with 4 new birds for me (including the black-headed gonolek!). It was a gift to have that time of quiet before a very intense week.

GLI worship in the Ggaba chapel

I knew I was going as worship facilitator again this year for the Leadership Institute. And, with great

trepidation, I had accepted an assignment of doing the biblical teaching for one of the plenary sessions. When I arrived in Uganda, I found out about a third assignment: the remaining founder of the Institute and a key faculty member and leader from Duke University decide last minute that he could not join us. My Tanzanian colleague Wilfred Mlay serves as the GLI Ambassador, but he was facing a very lonely leadership role all week. So he asked myself and a few others to be his advisory group and share the “up front” space with him during the week. I sometimes wonder how I ever became qualified to be asked to do things like this, but I agreed to help him as best as I was able, knowing that it would be one more set of late-night meetings and quick consults during the day.

I’ve written about the GLI Institute for Reconciliation before, so I’ll just say that it is an occasion to bring together Christian leaders of all descriptions from across the Great Lakes region to reflect theologically on the fact that Reconciliation is the mission of God. God calls each of us to be ambassadors of his reconciliation, a blessing that is best shared in action as we are reconciled to one another in spite of the divisive pressures around us. In this context we also consider the sobering fact that many ambassadors of reconciliation have been martyred, like the students at Buta; those with a prophetic calling should expect to suffer when they question the official theologies which support violence; and leadership for reconciliation requires a counter-cultural willingness to give up power. But our God promises hope – streams in the desert, lavish banquets served in the presence of our enemies – and each year we hear new examples of living people living out that godly hope of reconciliation.

GLI: Our mission is to mobilize restless Christian leaders from across the Great Lakes Region, create a space for their transformation, and empower them to participate in God’s mission of reconciliation in their own communities, organizations and nations.

Emmanuel and Eraste, sharing about developments
in Burundi church reconciliation

That is to say, what really counts is not the Institute itself, but what happens when the group we invite

returns back home to work for reconciliation. My joy this year has been to see the Burundi GLI team grow and mature as we have shared experiences over the past 12 months – 2 short retreats, several prayer meetings, 2 meetings of reflection. There is a GLI offshoot effort underway that is bringing together nearly all Burundian Protestant churches to contribute meaningfully to the national healing and reconciliation. More on that at the opportune time – now is too early.

But as a group of GLI partners, we were able to invite in a few more of these key leaders from both the Protestant and Catholic communities to join us for the Institute. We had amongst us 1/4 Catholics, several pastors representing the key Protestant forums, young activists, a few Christian NGO workers, a few foreigners whose hearts are bound to Burundi (mine included) and no less than 2 living saints. The maturity and honesty of the group as we met together in Uganda and got to know one another was truly inspiring. The leaders in the room were certainly restless, and not so much in need of transformation as in need of encouragement and fellow-sojourners. I am really excited about the potential of that gathering for the future of this country.

Josephine and I

Another joy for me was that our times of worship were full of grace. In the past 2 years, I have found myself often anxious about the unknown aspects of GLI worship, but this year I felt such peace and trust, working alongside my co-facilitator Josephine. We always had just enough time to contact other Institute participants over teatime or lunch, so that they could come and join us to help sing or read scripture or pray. Our goal was to involve many different people from different nations and different faith traditions, and this year I think at least 50 different people participated in worship at various times. My private paradigm for this kind of worship is that we are practicing for heaven. All of us have our favorite worship styles and tend to gravitate towards communities which share our preferences. But when we meet our Lord face to face, we will also meet one another there. And we will have eternity to take turns praising Him in all our multitude of ways and our multitude of languages. So, it’s high time we  practice and learn from each other in the here and now, to get ourselves ready. Otherwise, heaven could be quite a shock!

One of my favorite moments during the week came Monday evening. I really wanted to sing a beautiful French Catholic song the next morning – On the road of my life, be my light, O Lord (Sur le chemin de ma vie, sois ma lumière Seigneur). It calls upon Jesus to transfigure the harsh realities of life and be glorified by those who imitate his sacrifice. I love the song but it’s one that I can’t lead well. I had been looking all day for someone who could help me, but no one really knew the song well. I didn’t want to bother Maggy Barankitse (she’s something of a celebrity in Burundi) but finally I broke down and interrupted her as she was chatting with Father Zacharie Bukuru after dinner. When I asked if she knew the song, she and Father Zacharie stopped what they were doing and sang all four verses from memory with gusto. We ran up to the chapel together so I could learn the guitar rhythm and sang it again together, with various other members of the Burundi Catholic team. They said they were so glad to have been asked! It’s a song Maggy said she shared many times with the children she rescued during the civil war.

Maggy Barankitse

There was an undercurrent of pain running through our gathering this year as well – the sudden and terrible return to war in South Sudan. Just a few years ago, we were celebrating peace at last with friends from the youngest country in the world. But tribalism and the quest for power were never really dealt with in the new nation, all reconciliation efforts were hijacked and politicized, and the country exploded. Up to 10,000 people were killed on the first night of the crisis, December 15. No one could celebrate Christmas this year. Now there are at least 300,000 refugees and displaced people in South Sudan. Many of them cannot be reached by groups providing food or water or medical care. Most of the delegates from South Sudan could not join us – they were too afraid to leave their families behind, not knowing what tomorrow will bring. However a small group came, mostly from our organization, MCC. They looked exhausted. I think it must be devastating to work so hard for peace and then watch as death and destruction undermine all you’ve worked for. This is the kind of situation I really pray against here in Burundi or Rwanda, but too often it’s impossible to ignore the danger signs.

Catholic Shrine of the Uganda Martyrs

This year we visited the shrine of the Uganda martyrs – memorials to the 45 young men in the king’s palace who chose to die instead of give up their faith in Jesus. This was back in 1885. At that point, Anglican and Catholic missionaries had only recently arrived, and those young men learned about Jesus together, and chose to die together. Never at any point did they separate themselves into sects, but they kept singing together as they were burned alive. Their testimony and shed blood is said to have nourished a massive movement of Christian conversion in the region. Today, we must visit Anglican and Catholic shrines separately. The story is told separately, 22 Catholic saints and 23 Anglicans. And there has been bad blood between the two churches in Uganda, as a result of European quarrels.

South Sudan with it’s divided church and this new look at the Uganda martyrs made me think about my own country and the failure of most Christians to behave like ambassadors of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:17-20). It’s easy to accuse Africans of tribalism or some kind of primitive hatred. But whether I look at FB posts by relatives, check HuffPost, or look at any other source of news coming out of the USA, all I hear are Christians whose identities are completely disfigured by tribalism. With the ways that Northern/progressive/urban Christians and Southern/fundamentalist/rural Christians demonize one another so religiously, I can almost see the Evil One dance a jig.

Anglican memorial  to the martyrs

When I looked around the room with my friends from Burundi, Hutus and Tutsis, divided before by the kind of hate-filled propaganda and manipulation I hear on the US news, whose family members were mutually massacring each other just 20 years ago, I heard a warning for my culture. Would we enjoy entering that kind of civil war again? I am quite sure that if we did, there would be American Christians singing hymns as they led the battle cry against other American Christians. I also hear a challenge: Burundian Christians, who lost so much trust in one another, have come so much farther in admitting their failures, sharing the truth, seeking to pray together and seeking the healing of their country.

Enough American politics. I might make myself sick.

On the final day of the Institute, I was asked to present a biblical engagement on the topic “Why me? Why bother? Spirituality for the long-haul.” I decided to take a rigorous look at Elijah in 1 Kings 19 – the exhausted Elijah who has just come down from Mt. Carmel having defeated the prophets of Baal in a great show of power. I thought I would find a guy who just needed to practice better self-care and be in God’s presence. But when I really studied the passage, I found something much more interesting. The Bible isn’t cynical about Elijah. It clearly shows a man who has been completely faithful to God, following every instruction, including bizarre ones like accepting food from un-kosher ravens (What kind of meat do ravens bring you anyway? Don’t ask! Just cook it really, really well), or being supported for years by a pagan widow who has no actual food beyond the current meal she is serving. Elijah went on to confront a corrupt king, and gave 100% in doing what the Lord asked him to do to show the unfaithful people of Israel that Yahweh is the only real God.

Salim, a Palestinian Christian, who works
to reconcile Jews and Arabs in the Holy Land

But I think that what sent Elijah over the edge was not just pure exhaustion, too much effort spent in ministry (as it is for most of us who reach that point). No, Elijah prayed for death because he had done his best, 100%, and it was all a complete failure. I know that there were some leaders in the room in Kampala who have been just as faithful as Elijah but who have seen their vision end in complete failure. There are no immediate answers. God allows Elijah two good nights of sleep and two good meals before facing the tough questions at Sinai, the mountain of the covenant. Elijah pours out his accusations honestly. After a pause, God asks Elijah to come out of the cave and be in his presence. And God agrees with Elijah’s accusations. But he also unveils a much, much bigger plan than Elijah had imagined. There is a plan for judgment of those who enjoy living in judgment. And there is also the assurance that Elijah is in good company. He may feel alone, but there are not 2, not 100, but actually 7000 others who worship Yahweh as god. So, Elijah is sent off to anoint 2 future kings and his own prophet successor. And here’s the best part. In his lifetime, Elijah only anoints 1 of 3 – Elisha to succeed him. And Elijah never again appeared to struggle with failure. I take a lot of comfort in the fact that we can have a vision for our lives that exceeds our own lifetime.

Kate and Jean-Serge, two GLI friends

The week ended well, with really warm, loving worship and a party at the end of the day on Friday. Most of us traveled back to Burundi together on Saturday, and I was so happy to see my boys and Paul at the airport! We had a fairly quiet weekend after I got home, just catching up with each other. I needed some time to just “be” with them – I really loved being able to serve so intensely during the week, a lot of prayer, not much sleep, but always enough for the coming day, not much time, but just enough to do what was necessary, always the words coming from outside of me for the moment. It’s amazing to find oneself really serving as an instrument to build up the body of Christ, not an owner of gifts, but one through whom they are given. But it’s hard to maintain that level of spiritual alertness for more than a week. So I had planned a retreat day on Tuesday. I really am thankful that God had prepared the place for me in advance where I could meet with him and just rest. And again, Paul allowed me to take the time all day Tuesday, while he kept the kids in their normal school routine.

So, that’s the scoop. More on a “normal” week next week.

Looking for signs of hope with the martyrs

P.S. As a follow up and natural extension to the week in Kampala, the GLI Burundi team joined many other Christians for the world-wide prayers for Christian Unity on Thursday evening. This year, the service was held at the large Catholic cathedral downtown. I was with a Quaker colleague who noted that it was only his second time entering the Cathedral. I asked about the first time. He told me that he had sung in a choir there on the occasion of the 1993 funeral for the assassinated first Hutu President of Burundi, Melchior Ndadaye. It was his murder that sparked the 14 year civil war here. I felt even more keenly the longing that my friends and colleagues never need go through a horrible time like that again.

Stay At Home Dad and Goodbye to Grandparents

Kids from Hope School displaying soccer balls they received from friends in the US via Jean Sack.


I am counting down the days to Rebecca's return (one left).  I am writing this evening playing the stay-at-home-dad for the 8th and final day, while Rebecca is at a conference in Kampala.  Actually I should be pretty good at this as this is the third year that this conference has happened in January.  As co-representatives there are times when we need to divide our work rather than share it.  Although there was some temptation to take the kids out of school and go to Kampala as a family, the reality is that this is usually the most unpleasant option with kids feeling neglected, out of their routine, and us dividing our time between family and work responsibility.  We fail at both when we try to do such things together and do much better keeping the kids in their routine with one parent while the other can give her (or his) full time to work.

Rebecca will write next week about the details of the GLI conference.  It is becoming a very powerful venue for regional church leaders from Catholic and Protestant churches to come together and reflect on the role of the church in bringing reconciliation and redemption to the Great Lakes region.

For me, the week is more or less normal, but a bit more stressful without team parenting.  I still take the kids to school in the morning and then follow my morning routine with swimming and devotional followed by 3.5 hours at work.  When I pick the kids up for lunch at noon, I discontinue working for the rest of the day and play with the kids.  There are some extra-curricular activities, like tennis and reading club they go to, but most of the time they are with me.

It is fortunate that I have always been the one that is in charge for the morning routine.  (I am the morning person).  So I am used to being up early to make breakfast, feed the dogs, prepare breakfast, and snacks and get the kids ready for school.  I am less practiced with the afternoon activities, but at least we have never been late for school.

The kids have been more cooperative than usual, like I think they realize they have an unfair advantage with two of them and one of me.  They have been playing better with each other and have been fighting less.  We have also managed to wean them off of screen time over the Christmas break and they spend many an hour in the afternoon coloring, of all things.  (Are they still going to like coloring when we get back to the US?)

The only change in routine worthy of noting was the temporary closing of our pool in Kinanira III.  They were changing the water which gave me the opportunity to find some other options.  There is a great pool at the Star Hotel in Kigobe  (the last place I would have looked for a pool.)  Also, Entente Sportive, the pool that was closed last year for a month of renovation that took a year and a half is scheduled to open tomorrow evening.  It still has its 3 and 5 meter platform, but for some reason the owner saw fit to divide its majestic 33 meter length into a 10 and 23 meter pool.   (No one consulted me, but I would have told him that was a dreadfully bad idea.)  Anyway, that should suffice for my Bujumbura pool PSA. Club du Lac T is always great of course, and the US embassy has a very big pool as well, but you have to be in the diplomatic or official corps to use it as far as I can tell.  Too bad.

Actually this is the second week of normal routine with the kids having gone back to school after vacation last Monday.  Rebecca and I got a full day of work in on Monday as Grandma Jean watched them in the afternoon and even gave us a date night that evening.  The kids spent the time with her taking down the Christmas decorations and putting them in a suitcase for the grandparents to take back to the US.  Some of the heavier toys were packed up as well.  It is strange to see this process beginning so early.  But you have to take advantage of transcontinental sherpas when they are visiting.  We do not get to take anything more back than we can fit into 2 suitcases each when we leave.

Papa Dave and Grandma Jean were still with us last week until Thursday, and Rebecca took the opportunity to take them up to the Hope School in Mutaho overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday.

Hope School is one of MCC's longterm partner projects.  We have placed service workers and SALTers there in the past.  Jean Sack has also been there on at least 4 past visits and it was those visits that really inspired her (a professional librarian) to start a book campaign to get books to Burundi when she realized how impoverished schools here were for educational materials.  If you have followed this blog you are probably aware of the book drive and container of books and other pedagogical materials that arrived here in the past few years.

Her visit was especially meaningful, not only because it will be the last one during our term as MCC reps. but because her passion for books for the Hope School inspired another donor, The Foundation for Hope in Africa, to give a grant to build a library at the school which was completed this fall.

This was a wonderful synergy of efforts as the 8000 books that Jean Sack had furnished had been primarily stored in book shelves stuffed into a small supply room, virtually inaccessible to teachers and students.

To see the books in a library with solar power to boot was certainly a well received tribute for her efforts several years ago.  We have also advertised for a one year SALT position of a librarian assistant to help better organize the books and get them better circulated in classrooms and used as resources.  It is easy to see the challenges and how much more that needs to be done, but it is also important to look at what was accomplished.

I think Jean is regarded by our partner and others at the school as a local hero and they brought up several more suitcases of French books and other supplies they had brought from many who donated before their trip.  Included in the gifts were 50 new soccer balls and several hundred pinpal letters!  (The soccer ball donation was inspired from the visit of Rebecca's brother's family last spring who saw the school and played soccer there with some kids using a wad of bags wrapped up with twine as a ball.  Cousin Miriam's soccer team contributed many of these balls after she shared her experience with them.)

Although I was not on the visit (I stayed with the kids because they were in school), I did receive a great report about the visit.  Even at the Grande Seminaire where they stayed overnight, they were welcomed warmly by the nuns and priests who have also met Jean in the past.  Many gifts were bestowed on her as well, most notably some gigantic avocados from the seminary trees, that were, no exaggeration, as big as my head!  I think they should get some kind of world record.  As a result we have had avocado in just about everything and I did find out this week, that if you are out of mayonnaise, mashed avocado makes a perfect substitute in tuna salad.  (The kids really liked it.)

Dave and Jean left last Thursday and then we had one night as a family before Rebecca left last Friday morning.  We did a swim together, prayed together and then I took Rebecca to the airport.  The rest of the day was a bit of a challenge as I had to teach ballet, 2 classes, with both kids in tow.  It is especially hard because David's best friend Isabel, the daughter of Tim and Jeanette is no longer here.  So she was not in class and her mom was not around to help.

I made arrangements for David to go home with some other friends during the second hour, but found him fast asleep in the corner of the room by the end of the first class.  Oren has been doing the older kids class which has been nice to have him participate.  Sadly he is the only boy, but does like to jump, and especially likes to try to do tour en l'air.  (He usually lands on his butt.)

The weekend was good.  After yoga I took the kids to Pinnacle 19 on the beach all day where we swam, fished, and David was very happy to play with Avril the baby chimp who was also very excited to see him.  We saw Lulu the older chimp out of her cage as well on the grounds but she was limping terribly and when I asked the owner what happened she told me someone shot her in the night about 2 weeks before.  I don't know if she will fully recover but it was very sad to see that.

Sunday we went to church as usual.  I did go down and help with the Sunday School though.  We had a small cell group in the evening and I made sure things were prepared for school the next morning.

Monday turned out to be the hardest day of the week as several members of our staff (or their families were sick) and basically no one showed up for work.  This would not have been terrible if there was not a guest, a photographer from one of our back donors (CFGB) arriving that evening.  I did my best to get things ready in the house including dinner and the guest room.  Fortunately she arrived in the evening (I sent a taxi for her) and was taken by our partner upcountry the next morning meaning I did not really have any extensive hosting responsibilities.  By Tuesday our staff was back and Marcelline cleaned a mountain of dirty dishes.  By comparison, the rest of the week seemed easy.

Through the week the kids have been very good and many friends have offered to be there for us during the week.  On Tuesday our Ethiopian friends invited us over for dinner.  We took them up on the offer and enjoyed Ethiopian food (and a ton of appetizers and desserts)  We did get home late for a school night, but at least there were no dishes.

Rebecca has been checking in all week and despite being the stay at home parent, I did get a lot of work done in the mornings while the kids were at school.  The week is over now, and I do feel some sense of pride that I can give Rebecca this opportunity to be fully available for this conference.  Expect an update from her on that next week.

Ruminations on the Sublime and The Hobbit

Oren showing Papa Dave the offerings of Cafe Gourmand in Bujumbura--the best Belgian pastry shop in the Southern Hemisphere!

Once again, I find myself with some unexpected time to sit and reflect, on a Sunday morning this time.  David began getting a fever yesterday and I found myself suffering from an earache.  We have been taking it easy since yesterday and stayed home from church this morning.  (Rebecca did take him to BUMEREC for a malaria test which was negative.)

We came back only 3 days ago from our vacation in Kigoma, Tanzania and are enjoying our last week in Burundi with Papa Dave and Grandma Jean, who will be here until Thursday.  Actually they and Rebecca will leaving at the end of next week, Rebecca going to a conference in Kampala, which will leave me alone with the kids for the following week.

We left for Kigoma the previous week (Dec 28^th) and drove the 5 hours down from Bujumbura.  We made one interesting stop.  One of our partners, Help Channel Burundi, was doing an emergency food distribution for some recently returned Burundian refugees from Tanzania.  There has been a forced repatriation in the past 6 months that has resulted in hardship and food insecurity for many of the returnees.  MCC sent a container of emergency food and some school kits that were being distributed at several sites.  It was serendipitous that one of them was on the way south along the lake and we stopped to see the distribution. 

A food distribution is not much to look at on the surface—a truck with supplies was unloaded containing maize, beans, canned turkey meat and school kits.  There was a team there with a list of eligible recipients and many in line---many not on the list.  Rebecca and Jean Sack took the opportunity to interview several women (and men) and got details on their stories.  We did an official obligatory speech of introduction and left after that to continue our journey to Kigoma. We crossed the border without a problem although the 26 km of dirt road to the border was much worse than normal after some hard rains.  We arrived at Jakobbson beach in the late afternoon.

Sublime.  A word I often ponder, was first impressed upon my consciousness in reading Kant’s Critique of Judgment in grad. school.  He, the master of metaphysical categories, defines 3 types of experience of the sublime:  the noble, the splendid and the terrifying.  For him there is an important distinction between the experience of beauty and the experience of the sublime, although there are some similarities.  Beauty is defined by the 'boundaries' of the object admired-- (ex. a rose) while the sublime is experienced as boundless because of the magnitude of the object (ex. a glacier).  The experience of the sublime is the pleasure in seeing an overpowering, vast, object of great magnitude that renders the viewer insignificant and mortal.  It is this peculiar experience of terror, without actually being afraid, that gives one the sense of the sublime. 

I would say that Kigoma, is a place where one encounters the sublime in the experience of the splendid.  I have described in the past the particulars of the Jakobbsen beach with its cottages, lagoon like beachfront, on a crystal clear shore of Lake Tanganyika.  Not to mention the immensely bouldered savannah on a high plateau that offers one a view of an immense peninsula overlooking the vast surrounding lake, town, and mountains of DRC.  A zebra and troup of monkeys paid regular visits to our front porch, and we enjoyed snorkeling, swimming and bouldering on the beaches and surrounding cliffs. 

Lake Tanganyika itself has a certain claim on the sublime being the second deepest lake in the entire world.  The thought of the bottom, largely unexplored extending 1000s of feet below the surface is terrifying enough.  But Kigoma offers a unique opportunity to experience its depth in a small way because of the clarity of the water surrounded by rocky cliffs and sand.  The clarity of the water affords a great opportunity for snorkeling that feels almost coral reef like.  Tropical fish swim around the boulders close to the shore, but one can snorkel away from the shallows and see down to depths of 30 to 50 feet fairly easily.  Plunging down for a surface dive in the late afternoon, one experiences a rapid cooling of the water with each passing meter.  It is an exciting place to snorkel and swim as well. 

Rebecca and I enjoyed swimming between points in the lagoon, clear as swimming pool 10 feet deep but 175 to 200 meters across.  Although there are no hippos or crocs ever sighted in this area, the clear water, looking horizontally is scary as one imagines seeing shadowy forms in the underwater distances.

The bouldering could easily be technical climbing for someone properly equipped and so inclined.  As it was, this was a favorite activity of David and Oren who had to be kept from the more dangerously high faces.  We encouraged them to do more ‘horizontal’ bouldering along the shore of the lake, marginally safer.

It was rainy season, and every day was not equally amenable to outdoor activities.  We stayed in much of Monday and Tuesday and worked on a puzzle, played games and read books.

We did a fascinating 1000 piece puzzle based on a miniature old time general store by look-alike artist Joan Steiner.  (If any ‘puzzling’ friends in Burundi want to borrow it, let me know.)

I also read the Hobbit to Oren and David over the 5 day vacation.  (We listened to some of it on the ipod during the 5 hour drive to and from Kigoma.)  It is such a good book, and I was struck by how unnerving it is to imagine ‘men’ at a much lower point on the food chain than we usually imagine ourselves.  Tolkein captures well the sense of hapless survival that becomes one’s life in the face of undeafeatable enemies.  And I can imagine how such fantasy could come out of the mind of someone living in early 20^th century Europe--a place inhabited by formidable enemies who could in essence devour another nation.  (As Germany did in WWII).  The enchanted enemies of the Hobbit, goblins, dragons, wolves, may seem little more than pure fantasy for those of us living in ‘First World’ nations nowadays, our enemies are real, but far less powerful than hordes of goblins or Smaug the dragon.  

I was simultaneously reading Jason Stearns Dancing in the Glory of Monsters—the recent history of DRC starting with the fall of Mobutu.  (This is a must read for those working in the Great Lakes region, in my opinion.)  What was disturbing to me, besides the unbelievable horror of the war in the region beginning in 1994, was the utter depravity of the slaughter of civilian refugees.  The magnitude of death between the Rwanda genocide and the retribution that followed is beyond all capacity to imagine. 

To read these books together, chapter by chapter, one almost feels there is something allegorical in it all from old Smaug—Mobutu, to the dwarves, elves and men all laying claim to the treasure, after his defeat, not to mention the goblins and wolves.  One would have to look hard for someone acting in the noble role of eagles or kindly wizards.  (Foreign powers that have been involved have not seemed so ennobled in their motives)

I have many friends and colleagues that want to find simple roots to these events--conflict metals, colonialism.  But, like Smaug’s arrival and staying power, the greed of dwarves, the histories of bitterness between goblins and men, the causes of war lack easy explanation, and sometimes it seems that small things change the course of history significantly for better or worse.

(I was struck, in the Hobbit, that the whole goblin war of 5 armies was a result of the dwarves quest itself and their stumbling into the lair, causing the death of the Great Goblin.)  There is something comforting realistic about the end of the Hobbit.  Things are better, but dragons are still around, alliances are only so strong, and larger forces are held only at bay, not eradicated.   Noble actions and self-serving motives intermingle and characters may move between one and the other in a way that strikes me as true to life.  More true than what I might read in someone’s biography. 

We finished the Hobbit but I am still working on the other book.  The parallel reading informs my experience of the sublime along the shore of the lake as I contemplate the terrifying legacy of the land I stand upon.  The bloodshed and feudal warfare in this region the past two decades is truly medieval in its horror.  And that is actually what  it is—probably little different from Europe in its feudalistic period.  People live here, like they did in the Hobbit’s ‘edge of the wild’ in uneasy alliances, avoiding enemies, and in some fatalistic awareness of forces far greater than themselves that can change everything for better but more often for the worse.  There is always the opportunity for ruthless and noble actions and the lives of people here full of examples of both.

As a westerner I never feel more awed (in the terrible sense of the word) and yet more removed from this.  We are the ‘hollow men’ here--people without a history of suffering and tribulation.   But awareness changes a person, even me.  Even how I read a book like the Hobbit.  It is no longer a mere fantasy to me.   It is probably closer to the experience of many I live with here than what my life in the US was, complete with creature comforts and continuous trance-inducing claim of mass media and the entertainment industry. 

Sometimes I think history will show our culture to be the true  ‘lotus eaters’ of this age—living life comfortably stoned, (even if we ‘say no to drugs’).

Oops, straying into the tedious role of cultural critic and casting too pessimistic a light on the current state of affairs in Burundi to boot.  Indeed for us here the monster is dead and the goblin wars are over for the time being as lives are being remade.  People are daring to rebuild again and hope for a better future.  It is good to be part of the force for good here in that way, and there are other foreigners here with a similar desire to help in the rebuilding in small ways.

Vacation was refreshing, and having the time to reflect in awe at the majesty and horror of this place has been good.  Perhaps I wax more philosophical because we continue our steady plod to the end of our term.  I have said I fear leaving and I will say it again.  The new year marked another milestone, our last New Year’s here.  We barely acknowledged it on the night, all of us having fallen asleep by 11pm.  Oren desperately wanted us to wake him up to jump off a chair in the Danish tradition we learned from our friends the Spanners, but we were not even able to arouse him to do it at 11.

Our trip back to Bujumbura was without event.  We stopped along the lake at Saga Resha resort for some local fish—mukeke, and fried bananas.  I will say there is nothing like eating the fish fresh from the lake here.  In Kigoma we bought a fresh sangala and grilled it whole over charcoal,  It was incredibly delicious.  It is hard to get it that fresh in Bujumbura and always tastes more ‘fishy’ here.

Rebecca and I did a day of work on Friday while grandparents baby-sat, and they even sat for the kids that evening giving Rebecca and I are rare ‘date night’.   We went to Botanika restaurant and had a very nice evening together.  It seemed like the first time in ages we had time to talk eventhough we have a time of swimming, morning devotional and prayer together most mornings.  Topic of conversation was centered on departure and on being intentional about work, child rearing, working, diet, Sabbath, after our return to the US.

Saturday was a return to the routine of yoga, and the outbreak of David’s fever midday.  I spent Saturday evening with him while Rebecca took her parents to our colleague Felix’s house for dinner.  Patrick came down this weekend as well, for some business and is with us today.   We will likely go to the weekly ultimate game this afternoon.

Looking forward to the kids return to school tomorrow.