Lenten Devotionals: Oren lighting a candle on Sunday night as we are memorizing a Beatitude each week during lent.
Too many days without an update and this one should really
write itself. Life is going very fast,
and it is hard to set aside the time to reflect. Actually I had envisioned the title for this
blog more than a month ago as we anticipated the arrival of the new MCC Reps.
who will do a 5 month hand-over with us.
But now that they are here, I don’t feel like I have much time to write.
Nothing makes it more clear that your leaving as having your
replacement show up in town. I would say
we are moving into the ‘end game’ of our term, but life here is so busy and
everything seems so focused on the present that it is hard to project more than
a week into the future.
The Stoner-Ebys (Scott, Anne Marie, Samuel and Luke) arrived
on Brussels Airways one week ago (Sunday night). They got here without a hitch and were
actually waiting in the airport with all of their baggage when we pulled up
with our car.
It was about 9pm and we brought them to our house for
dinner. (We had gone a family to pick
them up.) We have arranged for them to
live in the flat beneath our service worker Jennifer’s house, but we thought
they might want to eat before settling in for the night. We had a nice visit together and the four
kids (ours and theirs) jumped on the trampoline for over an hour before we got
them all back to their house. Not the
ideal school night, but Oren and David did do well making Samuel and Luke feel
welcome.
The next day, orientation to life in Burundi for the next
several months for them began in earnest.
We had them over most of the day Monday to talk about basics, how to get
around, get money, find places, etc. We
provided them with one of our cars (the Raum) so we are back down to one car
until the end of term.
On Monday evening we had a small gathering of Bujumbura team
members and Felix to meet them. We went
to Ubuntu, which was the first place we were taken out to dinner as newly
arriving Reps. when we began, and it is a great place to take in the charm of
Bujumbura by the lake at sunset while enjoying good Italian pizza. The kids enjoyed seeing the crowned cranes
which we have become so used to, but are really quite spectacular to see up
close, walking around the grounds freely.
Tuesday, I took them around to visit the Kings school and
other venues. It was also a good
orientation for me as our kids attend the Ecole Belge. For any Anglophones thinking of moving here,
the Kings school really offers a very impressive curriculum complete with
computer courses, sports, African drumming and other activities. It is the British system so getting used to
some of the vocabulary is different ('form tutor' instead of homeroom teacher for
instance). But on the plus side for Americans, the kids are put into ‘houses’
for the year for sports competitions.
Samuel was quite pleased to be put into “Rusizi house” with another kid
his age named Harry (the headmaster’s son).
From what I can tell though, Quiddich is not one of the sports offerings
and the headmaster’s name is Jeremy Wisdom, not Dumbledore.
The kids started school on Wednesday and Scott and Anne
Marie began language study. I did
accompany them on their morning commute on Wednesday and Thursday to help them
negotiate the best shortcuts through rush hour traffic, but by Friday they were
on their own and able to do it all themselves.
They even made a trip on their own to the zoo on Friday afternoon.
Rebecca did a lot of work holding down the fort at the
office and also getting our kids to their normal activities. Since we are at the end of our fiscal year
there has been a lot of extra reporting to do, and there have been quite a few
meetings for her to attend and let people know she will need to be replaced in
the near future. She has asked to step
down from the church Elders committee among others. What is interesting to note though is that
saying you are leaving tends to mean people want to double down on your
workload and social obligations rather than lighten them, so this has all
proved to be a bit stressful.
Among the highlights for activities with the kids was a
Birthday party for David last Saturday that we all went to. Imanzi is one of David’s Rwandese friends who
invited the families to a party. They
had a very nice gathering with several of their colleagues from Pakistan and
Somalia. Among the games was a live
version of Angry Birds featuring a giant slingshot, tennis balls, and empty
cereal boxes as buildings. It was quite
a bit of fun that even the parents enjoyed.
Another exciting highlight has been the long hoped for
reopening of the pool at Entente Sportive.
The pool was a favorite of Rebecca and I for a morning swim in a 35
meter pool, but also a favorite of the kids because it offered some cool
features like a 3 and 5 meter platform.
We were told last October (2012) that they would close for two months
for renovation. True to form the
renovations took 16 months because of delays in receiving new tiles (and
probably many other reasons.) I did not
think we would see it reopen before our departure. But it opened a couple of weeks ago and after
trying it ourselves, we took the kids last Sunday. Oren and David were delighted to go back
after a year and David swam in all of the smaller pools that connect to the
larger pool with the platforms. Oren, to
my surprise walked right up to the top of the 5 meter platform and jumped
off. He had been afraid to do that a
year and a half ago. He then proceeded
to jump off another 30 or so times after that over the next 2 hours.
The pool is a bit shorter as they added a wall making a
smaller pool for beginning swimmers at the shallow end of the larger pool, but
I am just happy to see it open again.
Sadly they are still using the archaic heavy metal vacuum system that
they have had since the 1960s to clean the pool. It was the main reason that the tiles
pre-renovation were being damaged at the bottom of the pool. I realize now though, that I can’t change the
world, so I am learning to accept small positive changes--at least we can swim
there again before we leave.
Rebecca also took the Stoner-Ebys over there with our kids
again this past week, and they all apparently enjoyed it together. There is a certain pleasure in showing
someone new to a place all of the fun things to do there.
The main highlight of the week though was the Penultimate
Folk Dance we hosted at our house this past Saturday.
It is not often in life that one gets to use the word
penultimate, but Rebecca and I do know that we want to host one more dance at
the end of the school year before we leave.
We did see a window to fit one in this month so we sent out an email to
let friends know about it. At times this
has been a very well attended event drawing friends and friends of friends from
far and wide. This one was no exception
to the rule as we had, counting children, at least 70 people at our home for
dancing and a potluck dinner.
The dancing was a lot of fun, some of it led by the kids who
really like the line dances. We did
several square dances, a cotillion, and Strip the Willow. Despite the work that goes into preparing
these dances (which we have down to a science now), I realize how much we will
miss these when we get back to the US.
Even if we wanted to, we would never be able to host a dance in our
small living room, nor do I think could we gather a group of 50 close friends
to come and join us on a Saturday afternoon.
It is definitely a labor of love and a way that we have been blessed,
and hopefully been a blessing to our community of friends here.
We cleaned up the house Saturday night and were ready for church
on Sunday morning. I appreciated being
able to hear Emmanuel Ndikumana preach again, whom I have written about
before. He is a prophetic voice in
Burundi in my opinion and preached on the Beatitude: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for
righteousness, for they shall be filled.”
I could not do the sermon justice in a synopsis but did point out some
interesting points including the fact that the word for righteousness in French
is Justice. But he went much further
than that and connected it to the story of the Pharisee who prayed thankfully
that he was not a murderer, adulterer, thief, or even a tax collector. While the tax collector beat his chest and
prayed, “Lord have mercy on me a sinner.”
Emmanuel pointed out that despite the tendency for us to
think of Pharisees as ‘hypocrites’ he took the prayer as sincere. The man was thankful that he was not like
those men and probably was earnest in obeying the law. BUT he was ‘filled up’, not hungering, for
righteousness. He challenged us with the
fact that many of us who are Christians tend to be like that as well—We may
feel better about ourselves than others because we are not like ‘them’ in their
weaknesses. We are ‘basically good’ and
do not ‘hunger and thirst’ anymore. But
Jesus makes the point in the beatitude and the parable that it is in fact those
who earnestly desire that are blessed, not those who feel they have arrived at
righteousness.
 |
| Avril greets Sam and Luke to Burundi |
Sunday afternoon we took the Stoner-Ebys out to Pinnacle 19
to enjoy the beach and also for the kids to see the free roaming
chimpanzees. Avril (the baby chimp) did
not disappoint as she gleefully played with them, climbed on them, and cheekly
stole their shoes. The kids had a great
time with her, then we all played in the Lake after lunch. Rebecca and I got home just on time for small
group.
As I begin the search for a new job near the house we are
returning to in Maryland, I become more and more grateful for what we have
here. I will profoundly miss the
routines here when we are gone. To swim,
read the Bible and pray with Rebecca every morning before work, to come home
for lunch with the kids before going back to school and work in the afternoon,
to have most weekends for family time.
These are the things that are hard to find in a culture that is bent on
success and efficiency. I have
complained of the work ethic here when I needed to find a bank or store open at
lunchtime, but truth be told, I would trade away much of our American
work-ethic for less stuff and more leisure time with family.
The week ahead will prove to be challenging for work and
hospitality as well as we are hosting a regional meeting at our house and our
cook (who is pregnant) was in a bus accident is on bed rest until at least midweek. Prayers are appreciated.
Bonus video: Oren conquering the 5 meter platform.
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