Saying goodbye to Avril at Pinnacle 19.
It helps, now and then, to step back
and take a long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our
efforts, it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a
tiny fraction of the magnificent
enterprise that is God's work. Nothing
we do is complete, which is a way of
saying that the Kingdom always lies
beyond us….
No statement says all that could be
said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith
.
No confession brings perfection.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will
grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing
that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further
development.
We provide yeast that produces far
beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a
sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and to
do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning,
a step along the way, an
opportunity for the Lord's grace to
enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but
that is the difference between the master
builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders;
ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our
own.
---Bishop Untener of Saginaw
It is my turn to be up late, unable to sleep. We are at about T – 18 hours from departure
from Burundi. We are holed up in the
small but very comfortable apartment adjoining the home of some German
missionary friends. They have generously
let us use it in our last week as we have moved out of our house entirely and
have, just yesterday surrendered the key to the landlord, having completed all
cleaning and inspection. We left on very
good terms with him.
Flashforward 24hours-- We are
now sitting in Heathrow airport waiting for our final connection to Zurich
where we will do some visiting and ground travel to Stuttgart to visit our
German friends who had left Burundi last year.
But I will talk more about that when we get back to the US.
Looking back over the last 5 days is worth some
reflection. How does one leave a home
and community? What do you do in the
last hours as you set aside a way of life?
These were questions that we did reflect upon before the final hours
were upon us. I would encourage anyone who is leaving a place to reflect and plan before the last hours are upon you.
The last week itself remained busy and passed quickly. The biggest responsibility we had left in the
first half was making our final trip to Kigali to drop off our SALT volunteers, Julia and Matt who were returning
to the US at the end of their assignment.
Although it felt like a bit of burden in the very last days, we were
grateful for the chance to make a final visit and have real closure with our
partners and service workers there.
The highlight event (besides closing our bank accounts) was
a dinner we hosted at the guest house we staying in, for all of our partners,
the host parents of our SALTers, and our other service workers and local
staff. We were about 18 all told.
It was not unlike other such events we have had in the past
weeks. There was dinner, speeches and
counter speeches, prayer, and gifts. We
felt that we left Rwanda well and at peace with everyone there.
The next chapter for the new reps. who will be based in
Kigali, will be quite different as MCC is now registered as an official INGO in
the country. This will come with many
new opportunities and challenges that were not part of our experience when we
were the Reps.
I should mention that we did take advantage of the drive upcountry
to drop in on some friends. Samantha and
Isai Torres, are missionaries that arrived about the same time as us, and set
up a center for vulnerable children, in Bukeye.
They have 2 young children. Their
mission is called Cries of a Child and they are currently building a clinic in
this remote rural town.
It was good to share and pray with them on our final visit
up country. We had lunch together in the
Kabira Forest Guest House at the top of the hill in Bugarama.
We got back to Bujumbura from Kigali on Thursday afternoon
and went to dinner with our Ethiopian friends.
It was Rebecca’s Birthday (pretty minimal this year) but we did have a
fabulous Ethiopian meal, complete with coffee and Café Gourmand pastries.
Friday I closed our Burundi bank accounts and Rebecca and I
took shifts closing the house. Our staff
had pretty much cleared it out while we were in Rwanda and there was not much
to do. By the afternoon we were able to
return it to the landlord and ended our stay in the house on good terms.
Saturday was a special day and we planned it as a family day
to do some of our favorite things.
Rebecca and the kids stopped off at Musee Vivant while I ran a quick
errand. (I gave one of our old
computers to Odifax, one of our house staff who also works as a pastor.) From there we went to Café Gourmand for
lunch. We took some photos of Oren’s
icecream sundai and the pastry counter.
In the afternoon we went to Club du Lac Tanganyika for the
last time. We swam in the pool and
lake. Jennifer Price stopped by and we
chatted. We left there and stopped by
Pinnacle 19 to say good-bye to Avril the chimp.
Avril knows David very well and immediately took his hand and led him to
the trampoline.
We spent about 45 minutes there then headed to Ubuntu for
dinner. Ubuntu is a place of special
significance because it is where we had our first meal out in Burundi. In fact we were brought there the very first
day of our arrival to meet the MCC team.
To have our last supper there gave us a sense of closure as it was a place we loved to go.
We shared our last meal with very special friends: Pastor Emmanuel Ndikumana and his wife
Asele. Also friends that we have known
since our first days in Burundi.
Emmanuel Ndkikumana is one of the truly prophetic voices for the
Burundian church.
In fact, Sunday morning (the next day) he was preaching and
gave an inspired message based on Acts 4-6 to the church regarding corruption
and distraction as tools the devil uses to undermine the church.
The last church service was fairly emotional as well. We were asked to come forward and give a
testimony. We both talked about how the
BICC congregation was really a home for us and the place where we really
established sustainable community bonds in Burundi. Both through the church and the small group
that we formed out of it. It was here
where I also shared the poem at the beginning of this blog. It was read at the funeral of Arch Bishop
Arhur Romero. It captures a bit how it
feels to leave, not having completed nearly as much was set out to do. The work is far from done, but we are no
longer the people called to do it here.
We were prayed for and commissioned. Sent back to the US to bring what we had
learned from Burundi back to the US. We
took pictures of ourselves with several good friends (they are here in the
blog).
We went home and finished packing. Miraculously I was able to get all 9 of our
suitcases into the car with our family.
Fortunately people who wanted to see us off did not meet us at the apartment
expecting a ride!
We said goodbye to our friends Samuel and Sabine, who had
been hosting us, and headed to the airport at 4 pm. We found on arrival, about a dozen
wellwishers.
At that point things began to get very surreal for me. First handing off my cellphone and all my
keys to Felix made me feel almost naked.
I am never without those things and the idea that the car, the office,
my house, and the phone were no longer mine to use really made the feeling that
the job was over sink in heavily.
It was not so much a feeling of freedom as one of loss, like
a heavy weight was lifted off my shoulders and I found that without that I was
not able to keep my feet on the ground and was blowing away like chaff in the
wind.
I really understood, at that moment that this was it. We were not coming back after our nomal one
month vacation in the summer. There is
no ‘back’ to come to now.
Patrick and Michael in the Bujumbura departure lounge |
To add to the surreal feeling were some surprise passengers
at the airport. Both DRC service workers
(Patrick and Michael) were getting on the same flight for completely unrelated
reasons. All of us flying together was
completely by chance. I also saw Ali
Blair, another old friend who was dropping someone off at the airport. Ben Carlson was getting on the flight as was
another father from the Ecole Belge—Marcus, Nicola’s husband.
Having this huge number of people I knew all going out with
us added to the strangeness of the whole departure.
Nonetheless. We left without incident on Kenya Airways which
stopped in Nairobi where got on a British Airways 747 to London and Zurich.
We are currenly in Zurich where we will take a train to
visit some of our German missionarly friends and then do a professional
‘debriefing’ /reentry retreat to help us make the transition back to our
culture smoother. I am looking forward
to that.
The poem at the beginning captures a bit what it feels like to leave. So many seeds we harvested that we did not plant, but also so many seeds we planted that we will not be the ones to harvest. Some will grow and flourish, other will wither and die. But we are no longer the tenants in that place.
This is the first time in nearly my life where we are not going to something. The future is unknown for us and the past 6 years are so rich that looking forward will be difficult. I pray that the 'Grace that 'brought us safe thus far will be sufficient to lead us home.
6 comments:
Hugs to you and your family....loss/leaving is difficult, but has it's place and time will assist. Adventures to look forward to, new challenges....life's journey. Welcome home.
Paul,
It was so healing for me after leaving Tanzania to read your blogs. Thank-you for sharing your such sensitive insight and compassion. May you find the folks among whom you may also vicariously continue to live while you bridge the gap into all that is new on this side of the globe. Blessings.
Thinking of you and your family in this transition, Paul. Wishing you many exciting and meaningful adventures in the future! Best,Maureen
Cherish every thing that's installed for you because you cannot have it all the time. When I have the chance to travel with my anti jet lag buddy, jetLAGFX http://www.jetlagfx.com/, I always assess myself on how I handle opportunities that comes out for me.
Tou muito agarato pela programa sáo programa abençoda, continuem com esta mençangem ate no confim da terra si é possivel!!
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