Paul and Rebecca Mosley in Burundi

Attempting Great Things for God

2012-01-30T23:05:00.002+02:00

Welcoming ceremony at the Hope School for the Hope for Africa Foundation mission team.

Committing to leading a team of short-term missionaries on a week-long visit to a remote part of Burundi and offering to bring your mother-in-law along to boot while leaving your wife behind might sound like a good scenario for a situation comedy, a recipe for disaster, or a bold leap of faith. I prefer to think of it as the latter, but as the time of this event approached I really began to wonder what I had got myself into.

For some reason I was reminded of a time as a young man when I was running a ropes course for a youth camp in Colorado. While I was wating alone for a group of campers to arrive I was reading through a book of survival skills for mountain climbing. I found a diagram of how one can make jumars (a kind of clip that one can use to ascend a rope) out of ones bootlaces. I unlaced my shoes and followed the detailed directions carefully on how to do it and I succeeded in making them and began ascending the rope up the cliff face. When I was about 15 feet up, it suddenly donned on me that I was all alone ascending a cliff on a rope using two pairs of bootlaces to hoist myself up. I had been so involved in the details that I had completely lost site of the big picture. I quickly descended down the rope before I got into a worse situation.

I can't say that this was a perfect parallel but there was something about focusing on all the parts and details in order to prepare for the trip that the challenging reality of the whole was somehow escaping me.

But let me back up a bit and fill in some of the background. I was contacted about a year ago by a pastor, Dr. Robin Wilde, representing the Hope for Africa Foundation. He was interested in finding some areas of intervention in Burundi for his foundation. I connected him to our partner who works with the Hope School for the Batwa. After several visits, Dr. Wilde's foundation supported the completion of several of the classrooms in the secondary school. He also inquired about the possibility of sending a mission team to the school to participate in one of the building projects. After some planning by email, I agreed to help facilitate the team visit and we made an itenerary for them which would have them fly into Kigali, Rwanda and travel overland by bus to Burundi and down to Burasira where they would stay at a seminary and walk over to the Hope School daily which was 'nearby' on a neighboring hill.

As the time of the trip arrived, we found that it would correspond with the visit of Rebecca's mother, Jean. Since she had recently been instrumental in getting a container of books sent to Burundi for donations to the Hope School and was anxious to see the results, I offered to take her with us during the visit while Rebecca stayed home in Buja to keep the kids in school.

It all seemed to simple and logical on paper. As the date approached (2 weeks away) I realized that the two translators we hired would probably not be sufficient as none of the arrivees spoke French and I had proposed that besides working on the construction site, the team could break into small groups in the afternoons and visit classes to interact with children in English language instruction, crafts, and singing.

We did not have the budget to hire more kirundi translators, but I decided to invite our Rwanda SALTers Bethany and Annie to come along to help with translation into french at least which the older kids understand. They agreed to come along.

Another afterthought which proved to be vital was bringing my car. I had originally thought of taking a bus to Kigali and join their bus on the way down but changed my mind and brought it as an emergency vehicle.

All of my last minute decisions proved to be fortuitous and I was glad my judgement was good.

So last Sunday I drove to Kigali by car followed by Jean on Monday morning who arricved by air. We took the opportunity on Monday to visit Rwanda partners and to see the libraries of our Rwanda partners that were fortified by some of Jean's contributions from the container. She was quite pleased to see that many of the 8000 books that had arrived were already catalogued and on shelves. We also did banking in the afternoon and had a nice dinner at our favorite Indian restaurant ZAFFRON with the MCC Rwanda team.

The Hope for Africa mission team arrived on Monday night around 3am and we met their bus heading out of town at about 9am. Pastor Wilde got them to that point then returned to Kigali to make a trip to Zambia while the team followed me, Jean and the two SALTers in our car. The trip took about 4 hours including the border crossing which mercifully did not involve any search by customs. (The mission team had quite a few gifts for the school on board that might have looked like merchandise for sale.)

We arrived at the Seminary about 2pm and had lunch then headed up the hill to the school. It was at that moment that I realized that many of the team were retired and older and a mile walk up a steep hill in the hot sun was not going to be part of the daily repertoire for all of us. We did all make it to the top that first day though and were met by the drum team and most of the school who gave us a rousing welcome. Our translators and the UCEDD team were there as well to greet us. We had a short opening ceremony, surveyed the work site that was well underway then went back down the hill through the Batwa quarter to see the houses they lived in.

The batwa are poor and for the most part, the immediate reaction of seeing such abject poverty is compassion, but there is something about this kind of compassion that is distanceing, not a feeling that draws one nearer. One wants to help but also push it away, because it is too difficult and overwhelming to look at for too long.

I know that is often the first reaction one has to encountering the school and neighboring community. But I felt it as a personal mission to help this team move beyond that kind of 'otherness' compassion toward a more intimate connection and understanding of what the real struggles are for the kids in the school and to wrestle with them over how to overcome their challenges rather than feeling like throwig money and stuff is the only possible response to such need.

Over the week I do feel like we succeeded overwhelmingly at getting connected to the school, the teachers, the students, administration, and even parents. We generally divided the day into two parts, in the morning most of the team did construction on the 10th grade classroom and in the afternoon the team split into small groups and went into different classrooms to do small workshops in English, crafts, and singing. In the late afternoon we did prayer and worship together the first 2 days and sports on the third day.

In the morning we had breakfast at the seminary prior to ascending the hill. I drove my jeep up every morning to bring about half of the team up who needed assistance. We would go back down for lunch then return at 2pm and stay until about 6. We returned to the seminary and had dinner about 7:30 pm and usually had a team debriefing and planning meeting for the next day.

It seemed that all aspects of this went off very well. During construction I think the workers there were stunned to see mzungus doing menial tasks like moving bricks. There were also several skilled masons on the team who helped mud and lay brick as well. Again, I think modelling a respect for manual labor was well received by those who were working.

At one point 5 Burundian women with 7gallon jerry cans hijacked one of the young women on the team to help carry water (womens work) to mix with mortar. They were gone about an hour and when they came back she told us they walked over a mile down hill to fill up and back up. When they came back Gwen was struggling mighily to carry the water jug up in her arms while the 5 others balanced the full jugs deftly on their heads, several of them with a baby in tow on their backs. (It did give me the opporunity to talk more about women's work in this country and how they do most of the labor especially water bearing, cultivating and childbearing.)

In the afternoon I did participate in some of the team activities, particularly the singing group. The intention was to teach some simple english songs like 'If You're Happy and You Know It' which we did but when we asked them to sing some songs they knew to us we felt really put to shame as even the youngest primarly classes would break into choruses with soloists and responders in 4 part harmony, while the mzungus struggled to stay in pitch with our simple melodies.

In the teaching I was very happy to have two of the mission team who were teachers get more involved in teaching english lessons and interacting with teachers as well. We actually had the team sit down with the primary and secondary school teachers and talk to each other about what challenges they face as far as helping students succeed in school. The American teacher (Judy) said that behavior problems was the biggest obstacle while the Burundians said that absence to to hunger was the biggest obstacle they faced in trying to get students to learn.

On Thursday we were also able to set up some one-on-one interviews with individual students. Two men interviewed two boys and two women interviewed two girls. They asked them questions about life and school. The women told me they were very surprised by answers the girls gave, particularly to the question about challenges they faced in order to succeed in school. To this the girls said that what they needed most were candles because they had to do chores after school during daylight hours and at night, without electricity it is too dark to study.

During the afternoon Bible study time, we enjoyed singing by the students and on one day I preached to the group (a challenge to preach cross culturally) and another day one of the team preached as well.

On Friday we went down to the seminary soccer field in the afternoon and played soccer with the kids.

During all of this time, Jean Sack worked with the library books sorting them into age appropriate categories and also went into most of the classes to read some books and demonstate to the teachers how books can be used to stimulate learning. Her work was greatly appreciated by Beatrice the coordinator of education.

I did take the opportunity on several of the early mornings to attend mass at the Seminary where once again one can hear beautifully and chanted liturgy. It was good preparation and a time to pray for the work of the team in the morning. In the evenings most of us were quite tired and fell asleep shortly after dinner.

The lodging is modest to say the least, there was neither electricity nor water much of the time, but the simple rooms were comfortable. I had warned the team not to expect much. "If you think of it as camping you will be pleasantly surprised by the amenities, if you think of it as a hotel, you will be quite disappointed." I never heard a single complaint from anyone the whole time. I think working with those who have so little puts much of this in perspective.

On Saturday Dr. Wilde arrived in the bus in the morning and we went up the hill together for a very nice closing ceremony. There were many pictures, and very positive sentiments. The team also distributed some gifts (toothbrushes and flip-flops) to the kids. The ceremony ended in good time for the team to go back to the seminary, pack the bus and head down the road back to Kigali before the border closed at 5:30 pm.

Jean, Bethany and Annie and I headed back to Bujumbura to connect up with Rebecca and Janelle (the other SALTer) There had been some hope that Rebecca, Janelle and the kids could join us upcountry on Friday night and we could come down together, but that was not possible as Rebecca did not have a ride.

It was good to be home! We had a full house Saturday night with all 3 Salters and Jean with us. But Annie and Bethany headed back up to Rwanda on Sunday and Jean boarded Brussels Airlines on Sunday evening to return to the US. It was hard to believe she had been here nearly 4 weeks.

In retrospect it was interesting to consider that in time Jean was here, she spent 2 weeks with me alone. Two weeks ago she helped me watch the kids while Rebecca was in Uganda and last week when Rebecca came back, she went with me to the Hope School. All in all her visit went quite well for all of us.

The end of this week was an important landmark as it demarks the time, since homeleave when all of our big projects have ended. Rebecca and I knew we were going to face the toughest 6 months of our assigment right after homeleave. We oriented new workers, had an evaluation, an audit, a visit from our supervisor, a short vacation, then her trip Uganda as worship leader and my leading the mission team to Hope School this past week.

We could not have done it in our own strength. In the words of a famous missionary (William Carey) I feel like we have lived out his motto in the last 6 months:

"Expect great things from God, Attempt great things for God."

Rebecca and I dropped the kids off at school this morning and went to Club du Lac T. and enjoyed a quiet breakfast and time of reflection together, in gratitude for the completion of these tasks. It was tiring but we both have felt enriched by our experiences.

All of us are now coming down with colds and flus and David has a fever. I think the timing is good and expected. We can let down our guard a bit and get sick for a few days. Amen.

New Creation and a New “We”

2012-01-23T19:18:00.000+02:00

Rebecca with Pastor Acher, our pastor in Burundi, who
served as one of the translators for the Institute.

Last week, as Paul posted this blog, I had already left the family in Bujumbura and was busy at work in Uganda. He and my mom had a fairly uneventful week in Bujumbura. Of course, they both worked hard, especially my mom, making the most of her time to volunteer at Hope Africa University library. Still, there wasn’t much new to report. So, Paul said that I should be the one to write the blog this week.

I had been invited to facilitate worship at a weeklong gathering of Christian leaders, seeking a way forward for reconciliation in the African Great Lakes Region. For more details on this “movement of restless leaders” you can visit their website. www.dukereconciliation.com But rather than giving you a professional summary, I want to try and describe the experience of being part of this week, on a journey through lament, pilgrimage and towards a new creation.

The Assignment: Getting Started

I arrived in the afternoon on Friday, in Entebbe on the shores of Lake Victoria. As I came out of my room I was stunned at the sight of giant kingfishers over the wall, and a flash of vivid red and black gliding down from a tree (a bird I’m still waiting to identify) – someone neglected to tell me that I would be longing for my binoculars in Uganda! The bird life was immediately striking, and I had time, so I took a walk down to a botanical garden nearby. It was beautiful, right on the lake, filled with majestic trees of every variety – and also filled with people getting started on their (loud) Friday night parties. It was refreshing to be able to take a walk in a fascinating natural setting and not be an object of fascination myself. That evening, I was able to meet informally with many of the leadership team members of GLI, and also have some time to prepare myself with prayer. I was thankful for that opportunity for a few hours of solitude and rest.

On Saturday morning, the leadership team headed out to Ggaba Seminary outside of Kampala, the site of the Great Lakes Initiative (GLI) Institute. Again, I had a little time to explore the spaces there and contemplate again the particular challenges of facilitating worship for this event. First of all, this Institute is intentionally inter-confessional. I needed to be ready to help Anglicans, Pentecostals, Catholics, Quakers, Methodists and “confused people” like myself all enter the presence of God in worship. Second, the Institute is international, and, for example, worship in the new nation of South Sudan takes on quite different forms than it does in Tanzania. Third, the region and thus the participants, are multi-lingual. We used English and French to communicate during the Institute, but neither one is the heart language of most Africans from the region. I felt a special burden to be sure francophones felt included and valued in what could be an exclusively English setting. As I prayed and planned for this responsibility, I was repeatedly grateful for my experience with Donna Dinsmore in the Chapel Planning Group at Regent College, where we planned weekly worship, dealing with the same challenges.

Oh, did I mention another challenge? I couldn’t help but feel insecure about being a westerner, asked to facilitate worship for Africans. Do you get what I’m saying? What do I have to bring to people who really know how to worship with enthusiasm and devotion? I think there may have been something important about having an “impartial” facilitator. I insisted on asking the Planners for a co-facilitator who was from the region, and they found a very capable and willing young man named Liberty. But he was quite sick with malaria by the time I arrived in Uganda. So during the time we might have had to get to know each other and practice together on Saturday, he was resting, trying to recover enough to join me on Sunday. Thus, I practiced alone in the beautiful octagonal chapel, marveling at the light coming in from all sides and the amazing acoustics, and also wondering at the images of 22 African saints carved into a set of windows. And then I also spent the afternoon as part of a planning meeting of all the partners of the GLI.

Worship in the Ggaba SeminaryChapel

On Sunday morning we had a very simple and powerful prayer time for the GLI, led by one of the faculty wives. And then each of us was off and running on our tasks. Participants started arriving. Arriving faculty needed to be briefed. My co-facilitator Liberty finally arrived, but we were not able to really start planning for the evening worship until 5 pm. And then we had to tackle a whole host of technical problems with the newly installed sound system and PowerPoint—no big surprise to anyone who has ever dealt with those things before. As a result, Liberty and I found ourselves starting to lead the worship time with very little idea of what would happen musically.

Fortunately, I had planned quite carefully for worship the first night, in terms of non-musical things. We were remembering Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, and read a portion of one of his speeches. There was a scripture read as a bi-lingual litany. We had a corporate prayer of confession, and then I offered words of assurance. The songs went fairly well, although I mostly had to lead them myself with guitar. I sat down to listen to the keynote speaker, a Catholic Archbishop from Uganda. And next thing I knew he was talking about how challenging the GLI is, in a positive way: “Here, we are, in a room full of bishops, and who pronounces the absolution? You there, Rebecca, are you even ordained? (“Not yet”) And not only a layperson, but also a woman! And not even a big, tall woman, but a small one! And we bishops, we just sat here and accepted it. This is subversive!” I was just about crawling under my seat at that point, though his point was good-natured. I had completely forgotten another major challenge facing me in this assignment: being a woman in a culture where church leaders are almost exclusively male. There were some other critiques from the leadership team of the worship and opening plenary that night, and I went to bed wondering if I had done the right thing to be in this place.

New Creation

Our seminar group.

During the first full day of the Institute, we tried to get a sense of God’s vision for making all things new. Professor Wilfred Mlay helped us read through scripture and understand that reconciliation is God’s business; he has been making all things new, starting from the first page of scripture when he brought new creation out of chaos, and ending at Revelation, when the new heaven and the new earth will descend and God will come and himself dwell among his people. We heard stories from two amazing peace artisans, demonstrating how this new creation can be glimpsed even here and now. Bishop Tabane from South Sudan spoke of all he survived through decades of war, being called “mad” and “stubborn,” remaining with his people for the entire time of war – his whole religious career – and now remains to encourage a community of peace amongst divided South Sudanese. Sister Rosemary from Northern Uganda blessed us with her story about how her community, through a family-oriented vocational training center, has been able to transform the lives of thousands of young women who had been traumatized after being abducted by the LRA.

Liberty and I were able to begin to find people to help us in worship by bringing their gifts of music, reading scripture and prayer, and right from Day One in worship, things turned around. We began to experience the richness of the possibilities for worship when people from the region were brought together. A group of Tanzanians were willing to bring us a Swahili song the next day, and Mama Faith Mlay said that she was feeling led to pray the next day, so we asked her to lead our prayer of intercession the following evening.

Lament

We were inspired and encouraged as we remembered that reconciliation is God’s business and that things can be done to witness new creation. But still tremendous suffering and evil seem to reign in our region. One of the major challenges for Christians here is to honestly name those truths and lament over them. We were able to have a very contemplative, focused worship time early that morning, praying to the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, God at his most vulnerable, but also God who is on the throne.

Prayer in the plenary session.

Dr. David Kasali from NEGST was charged with helping us understand how to lament—and the Bible is a rich training ground. He spoke on the first chapter of 1 Samuel, leading up to the lament of Hannah in the temple, stressing that before we bring our lament, we need to thoroughly understand the context. I have studied and preached on that passage several times myself, but I never had such a rich and deep view of the contextual problems Hannah was facing. The African social and political and religious context has much in common with the context of ancient Israel. Dr. Kasali was able to discern 10 different problems facing Hannah, both with a theological understanding, but also feeling a visceral commonality with her. It was an incredible teaching and left me mourning the fact that most of our western divinity schools miss out on so much that scripture has to offer because they do not have African biblical scholars on their faculties. Dr. Kasali’s treatment of 1 Samuel opened new doors into the scriptures, but also powerfully illuminated challenges in the region.

We heard from participants from Congo (DRC), South Sudan and Kenya trying to understand their particular contexts in this time and place. Dr. Kasali then asked Faith Mlay to lead us in a corporate prayer of lament for our region, and God had already prepared her for that assignment – it just came earlier in the day than we had planned. It was a powerful experience to be led by someone who is clearly comfortable walking in step with the Spirit and the prayer was not simply emotional, but a very deep time of identifying with those who are suffering and crying out on their behalf.

Later in the day, we had a meeting with all the Institute participants from Burundi. They had truly been struck by the idea of lament as a positive discipline, something they had never considered. Culturally, “men’s tears run from their eyes into their bellies,” i.e. grown men don’t cry. Theologically, the church teaches people to rejoice rather than mourn at the time of death for those that know the Lord. Politically, those who lost loved ones in 1972 and later crises were forbidden to mourn their dead, as it was considered treason. We all had the feeling that there is a great deal of lament in Burundi, bottled up and turning bitter in people’s stomachs. The discipline of open lament and naming what is wrong may be something that this country needs.

That evening, we had something of an adventure, as one of Burundi team members got more and more sick. I had noticed that he looked pretty ill in the morning, put him in contact with a doctor in our midst and urged him to use the malaria test kit I’d brought with me. It was positive, so I also had treatment to give him, but he was actually too sick to take it. By evening it was clear we needed to take him to a hospital. The one car/driver on campus hadn’t yet arrived back from errands. So as a last resort, we asked a high level Ugandan person on the leadership team to please be his chauffeur. When the patient got in the car, the driver said, “Hey, is that you??” Apparently the two of them knew each other fairly well, and the patient had even eaten in the driver’s house several times in the past. The driver had phone numbers for good doctors, and took the patient straight to a private clinic where he got swift and effective care, even at 10 pm. So God was really at work on Tuesday, doing things in his time. All day, Plan B or C turned out to be far and away a better Plan than the Plan A that I had been hoping for.

Pilgrimage

We rose early and boarded busses on Wednesday morning to drive to the shrines established for the Ugandan Martyrs—the saints carved in the chapel windows I had noticed earlier. Their story is remarkable. In 1886, less than 10 years after the first Anglican and Catholic missionaries arrived in Uganda, a new king came to power. He felt threatened by the new Christian religion, particularly since the pages and slaves in his palace were among those who were the most promising new converts. Apparently, these young men were truly inspired by Jesus, but also by their new identity as human beings with value; when they returned from worship and catechism to the royal court, they were once again treated as slaves. Over several months, tension rose; the king grew more and more uneasy as he heard them praying “Our Father in heaven, hallowed by your name. YOUR KINGDOM COME…” Whose kingdom? What threat was this? The king finally demanded all those in his household to declare themselves: renounce Christianity or die. A large group of thirty young men, Protestants and Catholics together, decided that they could not chose loyalty to the king over loyalty to Christ.

Artistic rendering of the execution site at the
Anglican Martyr's Shrine

They were led on a long march to the execution site for commoners. Along the way, the executioners stopped several times to kill one of the young men in an exceptionally cruel way, hoping to scare the others into renouncing their faith. Limbs were hacked off, men were fed alive to dogs, others were burned from the feet to the head, but the group of young men continued to hold fast to their faith. Upon reaching the execution site, the men were sent out to collect the firewood with which they would be burned. Over several days, they were tortured. The chief executioner’s 14-year-old son was among these Christians, and he took the boy to his mother to see if she could convince him to escape and live. But he refused to renounce his faith by fleeing: “Mama, I’m going to heaven. Don’t try to stop me!” he said. Finally, the executioners gave up trying to break the men, and resolved to kill the 25 who still lived on June 3^rd. They were rolled up in reed mats and stacked on top of firewood as the radiuses of a large circle. The fire was started at the center, where their feet all came together – to give them time to reconsider. But rather than crying out in fear, the men continued to sing and encourage one another until they died. Later, even the executioners regretted that they had killed men of such courage. The king who had ordered their death was himself eventually baptized.

The testimony of these martyrs was a powerful catalyst for the growth of the Christian church from that time onward. The missionaries fled, but local leaders continued to teach and train younger people and the church flourished. Eventually, in 1967 the Ugandan martyrs were beatified and a lovely church was built in their honor in the midst of a large park. Every year, a million people come on pilgrimage to celebrate mass there on June 3 and remember the courage of those men who died for their faith. Their testimony continues to impact people who come by foot from as far as Tanzania and Congo. Our group visited the Anglican shrine as well, built at the site were the men were actually burned. It is a more humble establishment, but houses a seminary. We were blessed to share spontaneously in their morning worship service at the end of our visit.

Altar art at the Catholic Uganda
Martyr's Shrine

Personally, I am still grappling with the challenge of the martyrs, their commitment, their willingness to sacrifice, their endurance of horrific physical pain, their sense of unity, their legacy. How does one know the right moment for sacrifice? How much sacrifice? When we pray, “thy kingdom come,” we need to realize that other kinds will be threatened. “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it can bear no fruit.” What a gift those men gave to Uganda and the Kingdom of God. We all deeply considered what it means to become a “new we,” finding unity as Christians and humans in spite of what divides us.

Part of our evening worship was led by the team of 10 from South Sudan. Since the South’s independence last July, life for Christians in the North has become increasingly difficult, and martyrdom is a very real and present possibility for them. It was good and sobering to realize that all the above questions apply right here and now in a personal way for Sudanese.

Leadership

The concept of servant leadership is very counter-cultural in Southern Africa, as we have discussed many times in this blog already. So it was appropriate to spend a day on this topic, and try to understand also what it would mean for us to be discerning as leaders, knowing what our nations need to do as we read the signs of the times. Christian leaders need to struggle daily to be both humble and effective, but when they are able to lead following Jesus’ example they have a powerful impact. Dr. Celestin Musekura helped us interact with one another to identify the opportunities and challenges in leadership.

Participants in our seminar group.

One aspect of the week I hadn’t yet mentioned is that most afternoons we were divided up into small groups to meet with a seminar leader on a particular topic. I chose to take the seminar on “Self-Care for Caregivers.” Our teacher was Violette Nyirarukundo, a Rwandese woman we have known since we arrived in 2008. She has been a valuable advisor to MCC, and is a trained Biblically based counselor. I selected that seminar partly just because I wanted to be around Violette and learn from her, and I will admit that it was simply refreshing to go in that room and sit in her calm, gentle – yet spunky – presence. She is a grandmother, full of wisdom, having lived through great trials and yet always laughing. I also felt it would be good to have some more insight into how to care for ourselves in the midst of draining work, and how to help our partners cope as they pour themselves out on behalf of others.

Spirituality

One of the challenges of coping with all these burdens of lament, pilgrimage and leadership is developing spirituality for the long haul. How do we not burn out along the way, or become disillusioned with our fellow travellers when they seem to fall short? We listened to some good teaching on this subject from Chris Rice and Faith Mlay and heard some even more powerful testimonies from people who have been walking in their callings with perseverance for years. One impressive woman is a Tanzanian who was born an albino. In her culture, most albinos are killed at a young age because of fear, hatred, or else for profit (the body parts of albinos have high value in traditional witchcraft). Somehow, she survived physically into her 20s but struggled with utter lack of care from her family and the reality of constant threat and isolation. She attempted to take her own life numerous times and didn’t succeed, but finally heard a clear assurance of God’s love for her. That carried her through school, Bible training and into ordained ministry as an evangelist in her church. She goes into communities and tells people, “bad things happened to people like me in the past, but I’ve forgiven you. So let me tell you about Jesus.”

We ended the day with a special worship service, including another community prayer time and then an opportunity for individual prayer and blessing. I asked the Kenyans to lead us musically to begin with, and they did a suburb job of helping us dance and sing and praise the Lord. By the end of the week, we had added several more very adaptable musicians to our team, and a rotating group of people kept stepping forward to play the chapel’s drums. The theme song for the week, “He Shall Reign,” was written by Tom Wuest, a fellow Regent grad. (See http://brasstrumpetpublishing.com/ for more on his work and to download songs). We had to Africanize the rhythm, include a French translation of the verses, and even change the chorus – at the urging of one of our speakers – to include both the future tense (He shall reign) and the present tense (Yes! He reigns) and remember the tension between already—not yet. I’m not sure Tom would quite have recognized the song by the end of the week, but it was certainly a celebratory closing as people danced out of the chapel…

…And then, I had to run, throw my stuff into a suitcase and jump into a taxi for the airport. It was a shame to leave so abruptly and not savor the end of a wonderful week with new and old friends over a celebration dinner. That was indeed one of the biggest blessings – the encouragement of being with so many motivated, exceptional people.

The return journey was not ideal: my flight left at midnight and I had the prospect of staying the night in the Kigali airport, waiting for an early morning connection to Bujumbura. But I did have the blessing of sharing the cab and the first leg of the journey with Violette, my seminar leader. I was thankful for more time with her, and things went smoothly. I even found a decent couch in Bourbon Coffee shop to lie down on for a few hours. Paul and the kids met me at the airport and it was awesome to see their smiling faces. I thoroughly enjoyed yoga after travelling all night. And that evening some friends invited us to come share ice cream with them. It was a good homecoming, and just enough time to catch a little breath with Paul before he left for Kigali today. More on his adventures next week!

Bonus photo: Moms serving kids at our Saturday ice cream social.

Preparing for a Week Without Mommy

2012-01-17T16:41:00.001+02:00

In keeping with the animal themed header of past weeks, here is a rhinoceros beetle Oren is holding that I found floating in the pool while I was swimming last week. (He is now a pet in our porch planter.)

We have enjoyed our first week with Grandma Jean. In fact it seems to have flown by. This is probably due more to the amount of preparatory work we had been doing for the current week than anything else. Just to bring you up to date (dear reader) we have now entered what will prove to be two of the most challenging weeks of the year. (I say that with caution as we are only in January!) But it is definitely out of the ordinary as I will explain:

Last summer during our week retreat together as a couple in Vancouver, Rebecca and I were very intentional in considering ways to make our work and life here more manageable and life-giving. We have found the cross-cultural work is generally more draining and one needs to be very thoughtful about when to engage and how and when one can rest. Raising young children is another even more challenging factor.

Among our more important decisions was to do less travel together. This is a big change as we tended to do all of our visits upcountry and to Rwanda as a family. The change is necessary for several reasons including Oren now being in first grade where there is high expectation of consistent progress in learning at the school (and good attendance).

We have been putting this into practice over the past 5 months, but it has only entailed small ventures out of Bujumbura to visit partners. In these two weeks, however, Rebecca is going out of town to Uganda to lead worship at a large regional conference called the Great Lakes Initiative. She will be back Saturday night and I will leave Sunday morning for a week in Rwanda and upcountry to facilitate a mission team's visit to one of our partners.

This is a big challenge for us as we prefer to do parenting and work in partnership, so we are both being stretched.

So the days preceding Rebecca's departure on Friday have been quite busy, moreso for her as she has had to do alot of extra work to prepare the actual worship services (music, prayers, etc) for the conference plenary sessions.

Our morning routine the past week was not much changed even with the addition of Jean who got up with us in the mornings, but as we headed off to drop the kids at school and to swim and work, Jean headed off to Hope Africa University. She is a medical librarian and had made connections there before coming to help build capacity of the library staff while she was there. I think it has been a very interesting and challenging experience for her to work here. We have enjoyed hearing about her experiences. I think the big shock is that the medical school and library have virtually non-existent internet access which makes research very difficult for med students and doctors. She had hoped to connect the computers to a large medical database available worldwide, but I think she has felt that even getting a half dozen computers usable at all for internet access may be a major accomplishment.

Nonetheless, from what we umderstand her input has been greatly appreciated by staff there as she has also helped them make connections to other organizations like WHO.

We had several social events with other parents last week as well. Danika and her kids came over Wednesday after school for lunch for a playdate. That is not the best time of day for David and Oren and they both behaved dreadfully much of the time. I think, though, as a younger parent it gave her some comfort to see other slightly more experienced parents struggling with some of the same issues she is grappling with as we all attempt to raise our kids to be thoughtful, polite, individuals, in this unusual setting.

I think the highlight of the week though was Thursday evening when Rebecca and I were given a date night by Grandma Jean who offered to stay home with the kids so we could go out. We went to our favorite 'date' restaurant here called Botanika. It is located in the center of town but when you enter the inner courtyard and restaurant it really feels like you are completely transported out of Bujumbura, to somewhere in Soho, New York City. (but alot cheaper!) It feels like times together as a couple are few, far between and precious.

(Actually we talked to Danika about arranging a date night exchange with her and Scott on a monthly basis, hopefully that will be able to work out in the months ahead.)

Friday was a busy day as Rebecca was leaving by plane. She was supposed to leave in the afternoon but got a call the night before to tell her her flight had been moved up to midday. We went to work and I took her to the airport before picking up the kids. In the afternoon we had several people arrive who were going to be going to the conference by bus or later flights on the weekend. Yolanda and Jodi came down and stayed the night at our house, and our SALTer Janelle came over as well to visit with Yolanda. With Grandma Jean we had a very full house with the kids sleeping with me in our room.

A large crew came over for Sat. morning yoga and then I took Jodi, Felix, and Yolanda to the airport and bus stop respectively. Jodi had planned to fly but she discovered, when she got to the airport that her plane had also left early only no one had told her. She made a mad rush to the bus stop with the other conference interpreter and they managed to make it onto two buses headed to Kigali where they hoped to join the second leg of the flight. (They did succeed.)

Saturday continued to be eventful even after the morning activities. The main activity though, was completely unscripted. Yolanda went to the post office Friday to pick up mail, we were surprised to find that all of our Christmas cards and parcels finally arrived. (It seems like Christmas never ends here!) It was nice to get all of the beautiful cards from friends (albeit late), and there were about 4 parcels of pre-Christmas items, a chocolate filled Advent Calendar, some ornaments, and a gingerbread house set of cookie cutters as well as candy canes and M and Ms for decorating a gingerbread house.

Oren was very excited about the gingerbread house kit and set his heart on making another gingerbread house on Saturday. With a little convincing I agreed to go along with the project and by late afternoon we had built a second gingerbread house within 30 days of our last creation. (I don't usually do more than one of these per year.)

Other activities over the weekend included helping Grandma Jean plant some flowers in our yard and Sunday after church we took Jean to our swimming pool where Oren wowed her with his jumps off the 3 meter platform. Sunday evening we invited our Danish friends to eat the gingerbread house with us. Naja and Aviaja were able to come over and we devoured the roof together.

That pretty much covers the past week except for one "Africa Wins Again" story worth telling (purely for humor.)

The incident happened on Wednesday evening where I am now putting my adult ballet class. There was recently a change in keys for the room I teach in, and I am often locked out with no one around to open the door when class begins. This week however, one of the other teachers who takes my class managed to get an original for the lock of her own and offered to make me a copy. I was really happy because not having to worry about getting in to class every time I teach is one less anxiety.

I got to the class 10 minutes early and she came 5 minutes later with 2 copies of the original, freshly minted. We tried them both and were sad to find that neither worked. She apologized and said she would take the key back the next day. She pulled the original out of the purse to open the door only to find it also did not work at all. On closer inspection she found that in fact, during copying the hardware store owner had somehow confused the keys and had made a copy of some key that was not hers and had returned the wrong original and wrong copies to her. So we were locked out again that evening. I have to say, as much as one tries to anticipate what will go wrong here, you will always be surprised by something unexpected.

Sometimes surprises are good. We have had an unbelievable amount of electricity in the past 3 weeks. I don't think we have had one power failure. We almost don't know what to do with all that cold refrigerator space since we are so used to using all our left overs and stocking nothing. I almost feel guilty running the fan all night.

What is interesting to me is that neither I nor anyone else I know really knows why there is good electricity now. Just like we never really understood the cause of the very low amount of electricity delivery, or the sugar shortage. We speculate, we share rumors, but there is no source of reliable information. Living here, I have become aware that it is possible to live without concerning oneself much with the question 'why'. I don't think many Burundians are much interested in that as so few have any power to changes their circumstances. One learns to accept negative consequences and enjoy fully changes for the better, no matter how temporary.

I don't have much confidence that this good electricity stint will last, it will become bad again, but I am enjoying it. I am starting to live more in the reality of the present which is where people seem to live here, neither looking backward nor forward.

I do fail when it comes to death though. At least twice monthly one or more of my professional Burundian colleagues is off to the funeral of a young or youngish person who has died or was killed. I am struck by the fact that no one ever seems to know the cause of death and does not seem to concern themselves much with that question. One friend lost a 25 year old nephew last week.

"He was fine in the morning then got sick at noon and was dead in the evening."

I asked if doctors had determined a cause of death. He said no, but maybe he was poisoned. Burundians blame many unexplained deaths on poisonings by jealous neighbors but I have no idea whether these suspicions are plausible or not. I know that the 4 women who died in childbirth in the hospital for 'unknown' reasons were probably not poisoned by a jealous neighbor.

I admit that I am appalled by the lack of curiosity here. When I tell colleague that in my country if a young person died in or out of a hospital for 'unknown' reasons, suspicious or not, there would be an investigation and autopsy to determine the exact cause of death in every case. (Even for an elderly person who dies in a hospital.!) My colleague shrugs and seems to be asking what all the 'to do' is about knowing the exact reason for something that cannot be changed.

I do, however, look forward to a time when healthcare in this country would be good enough that knowing a cause of death could be used to prevent a similar death in the future, particularly in a hospital.

For now, I am trying to be less obsessed with trying to ferret out every reason for every inconvenience I experience here, and feeling grateful and less entitled about amenities we take for granted at home.

If you are praying people, we could use spiritual support the rest of this week for Rebecca and next week for me. This week has started well enough with me getting the kids ready and off to school for two days now, but there are still three to go then it is Rebecca's turn.

Grandma Jean's Fourth Visit part 1

2012-01-09T22:54:00.000+02:00

The family reading Tintin Au Congo, brought by Grandma Jean for a Christmas present. Disclaimer: I love Tintin adventures but I do not recommend reading this particular Tintin in Africa or even bringing it here. Not only is it racist, but he also kills an elephant for its tusks and blows up a passive rhino with a stick of dynamite. (It probably does give a fairly accurate picture of how Europeans of the era saw Africans though!)

I think time must accelerate as one grows older or else these blog posts are getting closer together because the days are growing shorter. It seems like I was just writing about our awesome vacation when FLASH another week goes by.

We had actually returned last Monday, several days before school started again but we planned to take Tuesday and Wednesday off to settle back into our home and ease back into work. We were also preparing for our special visitor, Grandma Jean! This is Rebecca's mom who has now made her 4th trip to see us here in Burundi.

This will actually be a combination work and family visit as she will be with us for most of the month of January. While all of us are in town, she will be helping to build capacity at the medical library of Hope Africa University, located in Bujumbura. But in the next 3 weeks both Rebecca and I will have to take trips separately. Rebecca will be going to Uganda next week to lead worship at a regional conference, then I will be going upcountry the following week to assist a mission team that is visiting the Hope School for the Batwa.

Jean will stay in Buja with me while Rebecca is in Uganda, but will accompany me the following week to Rwanda to pick up the team and then go to Burasira to spend the week at the school with me while Rebecca stays with the kids. The reason Jean will come with me is that she will help organize the books sent by MCC to the Hope School during the week the mission team is there.

That is the 'why' of her visit, but the 'how' began on Wednesday night with her arrival on Brussels Air from Brussels. The flight was scheduled to arrive at 8pm and although that is a bit late on a school night (actually the night before the first day back) we took the kids because they were too excited to stay home. We were not the only ones out to meet the flight. This is a twice per week flight directly from Europe and on this particular night, many of the kids, teachers and families who go to school here were coming back after the holidays.

The flight was on time and we were allowed to enter the airport and wait by the exit from customs. (With 200 hundred others). The kids amused themselves by sitting and playing on the dirty tiled floor (with some other kids who were also awaiting family members.)

Jean finally emerged about 45 minutes after the flight arrived with her 3 bags intact. In the interim I was amused to see almost all the faculty of the Ecole Belge returning including both directors and Oren's teacher. I guess they did lesson plans on the plane since school was beginning in the morning.

The kids were thrilled to see Grandma Jean when she emerged and hugged her. We went to the car together and drove home. There was much anticipation about Grandma Jean opening her suitcases since it was no secret that she was bringing a trove of presents from the cousins and other family in the US. Despite the late hour we did open some gifts that night.

Actually when we opened the suitcase we found that a container of Equal (artificial sweetener) had popped open (cabin pressure? TSA?) and it was kind of like her suitcase was full of snow in which the toys were hidden. (Something Oren would have loved!)

The biggest surprise was a robot dinosaur (#1 on Oren's Christmas list request.) named Cruncher. Oren had asked for one for Christmas, and we told him that was probably impossible. But our resourceful sister-in-law Gwendolyn hunted down this incredible creature on the internet and sent him on the plane.

Although we did not get the batteries until the next day, it was quite impressive. With batteries it is even more impressive in that it takes advantage some of the latest advances in sensor technology to do some interesting and hilarious things without a remote control. He moves around, roars, talks, snickers, dances, can catch food and chomp it up, learns tricks, responds to petting, can act as a motion and sound sensitive watchdog, even 'farts' when you pull his tail. He also cries like a puppy if you pick him us or knock him over (and yells "I've fallen and I can't get up". It should provide hours of amusement for the us....er I mean the kids :-)

Jean also brought plenty of chocolate from the US and an overnight in Belgium (home of Godiva chocolates). Most of the chocolate is gone as of this writing.

We did eventually get to bed on Wednesday night and got up for school on Thursday morning. The kids did not really seem to mind going back and went without any fuss. It was good to start back with only two days before the weekend though.

The weekend was enjoyable and we did some touristy things with Grandma Jean during the day. Saturday we went to Musee Vivante which is the local zoo. It features some animals from the region including a variety of poisonous snakes, crocodiles, a chimp, leopard and other various and sundry things. What is always interesting about a third world zoo is the amount of close up interaction you can have with the animals. No one will stop you, for instance, if you want to jump into the pen with the crocodile and touch it, or pull its tail. There is also the option of buying a guinea pig for about $8 to feed to one of the animals.

I know it is humane society nightmare, but I confess a certain desire to interact with the animals. The chimp whose partner recently died is lonely. When we walked up to the cage (no retaining wall) she reached out and touched David and Oren. We shook hands then she took my arm and started grooming it. It was easy to tell she was quite depressed. What was a bit unnerving was that when I tried to pull away, she held my arm gently but very firmly in a way that made me realize I would not be able to get free until she released me. I did not panic but let her groom and distracted her a bit with a set of keys in my other hand. She eventually let go.

The leopard was behind a kind of thick chicken wire and when he put his back against it, one could scratch his back and ears which he seemed to like. Guides will offer to let you handle the python and other non poisonous snakes in the reptile house. David had a green banana tree snake draped around his neck much to the horror of some Burundian onlookers. But he loved it.

All in all it was an interesting experience that is hard to match at the more civilized humane zoos in the 'developed' world.

Saturday night Grandma Jean agreed to watch the kids while Rebecca and I went out and had some time with friends--Tanja and Stephen who are German and working with the Anglican church. It was great to have some adult conversation. We got home close to midnight.

Sunday promised to be an interesting day as I had accepted an invitation to go to the opening of a small Mennonite church in rural Bujumbura about 10k out of the city. I have to admit that I do not really like to attend these events as I am invited in an official capacity and feel a bit like some kind of a big white seated statue whose purpose is to be just that.

I also do not like the fact that these are often very drawn out events that extend well beyond the time of a normal church service, even here. I did ask the pastor who invited me to please arrange to have me arrive about the time the actual service begins rather than when they 'say' it begins.

He assured me that the church service began at 9am. I met him at my office about then in a taxi (Rebecca, Jean, and the kids went to our church.) and we headed to the church down some very difficult roads and arrived about 9:30. We were of course the first ones there. About 10 minutes later the musicians arrived to begin set up. Long story short, we got underway about 11:00 am. The church was the size of a large bedroom and about 100 people were crammed in there with more folks on the outside. I would say about 80 percent of the attendees were in one of the 4 choirs that each sang a long set, some twice, during the course of he service.

The service ended about 2pm and after sharing a fanta and dropping the pastor at his home, I got back home about 3:15 pm. It was a very long day.

There was an odd parallel I felt to the experience of having the chimp hold my arm in a gentle but unremovable grasp the day before. That is how these experiences often feel to me. There is a desire to keep me as long as possible and while everything is done in a very hospitable way, it is clear that leaving before they are ready to have you go is not an option.

I generally had a good attitude though and watched with interest at the way they did evangelism. Basically sticking a huge loudspeaker outside the church in a tree and having it blast throughout the commune. Actually the music was not bad. By the end of the service there were about 100 people gathered around outside. The fact that there was a mzungu in attendance made the event even that much more interesting.

When I got home our family went out and enjoyed some time on the beach. It was good to see our friends Scott and Danika there with their 2 boys, back from Christmas vacation in Canada.

This week we are back into a fairly normal routine with the addition that Jean is going to work as well at Hope Africa University. The first day went well for all of us.

Just a short note about the weather. We are in the season they call the little dry season. It is about a month at the beginning of the year. It is not like the longer dry season in that the heat and humidity are more extreme. There are also regular severe thunderstorms and torrential downpours that are short but very violent.

We had two in a row last week, one brought hail that did a lot of property damage in the popular quarters and actually drove several centimeters of water onto our porch and into some of the rooms of our house. I will look forward to the end of this season and the return of the more normal and temperate rainy season this spring.

Bonus Photo: Ladies' night out. This is what Rebecca was doing while I was writing the blog this evening. In the pic is Jeanette (S.Africa), Jean (USA), Naja (Denmark), Rebecca, and Tanja (Germany) at Geny's Cafe in Bujumbura.

Paradise Thy Name is Kigoma

2012-01-04T00:23:00.000+02:00

A zebra photographed by Oren when it showed up in our backyard at the cottage at Jakobsen's beach Kigoma, Tanzania. No zoom lens needed.

I fear this entry may sound more like a travel brochure than a blog post, but I assure you, no one is paying me for what I am writing. I am just offering my humble opinions.

I am prefacing this post in this way because we just got home from an amazing vacation in Tanzania where we spent New Year's Eve. We actually left Burundi on Tuesday Dec. 27th and returned on January 2nd. We left in the morning on Tuesday, shortly after our housesitters arrived, (some friends of a neighbor who were visiting Buja.) It was interesting talking to them as we left. They live in Kigali and flew down to Bujumbura. When we asked why they did not drive (since they needed a car) they bristled and said that they heard that Burundi was far too politically insecure to drive a car through. I think they were shocked to hear that we make the trip back and forth to Kigali every month. I think generally people in Rwanda, especially expats, have a lot of misinformation about the dangers of Burundi which seem to be exaggerated considerably by Rwandese.

Once they were settled in (and oriented to our dogs) we got into our very packed car (full of groceries and other things we would cook for the week, as well as beach wear and other toys) and headed out the gate. We met our Danish friends Naja and Thomas on our road in their World Relief LandCruiser, also fully loaded with their two kids and an equal amount of food and vacation accessories. They were going with us to our vacation spot, which was very good since we had never driven there before and had heard that finding it can be a bit of a trick.

We headed South along the Lake toward the town called Nyanza Lac before heading east into Tanzania. The road is OK on the Burundi side except for a 25 kilometer stretch of dirt road right before the Tanzanian border. There is also a bit of a trap here for the inexperienced. At the beginning of the dirt road in the town Mabanda is where one does all the customs and immigration paperwork and gets passports stamped. At the end of the 25 kilometers is the border policeman who checks the passports to make sure they are stamped. But finding the office in Mabanda is a bit tricky and there is NO indication anywhere that indicates this is the process. Thomas and Naja told us they got caught by this the first time they went to Kigoma.

The border on the Tanzania side was not very complicated and on both sides it is evident that this is a very remote crossing point. From the border the drive to Kigoma is another hour or so (4 hours of driving all together not counting borders) on a new road. The Tanzanian countryside here looks a lot like Burundi with rolling hills and mountains.

When we got to Kigoma town we changed some money and bought a few supplies then headed to the Jakobsen Guest House. This is actually quite an exclusive place. The Jakobsen's are missionaries who have lived in Tanzanian for many decades and took advantage of a brief opportunity in the eighties when Ex-pats were allowed to buy land in the country. They basically bought an area of land that forms a large Peninsula falling into Lake Tanganyika. At this point the Lake is enormous and one can barely see the mountain ranges of Congo on the other side. The Jacobsen's built a guesthouse as well as a cottage on the land and make it available to missionaries and others who wish to book it. There are only a few spaces available at a time which means that when you are here, you virtually have the place to yourself.

The cottage has no electricity but it does have a fridge that runs on kerosene, a gas stove, and 3 solar panels that charge batteries for electric lights and an outlet for cell phones, etc. (There is no internet or cell service in this place though.)

The entire place feels like one is on Gillligan's Island. There are several beautiful secluded beaches, as well as a high plain of savannah above. There are fantastic boulders and cliffs everywhere and the place has some interesting wild life including monitor lizards, monkeys, zebras, bush bucks as well as innumerable tropical fish.

The cottage is located above the lake and has a very nice verandah that overlooks the lake. We basically shared the cottage with Naja and Thomas' family. There were 2 bedrooms in the cottage and a small annex behind that had another bedroom. They slept in the annex and we did all of our meals together.

There was no restaurant so we cooked all of our own meals. There was however, some house staff, a young woman who came and did all or our dishes and shopping for fresh stuff (like fish) when we wanted it.

There was something about the beach and the cabin that reminded me a great deal of summers I had spent in Martha's Vineyard, Massachussetts, as far as its pristine quietness, lush forests, and beaches surrounded by low cliffs. What was most surprising though was the water in the Lake. When we arrived there was a chop and one could even body surf, but much of the day it was quite still, and much to my surprise CRYSTAL CLEAR! I have never seen a body of water this clear since a childhood trip to a Greek Island in the Mediterranean Sea. But this water was so clear it was like swimming in a pool.

In fact, it was perfect for snorkeling and this proved to be fascinating when one went out below the rocky cliffs. It was the fresh water equivalent of a coral reef, completely teeming with gorgeous tropical fish. These weren't quite as colorful as marine fish, but they were close. Some were stripped and others spotted, some with neon blue spots, others with yellow. I know Lake Tanganyika is known for its variety of tropical fish (particularly cichlids). I really enjoyed snorkeling there around the boulders and although there are supposedly no crocodiles, hippos or sharks here there was definitely a sublime feeling of terror when I looked down over some of the boulders and saw the bottom drop away 50 feet or more. (like the drop-off in Finding Nemo.) It just kind of turns an inky indigo as one peers down. I did swim down in some areas about 20 feet to the bottom, but the best fish viewing was around the rocks closer to the surface. I could see, though how this could be the second deepest lake in the entire world.

All of us enjoyed snorkeling and even Oren went out with me one afternoon with his life jacket. The kids did enjoy jumping off the lower boulders that stuck into the water and swam around them. Elias and Aviajah are Naja and Thomas' children, Elias is Oren's age, and Aviajah is just more than a year older. The three played very well together even though the only language they share is French. Oren just seemed to be so comfortable communicating with them in French, and I was quite impressed.

David would play with them from time to time, but did seem to enjoy spending much of his time watching monkeys, frogs, crabs and other animals on the beach. He also loved to kick around what I would call the lagoon formed by the rocky cliffs around the sandy beach. (He still needs his life jacket to do that.)

The parents generally snorkeled, swam laps across the lagoon or played with kids on the rocks. Sometimes sitting on the sand to sunbathe or read a book.

At meals we would go up to the cottage and prepare things we had brought. We did have some things made in advance (like pasta sauce) that we served. We also bought some things that are available locally (like Icecream) that are far less expensive here than in Burundi.

When one was tired of the beach there was the option of going up onto the savannah on the plateau above the cottage. This was a very interesting area that looked like a game park. I enjoyed hiking here nearly everyday. There was the option of bouldering as well, which Oren loved to do with me. The best part was the spectacular panoramic views one had at almost every part of this plateau as it looked over the whole peninsula. We went up several times to look for wildlife, particularly zebras. We did see some bush buck but the zebras alluded us most of the week.

In fact on one disheartening day we spent several hours looking for them as a family only to find, when we got back to the cabin that Naja and Thomas' family saw them in another part of the plain. Later that afternoon though, when we had just finished our nap at the cottage, Rebecca looked out her window and 3 zebra were grazing in our back yard. We went out and watched them to the delight of the children, and Oren went quite near to them and snapped a photo of one head on. (No he did not use a zoom lens here.)

New Years Eve was enjoyable, especially dinner. We had asked the house staff girl (Salome) to buy us a fish and she got us a giant whole sangala. Seeing it whole I would describe it as the biggest bass I have ever seen. It looked like it weighed about 12 pounds. She cleaned it for us then we went down to the beach and built a fire and grilled it on the fire. We brought it back up for dinner and I have to say it was the best fish I think I have ever had anywhere. We feasted that evening. We did not put the kids to bed but our kids fell asleep well before midnight but Elias and Aviajah did make it to join us in the Danish tradition of jumping (from a chair) into the New Year. It was a funny evening complete with some South African chardonnay bought in Tanzania.

Since it was rainy season we did have a day or two when it rained up until about midday. It was really not a problem as the kids had plenty of activities in the house, including some movies on a computer. But the main indoor pastime was a 750 piece puzzle of a leopard that we did over the course of several days. It looked very hard, but thanks to a grid of letters on the back of it, we were able to do it in sections and complete it before going back to Bujumbura. The real bonus was that it was not missing any pieces! Eventhough it was a used puzzle left to us by some friends. (Thanks Charles and Val Carr)

I did not write about this vacation chronologically because the days seemed to blend into each other. I do regret one thing, and that is that the children were not able to sleep in. They were still up at 6am every morning to do things. So we did not catch up on much sleep there.

The other thing I would say by way of caution is that in the clear depths it was easy to see snails on the rocks when we swam. This is a red flag for Bilharzia (shistosomiasis) To be safe we stopped at the pharmacy on the way out and bought each of us the right dose of Praziquantel. (We all took it tonight.)

I don't know if there is much bilharzia here, but we decided not to take the risk of letting it go untreated.

We headed back to Bujumbura on Monday. We decided to take a different route back through Burundi, passing through the provinces of Makamba and Rutana. It is a pleasant part of the country with better roads, although a longer trip in terms of distance.

Thomas looking down the lagoon.
Notice how clear the water is.

We arrived back in the late afternoon and unpacked. We found our house had been left in decent condition by our guests and the kids were very happy to be back to see the dogs (David at least.)

We have one last day before school starts and Oren already spent an hour or two doing some homework he was given over the break. (Practicing his cursive letters and some vocabulary.)

They are excited because tomorrow we have one last special surprise for the end of Christmas: The arrival of Grandma Jean tomorrow! More next week.

Gingerbread Houses and Dancing in the Rain

2011-12-27T00:06:00.004+02:00

The family gathered around the gingerbread house we built from scratch.

I am realizing that this is going to be the last post of 2011. I am also realizing that if I do not get it up tonight I won't even be posting this in 2011 as we are preparing this evening to go on a one week vacation to a mission house in Kigoma, Tanzania. It is supposed to be a very reclusive cabin by the beach that is fairly rustic (no electricity and no internet). So I am going to put up a concise story of the week's events as it is getting late and there is much to do.

I will say that much of the week seemed to be dedicated to Christmas related activities. The kids did have school Monday through Wednesday, Oren did karate on Tuesday and then he and I went out Christmas shopping for some sidewalk chalk for David. (That is his favorite thing ever these days, he has used up about 3 boxes.)

Wednesday I taught my last ballet class and while we did work Thursday as well, we split the day since the kids were out of school. Friday was given over to preparing for our Christmas contradance party. I think these bimonthly parties are essential to get Rebecca and I to clean and reorganize the house. Particularly to get all the stuff that accumulates on surfaces back to its proper places.

Jodi was with us for part of the week but headed for a retreat upcountry on Thursday, but Yolanda arrived into town so we had her as a guest for Friday and part of Saturday.

The Christmas party was one of our best to date. We cleared out the living room once again and prepared several dances for the group to do. We had a very large number of people, most of them missionary friends, but among the newcomers was Oren's teacher from last year Mme. Crystelle and her daughter Pauline (4th grader). There were alot of kids and it was a good mix of francophones and anglophones so no one felt left out. Pauline really liked the dancing and she asked us to repeat "Cotton-Eyed Joe" about 4 more times at the end of the evening.

We ended the main set of dances before dinner with the Virginia Reel (Strip the Willow). But I must add that through most of that time we had one of the worst downpours I have ever seen here. Our backyard had about a foot of water in it and the rain pounding on the roof competed with the sound of the music indoors. A few people, who hoped to come late, were actually prevented from getting to us by the rain. Fortunately we stayed relatively dry indoors although some of the guests did have to help us bail and squeegee off the porch a few times.

Dinner was a potluck and the offerings were exquisite, featuring dishes as far-ranging as Mexican and Indian. After dinner we did a bit more dancing and finished by singing Silent Night together in the languages of all represented there. English, French, Danish, Dutch, Kirundi.

When the 45 or so guests left, Rebecca and I took several hours to clean the house up that night and got to bed close to midnight. But it was good to leave the house in good order.

David and Oren woke up at the crack of dawn as usual. They were excited that Saturday was going to be a day for the family at home. We had planned to follow in the tradition of Rebecca's family and do baking on Chistmas Eve day. The project that Oren was really looking forward to was a gingerbread house. We try to do one every year and we have been able to have someone bring out a kit just before Christmas to help us make it.

This year however, no one was coming at the right time so we did not have any pre-cut gingerbread pieces and ready-made icing and selection of decorative candies. So we had to 'kick it old school' Burundian style. We were able to get the ingredients for gingerbread easily enough, but Christmas candies such as candy-canes, or any peppermint for that matter, does not seem to exist here. I ended up buying several rolls of fruity menthos that were more pastel-ly than I would have liked. I found some green candies that were spearmint and looked like gum drops. Oren made little bushes around the house with them. Unfortunately I think they were either breath mints or something for smokers to help them quit smoking because they tasted terrible, like a super strong cough drop. But they did look nice.

I made the royal icing with powered sugar Rebecca bought in the Asian Quarter. It is necessary for mortaring and decorating the house with snow. We also had some other icing that was green and red.

Oren and I started work on the house by cutting a pattern while Rebecca made the gingerbread dough. We cut out pieces on wax paper and cooked it right on the wax paper. The gingerbread came out fine although it took 3 cookie sheets to cook all of the pieces.

We assembled it with the icing and it held together well. I tribute this partially to my ingenious idea of using 2 craft sticks as rafters so the roof could rest on something while the icing was drying. When it was fairly hard we decorated it. Actually Oren did pretty much all of the decorating. It was a very good job in my opinion. We finished by noon. We had a great sense of accomplishment.

Rebecca continued making several other kinds of cookies to take to a party we were going to on Christmas day. Since we had no staff on Saturday, the clean up was enormous. We don't have a dishwasher and we had about 3 loads of dishes to do after this was all done. (Rebecca did them. but I did the same amount today, Monday).

The kids were ready for bed fairly early Christmas eve, but we let them open one toy that evening. We also skyped both of our families and had some great video conversations as the network was working great that night. This is the first time in many, many, years that I have not been at a Christmas Eve service. But since Christmas was on a Sunday, our church was not having one.

This makes some sense here as Christmas day is seen as a big Holiday and would be the more important time of worship rather than Christmas Eve (as we see it in the West.) In fact, Christmas is seen as a day to try to schedule special celebrations. There were an enormous amount of Christenings, Baptisms, and Weddings this past weekend. (I can imagine this is a hard day for pastors, especially because all Protestant Baptisms in Burundi are total immersion in Lake Tanganyika and nothing else is acceptable.)

It is a striking contrast to my own sense of Christmas day, which tends to be more of a private family time. Here it is really a festival day and we even had a Birthday cake and juice at church after the service on Sunday while the children played games together. (Rebecca brought the parachute for her Sunday School class.)

The kids were very excited and woke us up about 5:45. We were going to wait to open gifts after church, but they could not wait. Oren exclaimed many times "Look at all the Presents!" What was pleasing to me was to see that he was referring to a stack of about a dozen small gifts for all four of us. It really looked quite modest compared to what I remember in my childhood. But he saw it as quite a lot.

Among the favorite things were 2 remote control cars I bought at the Chinese version of K-mart (T-2000) for about $10 each. They worked fairly well until Noel our younger dog caught David's and chewed off a wheel. (By the way, it was Noel's Birthday --1 year on Christmas.) She is now much bigger than her mother --Bella.

Sunday afternoon, after church, we went to yet another party. This one at our friend's Astrid and Travis. They have recently moved into a house vacated by our friends Thomas and Naja. It is a great house and we saw many of the people that had been at our party as well as friends from church.

Travis and Astrid had made up several very fun games for kids and adults to play. The best was probably one where you had to try and get dressed on the trampoline while someone was bouncing you around.

We had another pot luck then a White-Elephant gift exchange. It was one of the more unusual ones I have been to as someone had snuck in some currency into some of the gifts, there was a $100 and a $50 bill. (The kids really went for the money which was kind of funny.) I think a little girl ended up with the $100.

We left late in the evening and fell into bed. I can't believe I am up late again but we have to get packing as we want to leave by 8am for our vacation in Tanzania. I think we are almost done though which is good since I am falling asleep at the computer. (sorry no proof reading)

A Sabbath Day to Remember

2011-12-20T20:28:00.001+02:00

Sitting with Marcelline as guests of honor at her graduation party.

The activities of the past week seemed to all fall disproportionately on one day. Not that a lot did not happen the rest of the week, but Sunday stands alone as a day in which we were relationally and culturally stretched well beyond our comfort zones. The good news is that the children, especially, held up well in all of the difficult circumstances in which they found themselves, especially in places where they were to be on their best behavior*.

But I will get to Sunday soon. I just want to recap our week briefly since I last wrote from Kigali. My trip with our area director Mark Sprunger and program assistant Felix went well. We were able to have several important meetings both with our local volunteers (Ruth, Krystan, Bethany, Annie) as well as all of our partners.

It was good to see them all doing well in their assignments. I was also aware (painfully) that Ruth and Krystan will complete their assignment in April of this year and discussions about finding replacements for them was actually underway this week.

Our partners were doing well and one of them Friends Peace House had a change in leadership. We had a big meeting with them which included several leaders in the Friends Church and others. The photo is of our group after the meeting. The mzungus are me and Mark Sprunger with Krystan on one side and Bethany (our SALTer) standing front and center. This was just prior to us proceeding to a feast of Rwandan food at a local restaurant.

We returned to Bujumbura on Friday without incident. I don’t know if it was because of the new car, but the trip between Kigali and Bujumbura only took about 4.5 hours, that is fast (but I did not feel like we were rushing). I was dead tired when we got home and wanted to just veg out, but a very persistant person who wanted to by our old car came over and convinced me to sell. So I have completed now both the transaction of buying a new car and selling our old one.

Saturday was a somewhat uneventful day, no ballet or yoga, but Jodi did come by to stay with us about noon. David started running a fever during the day so we laid around at home but in the afternoon all of us went to the Marché de Noel. This is an event put on by Oren and David’s school (Ecole Belge de Burundi). It is a very popular event with food some entertainment by the children and many stalls that sell great handicraft style Christmas gifts (as well as some imported stuff.)

Since David was sick when we went we put him in our jogging stroller and walked him around. It was fortunate since it rained lightly through most of the event. It gave it all a bit of a gloomy feel.

I could say that the weather on Saturday was a bit reflexive of Rebecca and my moods after nearly a month of very hard work. But Sunday was not to be our day of rest. In fact, it was more of a grand finale of responsibility and obligation, but as is often the case for such days, it did give us more insight into what it means to live and work in this context.

The day began with church where Rebecca was preaching. It is great that she has been asked to preach more frequently there as her messages seem to cross cut well through the cultural diversity of our international church. Her now nearly 4 years of experience in Burundi also gives her the capacity to bring very relevant testimony to her messages. I am including her comments on her experience preaching below:

This Sunday, I was assigned to preach the third in our church’s advent sermon series. My topic: how God reconciled himself to us, and how he calls us to be reconciled to one another. I chose the famous Christmas passage on the angel’s announcement to the shepherd on the night of Jesus’ birth. What really struck me was the mighty potential of that celestial army, who could have easily been expected to come to earth and deal with sinful humanity once and for all, in an invasion on that Great and Terrible Day of the Lord. Instead, God himself infiltrated behind enemy lines, and the only invasion we knew was the invasion of his birth as one of us. This marks the beginning of God’s process of reconciliation and demonstrates as well as anything the posture of God towards his enemies: giving up power, dignity, rights, even the right to speak and defend himself.

It is a challenging picture of the posture we are called to take as we are faced with conflict. Even if we are right in an argument (especially if we are right!), we are called to lay down our arms as we approach our offender, to go behind enemy lines, to ask for compassion, and to go seeking reconciliation. From personal experience, the power to not resist evil with evil is something we must train for. And every interpersonal conflict we face gives us the opportunity to ask God to form us into ministers of reconciliation, with the courage to face and love our enemies by following the vulnerable example of Jesus.

Rebecca did mention as testimony in the sermon some of our more difficult meetings we have had with some local Burundians who have wanted partnership with MCC and have approached as if was a matter of entitlement and were somewhat menacing in their requests. Dealing with ‘Christians’ here, especially pastors can be disheartening on a number of levels. And does remind us that the Gospel preached by evangelists may not be the one heard by the poor who see the real ‘Good News’ as a connection to riches from the west.

But all of this has been an opportunity for us to learn patience and to try not to assume the worst about the motives of others which we may not understand.

Rebecca received many kudos for her sermon that seemed to strike a chord with many this season, especially with regard to conflict and opportunity for resolution among colleagues at work.

The day was hardly over after church. Actually we had brought our swimming gear with us and we went directly to the beach afterward for a quick swim and a bite to eat. This was Mark Sprunger’s last hour in Burundi and since the Lake is near the airport and the church, we decided to have a last meal together there before he headed off to Addis Ababa about 2pm. Rebecca and kids stayed and swam when I dropped Mark off.

At this point in the day I would have been happy to go home and relax, but in fact we had two other social obligations that ended up being quite a study in contrast. The first was a birthday party for one of Oren’s Burundian classmates and the other a ‘graduation party’ for our cook Marcelline at her home (outside her home actually.)

The first party was in an upper middle class neighborhood and the very as the classmate’s family was in the construction business. The party included the rental of the de rigeur bouncy castle and the kids seemed to be having a lot of fun. Oren is now able to be quite social in French with his friends.

The second part was about 15 minutes away in the quartier populaire of Kamenge. That is to say a very populated poor part of town. It is also known as an area of a lot of banditry and other criminal activity.

Nonetheless, Marceline, as many others live there and she really wanted us to be at her party. This was a party she was obliged to give herself as head of household and an orphan. But finishing high school is a big deal and I think many expected her to throw one.

The purpose of such an event is to share food and drink (fantas) together, a kind of potlatch provided by the honoree.

Having mzungus present was a huge deal and we were of course ushered to the front of the event to sit on the couch of honor beside Marcelline. We actually left Oren at the Birthday and only brought David. In fact our biggest concern was how to control our kid in this very formal, kid unfriendly event. (In that we had to sit still for several hours listening to speeches and smiling and drinking fantas.)

Rebecca again provides her synopsis of the events as they transpired there as well as some reflection:

The Walls that Divide Us.

One might imagine that making a friendship or a professional connection with a low-income Burundian might be dangerous to us as foreigners. In fact, what we are learning is that such connections are actually much more dangerous to the Burundian in question.

This week, a friend of mine told me that her cook had quit her job—out of self-preservation. Over the weekend, a group of armed men broke into her little house in one of the slums of Bujumbura. They beat her and demanded money. She told them that she didn’t have money. But they insisted that she must. “You work for a mzungu, for someone at the embassy. We know. We’ve followed you. You must have money!” they said. And they beat her more, thinking they could get more out of her. Eventually they settled for stealing everything in her house, except for the clothes she was wearing: pots, pans, her stock of beans, and every other stich of clothing in the house. So this woman decided that she could not go back to work on Monday. She’s left the country to be with relatives across the border for a while.

It’s appalling to imagine how the poor rob from the poor, robbing them naked. But this is an extremely common story. In fact we know almost no wealthy people who have been robbed, but we know at least 10 poor people personally (including some of our staff) who have been robbed in this kind of way. And one of the main things that puts people at risk is the perception of association with wealth (mzungus). We have to think very hard whether it is worth it for us to go and visit our house-staff in their homes: they both live in different slums where security is very bad. Really, we’ve only gone when there is a dire situation of illness, and the staff member needs money or transport to the hospital.

So, when our cook Marcelline invited us to her house this Sunday evening, we had to think hard about it. The occasion: her successful completion of secondary school. She was not able to finish school earlier because of tremendous hardships in her life, especially the death of her father. But after she had been working for us for a year and a half, we talked to her about building her capacity and what we could do to help her. She is very intelligent and still single, so she really has room to improve her educational level. Together we decided that she could try to finish her secondary school diploma by going to night school after work., and we paid the tuition. It was very draining for her, but she succeeded in jumping through all the hoops and finished with good marks. So, according to local custom, she threw herself a big party. The party would start at 4 pm and she instructed us to come then, and prepare to leave by 5 pm for security reasons. “You know my neighborhood,” she said.

We came in to the neighborhood through a back road, as Marcelline suggested (so our car would be less obvious) and had to pick our way through compounds to get to the entrance of the tent. We passed by the shell of a mud-brick house, just two walls still standing around a pile of fallen bricks. I wondered if that was the house where a 6 year old girl had been killed two months ago when the house collapsed after a heavy rain: another casualty of poverty, where the family couldn’t afford to keep their house repaired and lost a child.

Finally we reached the door of the makeshift tent, constructed right outside her small house, blocking the whole muddy street (many of the tarps were recycled UNHCR tarps for refugees, now rented out as a small business!). The typical rows of chairs were set up, facing the front of the enclosure, where all the living room furniture had been placed as special seating for the VIPs. We were led to the long sofa (Paul, David and myself) and waited to see what would happen, trying not to stare at the rows and rows of smartly dressed poor people staring at us. Finally Marcelline appeared, wearing a gold satin evening gown and a hairstyle that would have put Princess Amidala (Star Wars 4) to shame.

There was an emcee who announced each part of the program, a brief homily from one of her pastors, and a delightful group of 5 dancers from Marcelline’s youth group. Then the fantas were distributed to all of us. Marcelline was very nervous as she sat in the middle of our family – she had never been the center of so much attention, I think. She asked for help to stand and raise our glasses, to signal that everyone could share their beverages. Then heaping plates of food were brought out to some of the VIPS – Marcelline and her friends had been cooking all weekend. We were invited to serve ourselves from a laden buffet table, in full view of everyone. By this time, it was already 5:30 and we had stayed beyond the curfew Marcelline had set for us (and we were late to pick up Oren). But we were caught in the logic of the situation: Marcelline needed to speak and introduce us to all of her community and be sure they knew how we had supported her in finishing her degree. So, she spoke, and then I spoke, and then Paul spoke. I praised Marcelline’s determination in the face of hardship, and also called the community to support young women like her. Believe me, never come and serve in Africa unless you can be prepared to give a formal speech at any moment! Finally, Marcelline was able to excuse us and we made our way back through the households to our car, at 6 pm, when it was still not quite dark.

In fact we did not really feel that we were in danger at any point. And it was thoroughly necessary to help Marcelline celebrate. What we hope is that Marcelline’s association with us will prove to be a lucky break in her life that will help her in the future—and not put her in danger at the hands of unscrupulous thieves who probably live right around the corner.

When we left and picked up Oren we were ready to be done for the day. We had a quiet evening at home bathed the kids and put them to bed.

It was a long week and the thought of one more before our vacation is difficult to think about. We are relieved to have the long evaluation process and follow-up done, but I think it probably opened up as many new cans of worms as it closed old ones. I think we are entering this Christmas season more mentally worn than any of the others we have had here. We do have a nice little break planned in Tanzania, more about that in a few weeks though. For now we are slouching along toward the end of the week... (looking forward to our Christmas Party folk dance on Friday, for anyone in Burundi reading this, don't forget to come!).

*I put an asterix in the first paragraph about children's behavior to mention that David did manage to pee on the Birthday party hosts couch during a nap, knocked over one stemmed glass of coca-cola on an honored guest at the graduation party, and then knocked over a bottle of pineapple wine all over Jodi's stuff in her room when he was chasing a lizard. But at least he did not throw any tantrums.

The Patron Saint of School Kids

2011-12-15T06:10:00.003+02:00

Patron des Ecoliers

Dans la nuit, je revais

Que tu m’a donné

Un avion qui peut marcher…*

The opening lines to a poem Oren was to memorize last week is about St. Nicolas, the patron saint of school kids and the Belgian version of Santa Claus. St. Nicolas comes on the night of the 5^th of December and fills shoes set out on the staircase with sweets. He is accompanied by his sidekick Pere Fouettard “Black Pete” who carries the bag of toys but also a broom for switching naughty children. St. Nicolas also has a donkey and looks decidedly more Catholic than Santa Claus, quite tall and thin and sporting a Cardinal’s mitre and a long priestly robe.

St. Nicolas came to all the classes in the Ecole Belge last week and brought all the kids candy. Oren and David both received pictures of themselves on St. Nicolas’ lap. David also got his own little Cardinal’s hat that he wore for much of the rest of the day.

It is nice to have some Christmas related events in the season which bears little resemblance here to the hype we are so accustomed to in the US this time of year. We do have our house decorated with lights, a tree, and keep Christmas carols playing in the evening from our ipod. It is nice to feel the change in season in the inside of our house at least.

I am considerably late in getting last week’s news up on the web and I am sad to say that the culprit in my delay has been a toothache, a bad one, that has made me strangely tired in the evenings when I usually have time to write. I have gone to bed early most nights since Sunday. I am currently in Kigali, Rwanda, making a visit to partners with our Area Director Mark Sprunger, and had a chance to visit a dentist here to get it attended to. She found a cavity in a back molar and will fill it this afternoon. I am looking forward to not suffering. The family is still back in Buja as the kids have had school this week.

There were a few significant events from the past week worth recapping. Probably the most notable was the purchase of a new(er) vehicle to replace our landcruiser. This is a plan we have had for several months as the “Prado” landcruiser (1994) which has over 200,000 kilometers is definitely beginning to show its age. It has been very reliable, but has required a considerable amount of repair.

A trustworthy car is important, especially in Burundi these days for trips upcountry. We do visit several places off-road fairly regularly. We have also been aware of increasing insecurity at night on upcountry road. Getting stranded in the late afternoon from a stalled vehicle could be dangerous. All said, we felt this was the year to improve our ride.

Finding a newer car here for a reasonable price is not a small matter. There are numerous options to buying but all have a down side. Some of our friends encouraged us to order one from Japan. It is fairly cheap to find a vehicle newer than 2000 online and to ship it for a few thousand dollars. The problem though is that duty to import a car is 50%, so that makes the car quite expensive by the time you get it. (a $12,000 car would end up costing about $22,000 with shipping and duty)

But it is hard to find a car for sale in country that has not been driven to death. I was shown a lot of cars as people spread by word of mouth my interest in buying. (There are really no car dealerships here I would trust to buy a used car.) Among the things I was shown were many used UN landcruisers complete with reinforced land-mine proof flooring. A feature I did not think would be particularly useful at this point in Burundian history. (This added quite a bit to the cost and detracted from fuel efficency.)

I was about to give up hope when I talked to our mechanic about the matter and found he is quite well connected and had an interest in making sure we got a reliable car. He found a 2006 Toyota “Fortuner” which had about 70,000 km on it. We got it for about the cost of importing an older car from Japan. Here is a picture of it. Decidedly less boxy and ‘missionary’ looking than the Prado we had, but has pretty much all the same features (4WD).

We are now in the process of selling the Prado. Hopefully that will go well. We do have a lot of interest but most want it for less than we feel we can sell it for. We are hoping another Christian NGO might take it from us. We had done our best to keep it in good condition and it has some years of life in it.

The final step in the purchase, after payment was the process of registration. This involves going to the Burundian equivalent of the DMV (far more bureaucratic) with the original owner and getting the title switched into my name. I am glad he was with me because I would have never been able to figure out what to do. I am honestly amazed that this only took 2 days as the look of the building which housed thousands and thousands of horizontally stacked manilla folders (a file for every car in Burundi). They had to find our car’s file and check to make sure all documentation was in order before transferring the title. I could not believe they could even find it. (On the other hand the former owner was a former Minister of Parliament so maybe as a big-man there was cause to move this quickly without the help of a bribe.) It was a relief to get the process done and I was happy to find there was only one minor misspelling of my name on the title Paul MOSLEV. On the Prado I am actually listed as Paul MOSLOY. So I really can’t complain.

I wish the visit to the DMV was the only encounter I had with Burundian bureaucracy. But in fact I had another that I was not expecting. For the ballet class I teach, I usually oreder the kids some ballet shoes from China, where they can be bought for about $3.00 each. Shipping costs about $60. I had bought about $100 worth of shoes for the kids who buy them from me. I have done this in the past and had them DHLed to me from China without problem.

This year, for no apparent reason, the very small box (about the size of a shoe box) was stopped in customs at the airport and I had to retrieve it. I thought this would be a fairly quick procedure and was only a bit annoyed that now I would have to add the duty cost to the cost of the shoes. What I did not know was that getting a package out of customs involves a bureaucratic set of procedures that dwarfs any I have experienced to date. I also ended up paying 50% duty on the shoes.

It actually took me half a day and I think I was lucky because I had gone on a Friday afternoon when there were not many people there, but fortunately all the important signatories were in their offices. I was also lucky to find a person who does the work of getting merchandise through customs professionally for regular importers. For a small fee he walked me through the entire process which I would have never, never, figured out on my own. It took a visit to 9 offices in different building to fill out different forms, collect various receipts. Some people, especially the director had to sign every form at each step along the way, so I had to return to his office after each step to have him sign off (instead of once at the end.) Several others had to sign off 2-3 times at various stages along the way. I have to say I have never seen a set of bureaucratic processes that could not have been simplified more easily. I have no doubt that keeping people employed is the only reason this system remains in place today. It is also another indication of why Burundi will continue to lag behind many of its economic partners in the East African region as they seem to not be able to let go of their beloved idiotic French colonial bureaucratic heritage.

The rest of the week went fairly normally (not counting the toothache which came on Sunday.) We did go to one early Christmas party at the house of our friend Olivia on Saturday evening. She is working here with a mission called GLO (Great Lakes Outreach) and does many things including managing a large conference center. She had a themed costume party based on things found at the market. There were prizes for different categories including:

African King and Queen

Best Bargain

Most Outrageous

Worst Misspellings

I think there was another, but you get the idea. Our whole family was invited and Rebecca had gone out with Jeanette (South African friend) to buy us clothes from the market.

It was a fun party with lots of great food and a good opportunity to catch up with fellow missionary friends. I have some pictures of some of the costumes. My favorites in the outrageous category were Olivia who was the Bujumbura Sugar Plum Fairy, and Shiela who had made an outfit out of palm tree leaves.

This week, which is well underway really began Sunday with the arrival of our Area Director Mark Sprunger. We have been debriefing with him on Monday and Tuesday and are now on a visit to partners in Kigali. More details about this next week.

Bonus Photo: Oren in Karate class. Although he claims not to like it much, he said last week, "Oh well, I guess I'll stop when I get my black belt."

*Father of School children

In the night I dreamed

That you brought me

An airplane that could walk…

Getting our Clocks Cleaned

2011-12-05T21:20:00.001+02:00

Rango, the Chameleon we found while waiting for Oren in karate class. He now lives in the lemon tree outside our house.

Well in the past three weeks I feel like our program has had a physical complete with prostate exam and have been given a clean bill of health with some promises to eat better, exercise, and brush and floss regularly. Actually, we are still waiting the results of some blood work, but all in all we do feel good about the 5 year program evaluation followed by a one week internal audit.

In truth, we were not anticpatiyng any of these activities with dread. We had been feeling that our program was needing some external feed-back about our strategic planning, particularly since the context in Burundi has changed considerably since we arrived in 2008. This is evidenced in many ways but particularly, for me, in the way that Bujumbura has been growing, developing and improving infrastructure, particularly roads. The large influx of expat. families also suggests that there is a perception of more security in the country.

Despite this, deep, profoundly entrenched poverty abounds as well as conflict inherent in scarcity of resources, particularly land. Burundi is an extremely overpopulated country with a population that has been displaced frequently and this remains an area of opportunity for conflict resolution action according to our evaluators.

They did also encourage us to continue to move away from relief into sustainable development activities, like setting up village savings groups, and other income generation activities. They expressed some concern that some of our projects, while laudable, did not seem to be sustainable in the long term.

Overall, though they were very encouraging and we are waiting the final report of recommendations which will guide our program for the next 5 years.

I have never really been part of an audit until last week and I have to admit that my idea of one involved a spectacled accountant with an adding machine and visor pouring over 5 years of receipts and pulling a handle to subtotal each one. In fact, our auditor Rebecca, though spectacled, did not have a hat or adding machine for that matter, and only sampled a few of our monthly reports over 5 years to verify receipts.

Much of the audit was about risk assessment (whether vehicles were legally registered) and what control mechanism (ex. 2 signatures) we had on bank accounts and financial transaction procedures. She also gave us some recommendations on good accounting procedures in the office and left us feeling like we had been doing a good job up until now. That was a relief since we really did not know what to expect and by and large non-profit organizations are being held to ever higher standards of rigor with regard to accounting.

But, like any complete exam, there is a really good feeling of having it all done and when we put Rebecca (the auditor) on the plane this morning to audit the Tanzania program, there was a certain sense of relief.

This coming week would be one of those extremely rare and mis-named 'normal' weeks in which we will be in the office every day with no trips and no special visitors. That will be short-lived however as our area director Mark Sprunger will be paying us a visit next week and we will take him on a tour of some of our partners in Burundi and Rwanda.

December is a time programatically that we start to wrap up. Our fiscal year actually ends in February, but it is this month that we ask partners to begin submitting plans for the new year and turning in final reports for the year we are completing. Making the rounds once more with partners again is important this month (although they may be getting sick of seeing us by now after several visits by evaluators).

To review this week, I will say that having an audit is a fairly quiet process and we did spend most of this past week at the office answering questions and making certain documents and contracts available. We did miss several days of swimming however because Burundi was hosting a large East African Community conference and they were meeting in a hotel right next door to our swim club. The police, had set up roadblocks all over and when we tried to get down the road to the club they insisted that the club was closed for the duration of the conference. (When we were able to get back in Wednesday I asked the club if they had been closed and they said no.) Apparently others knew a way to talk themselves by the police roadblock.

It was good to finally get to go swimmimg again on Thursday, but we made the most of the time in the office on the mornings we arrived early.

The kids were generally good this week and Oren did his first 'dictee' in school. That was a test, which he will now have every Friday where the teacher says a series of words or phrases and the kids have to write them. He is given the words in advance and we drilled him all week. Actually his spelling is quite good and he seems to like to read, eventhough he often does not know what the words mean that he is spelling. This week he did: la fée, le vélo, le fil, il lave, elle rêve.

Oren continues to go to karate on Tuesday's and Thursday's. Usually I take him and bring David along. While Oren does karate David plays in the playground at the Ecole Francais or explores the grounds. This Thursday, to my amazement he found a chameleon! I knew there were chameleons in this part of Africa but have not been able to find one in Burundi. I am amazed we spotted it because it was virtually invisible in the grass where it was hiding. It turned black and hissed and tried to bite when we caught it but later calmed down when we brought it home and returned to its brilliant green hue and was quite happy to walk on me, even sit on my head. The next morning we put it in our lemon tree where it is now living, however, I have not been able to see for the past 2 days. (It really turns invisible when it is among leaves.) (hey Barbara B., hope you get a chance to read this blog, I think you would be impressed by this guy.)

We had a fairly social weekend after the audit, especially because it really felt like the end of quite a long series of evaluations. Also, Rebecca (the auditor) had never been to Africa and was keen on doing some sightseeing.

It began Friday evening when we had Janelle (our SALTer) over for dinner. She seemed to be doing well and always has some amusing stories to tell us about life in her host family, odd people she has encoutered, or marriage proposals that she has had to turn down. Generally it seems she is doing well and has a very good attitude.

We took Rebecca out to Club du Lac Tanganyika on Saturday after my ballet class. It was a perfect day for body surfing as a storm had just past through and the waves were really high. David especially enjoyed frolicing in the surf (with his lifejacket), and Rebecca, Rebecca and I were right in there with the kids. It was nice to visit Club du Lac T. after a fairly long absence from there in the past month.

Saturday evening we were invited for dinner by our friends the Mackenzie's (Scott, Danika, John, Jonas). They are going back to Canada for Christmas any day now so we will not see them for the next month. We will miss them as they have become a valued part of our community. (Also Scott, you all are going to miss our Christmas contradance on the 23rd--since I know you read this blog.) We had a great dinner together and the kids played fairly well given that their oldest is David's age, which makes Oren a bit the odd man out.

Sunday we went to church and Rebecca taught Sunday school again. She has been some strategizing with her teaching team to divide the English speaking class for kids from 3-12. At this point there are more than 40. Fortunately they were able to get a second room and now have an older and younger group and several teachers and helpers that are able to share the job of teaching.

After church we decided to take Rebecca (the auditor) for a little visit up country since she had spent the whole week in our office in Bujumbura and had not seen what it is like in the cooler high regions of the country. We headed up to Ijenda which is to the Southeast about an hour. The weather did not disappoint as it was quite cool and rainy until we got up there when it cleared up enough for us to do a little hike around the top of the mountain we were on. (I have written before that this is about the only venue in Burundi where a mzungu can walk around without picking up a trail of children to follow him everywhere.)

Our family actually went with our Danish missionary friends (or at least part of the family) Naja and her daughter Aviaja. Another guest was J.J. who is a visitor that will be joining the World Relief team. He is coming with his family in May and was getting a lay of the land. We talked to him a bit about bringing a family to Burundi. It was a nice day for a hike for all of us and the kids really enjoyed it as well. After the hike we returned to a guest house/ restaurant where we sat and ate a late lunch by a roaring fire and talked. It was a very relaxing Sunday, all in all.

We came home in the early evening and lit our second advent candle and watched some Christmas shows on the computer before putting the kids to bed. With our tree up and our house decorated we are really feeling the Christmas spirit despite the warm weather and lack of snow or pine trees. (Actually there were some cedar trees where we were hiking and Rebecca brought back a few branches to add to our advent candle centerpiece.)

Monday morning we put Rebecca on a plane and went back to work. This week we are going to try to do some Christmas shopping and possibly buy a new vehicle for our program to replace the 1994 Prado. It has been a great car but the motor is 'fatigué' according to our mechanic. Will let you all know how that goes.

Giving Thanks Amidst Shortages

2011-11-30T11:31:00.003+02:00

The family decorating the tree to herald the Christmas season here.

I have not written much recently about the change in season and how we experience it. Last year around this time I think I had a picture of a bucket of mangoes which was about a daily yield for our trees in November. We are indeed in the height of mango season again and while they are readily available in the market, our trees seem to have suffered from a blight that has rendered them all but fruitless this year.

I comment on this only because it is just one of several cases where we are experiencing shortages. The others however are not nearly as innocuous as a mango virus which one can hardly blame on some ethical shortfall by the government.

The other two items that seem to be in an ever-shortening supply are sugar and electricity. We are now well out of the dry season, a time when hydro-electric power is down, and we seem to have less than ever. We are blessed to have a solar back-up system but there are times we have no electricity for 3 days at a time.

The more insidious shortage we have experienced recently is the complete disappearance of sugar from the market and in fact anywhere in Bujumbura. Since Burundi has large sugar cane plantations and is self sufficient in sugar, we can only presume that someone in the government has found a way to profit personally from some manipulation of the market or perhaps selling it off as export to other countries.

The same is true of ARV drugs which are provided for free by several countries but seem to not be available at HIV clinics or hospitals anywhere in recent months.

It is in these ways that corruption is experienced in countries like Burundi. Whenever something is not available, no matter how valuable or ubiquitous, you can be sure that someone is benefitting (profiting) massively from the inconvenience or suffering inflicted on a large number of people.

Seeing the stately mango trees in our yard that are bearing no fruit, reminds me of the story of Jesus' encounter with the fig tree out of season which was bearing no fruit. I think that more and more the international community and the local populace here are getting fed up with the current government and its lack of 'fruitfulness' since it won the elections last summer.

Although we do not eat a lot of sugar ourselves, the lack this year did have some disappointing consequences at Thanksgving. Last year Rebecca found a very good substitute for cranberry sauce using locally available Japanese plums instead of cranberries. It was a very tasty alternative, here is a link to the recipe. (cranberry sauce recipe).

However, as we were not able to find sugar she made the sauce without it. It was unfortunately, extremely bitter and not very tasty as a garnish. The pumpkin pie was OK because we had received as a gift a jug of Rwandan honey which was an acceptable substitute in the pie.

I should probably back up a bit and talk about what we did for Thanksgiving. We have been fortunate to have had an interesting gathering to share this traditional American feast every year that we have been in Burundi. We have chosen this meal as one to share with Burundian friends and this year we invited the family of Normand Ndayizeye (him, his wife and 3 kids) to sup with us. Normand's family is in fact the host family for our SALTer Janelle. So she joined us as well as Jodi Mikalashki who happened to be in Bujumbura for car repairs and two other young women Safi and Helene (from UK and Sweden respectively) who are here working in various capacities with the Friends Church.

It was a very enjoyable gathering and we did savor some traditional favorites including succotash and mashed potatoes and stuffing, but had to substitue rotisserie chicken for turkey. We celebrated on Friday night rather than Thursday as the latter was the last day of the visit of our evaluation team. In fact Thursday was one of the longest work days of the year as the team debriefed us a bit on their findings on Thursday evening after a long day's work. Since Toss had to be on a flight out of Burundi at midnight we ate dinner together and then talked over the finding until about 11:30 pm. We were pleased with how thorough they were in their work, but were completely exhausted by the time they left.

We did not take the day off on Friday as we had other work that had been set aside, but did take the afternoon off to prepare for our Thanksgiving guests.

The weekend was the real day of rest and family time, and we had felt that the children had been somewhat neglected during the time the evaluation team was here, or at least relegated to watching movies in the backroom while we talked.

But Oren was up bright and early Saturday morning and ready to set up the Christmas tree in the living room. (We had promised him that we would do this after Thanksgiving but not before.) He got out the tree and all the decorations and we began the process of decorating the tree and the rest of the living room for Christmas.

Honestly since we do not experience any of the seasonal changes in the year as far as weather, it is nice to create changes to our internal environment to feel like we have entered into the Christmas season. I can almost feel nostalgic for a touch of Christmas commercialism (Black Friday) because here the and months and years can plod along with little variation. It is up to us to create the feeling of a new season.

It is nice ot see the season through Oren's eyes who is really into crafts and decorating. He is dying to make Christmas cookies. The one thing which we do not have that we managed to bring in last year is a gingerbread house kit. He would love to have the opportunity to make one of those again which he considers to be a tradition now.

Sunday was another day of rest with church in the morning and an afternoon of laying around the house. We would have happily gone out swimming or something but Oren really just wanted to spend the day in the house with the Christmas tree. (we did watch the original Grinch who stole Christmas, Rudolf, and Charlie Brown Christmas on the computer that day.)

We did go out in the evening to visit our friends's Thomas and Naja and their kids. They are the Danish family (he is here as Director of World Relief). We stopped by a pizza place on the way to their house and brought the pizza over to share with them.

It is good to see the children playing together and Oren being comfortable speaking french with them. They spent a good part of the evening drawing a picture of two dinosaurs fighting from a comic book. (Dinosaurs are Oren's new favorite thing and he has been asking for a dinosaur robot for Christmas,)

Rebecca, our auditor working at our office this week.

Sadly I began getting sick on Sunday might with a fever and went to bed shortly after we returned home. On Monday I was still sick but did go to work. We picked up 'Rebecca' (a different one) our auditor who arrived from Canada in the afternoon. She will be with us for a week

I went to bed early on Monday and Tuesday and am finally getting this blog entry out today (Wednesday). Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving and Happy Belated Birthday Jonathan!

Evaluating Our Program

2011-11-22T12:59:00.001+02:00

Oren has been suffering from Christmasitis this week and even brought out and decorated the tree in the guest room.

Sometimes when I think back to my life prior to living and working here, I marvel at the change in reading material I find I surround myself with. My inbox is full of embassy and UN updates on security, as well as regional development work. My reading list is now primarily comprised of books on latest development theories and regional history--a far cry from the history of dance in 18th century France. (Although I did always teach that from the perspective of how political power shaped art institutions in European history.)

Now I am working through a book called "Dead Aid" about the generally negative impact foreign aid has had on development in Africa, and simultaneously reading a book about the influence Chinese investment is having on the subcontinent. I am looking forward to finishing so I can begin reading "King Leopold's Ghost" about the history of Congo, because that history has played a large roll in creating the dynamics of the Great Lakes region where we work. I am not an expert on anything, I would say, but I am aware of changes in my capacity to be able to assess what is good and bad programming around here. This is helpful because much of our job is to see that money provided by MCC is wisely used to have a positive impact that reflects God's character (justice, mercy, hope, love.)

It is actually always surprising to me how much work it takes to see money used in a way to do more good than harm.

Toss and Jimmy our two Congolese evaluators.

In that light, we have continued to be busy hosting the Evaluation Team that is here to help give us strategic direction for the next 5 years. I think it is fortunate that all of the 4 evaluators are African, from DRC, Burundi and Rwanda. They have a deep familiaraity with the context and have been able to get at the real marrow of some of our partners programs. They have generally been committed to meeting 'benficiaries' of all of our programs and not just the partners. (The level where Rebecca and I primarily interact is with the partner.)

They have also helped us sort out how to relate to two "Mennonite Churches" in our region. Those are 2 churches that have registered themselves as such with the Burundian Government but have no connection to the Mennonite World Conference of other Anabaptist organization. It is tempting to regard those who registered them as simply opportunists wanting to plug into some mzungu money, but the reality is often more complicated than the appearance.

I did my own evaluating this week when I went up to Gitega on Friday and did a follow up of the Great Lakes Peacebuilding Institute. It is a project we have been funding for about 7 years and it is encouraging to see it beginning to move into self-sufficiency this year as a well respected peace-building program that trains trainers in peacemakers throughout the region. It is also the only one of its kind that does instruction in French.

Friday was fortunately the only travel day and I went up with a Congolese colleague on Friday morning about 6 am and drove back with him the same afternoon. It was funny because we were supposed to go up and stay the night Thursday. I told him I was leaving at 3pm and he said he would get to Buja by noon. As I suspected that meant 5:15 pm, an hour too late to head up country as driving after dark is not considered safe upcountry. We stayed the night at our house where we enjoyed talking about regional issues (he helped me understand better the deep animosity Congolese feel toward Rwandese.) and left early the next day to get to Gitega by 8am.

We talked quite a bit on the drive about how MCC could be more involved in Eastern Congo and both agreed that we really need a volunteer living in Bukavu. (I know MCC Congo is advertising for this position, so if any readers feel a call to serve in this region through MCC, there is a great need for ‘eyes on the ground there’ to accompany with our church and peace partners.)

Rebecca was at home with the kids and took them out to a park with our friend Jeanette (from South Africa) and her daughter Isabel as well as Kirsten and her daughters Emily and Rebecca. I have included some pictures. Most playground equipment here would be illegal in the US. For instance notice the slide that goes down about 50 degrees straight into a hole, there is no deceleration curve at the bottom. (more like jumping that sliding.)

Other than those events, the week has been fairly consumed with doing logistics for our evaluators and meeting them in the evenings. It has been good to see things through their eyes. (We do not participate in the interviews, but do get feedback afterwards.) They spent the early part of the week in Gitega and at the Hope School and seemed very positive about the work of our partnerships there.

We have also had several Skype meetings with some of our colleagues in the US and Canada regarding new projects. It is always amazing to me that we can be so separated by distance and yet have a conversation that makes us feel as if we are in the same room.

Saturday was a bit logistically challenging as we had some work responsibilities related to the evaluation team as well as the adult ballet class I am teaching. I have to say it has been a real pleasure teaching these past 2 weeks especially as I find that there are about a half dozen young NGO workers here who have had some dance experience—2-3 professionally.

Sunday the evaluation team left for Rwanda and we went to church. David was beginning to get sick (again) and slept through most of the service (which means I could here the sermon.)

The pastor shared on the parable in Luke about the Shrewd Steward (or manager). If you haven’t read it for a while it is worth looking at. One of the more confusing parables, but quite rich if you take time to flesh it out.

The observation the pastor made that I appreciated was the 3 choices the steward seemed to consider he had as professions;

1) begging

2) scrapping (working, digging)

3) being a steward for someone.

Since the master was going to fire him, presumably for not doing the last one well, he decides to cut the debt owed by some of the master’s clients to ‘make friends.’ The master commends him on his shrewdness.

The pastor observed that it does seem that in life the three choices about how we acquire and use our wealth are quite applicable.

1) we can beg, that is live in such a way in which we consider that we are victims and depend on others for our livelihood, not taking responsibility for ourselves.

2) we can work, (the word has the sense of digging or clamboring)--we can believe that we are earning everything for ourselves, and that what we get is ours and clambor unceasingly to get as much as possible for ourselves.

3) We can be stewards: That is in recognition that what we have we are holding for a master, and that what we do and the way we use our resources should reflect the master’s priorities, as all that we have belongs to him.

In the story of the shrewd manager, it is clear that the master is generous in that he compliments the steward for his generosity in cutting debts (self-serving as it was) it reflected the master’s priorities.

Anyway, I enjoyed the reflection and the different ways we might see our own lives as Christians. Living as stewards rather than beggars (victims) or ‘scrappers’ (clamborers in the rat-race).

We are getting ready for Thanksgiving this week which we will celebrate Friday for logistical reasons. I tried unsuccesfully to get a turkey. (I asked Yolanda to get one from the Swahili Quarter in Gitega.) They wanted about $50 for a pretty small one so we will have rotisserie chicken again this year.

Bonus Photo: Oren working on the car proving the adage that "If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." Definitely true in the NGO world!

Strange Fruit

2011-11-15T21:48:00.000+02:00

Say Awwwh! Cutting open a jackfruit I found on the road by our house. They are not native to Burundi, but someone apparently has one in our neighborhood.

I feel somewhat remiss this week in not bringing my camera around to take pictures during the week. Although we were in town most of the week, it was not uneventful. I do have to admit that the fact that we were not traveling almost made it feel like we had a week of vacation. Just to be back in our normal routine is quite refreshing. When we have it, the week looks something like this:
Monday, Wed, Friday--
6:00 wake up
7:15 kids to school
8-9 swim
9-12 work together
12 pick up kids and go home for lunch
2-5 one of us goes back to work the other stays home with the kids
6 dinner
8 kids in bed asleep

On Wednesday's I teach ballet in the 2-5 slot to kids at the Ecole Belge.

On Tuesday and Thursday Oren goes to karate in the afternoons.

The routine has a rhythm to it of work and renewal activites that keep us balanced. (I did not mention the women's Bible Study and the men's prayer group that meet weekly as well.) It is also really nice to not be on the road for a long trip with the stresses that accompany that--bad drivers, bad roads.

So we savored the week even though we were working very hard to prepare the logistics for an evaluation team that was arriving on the weekend.

The weekend itself was very busy but did have some high points. One for me was the addition of an adult ballet class on Saturday afternoon. I had been encouraged by several women who are here working with various NGOs to try one. I had my doubts about whether there were any interested adults, but was shocked when at 1 pm, just through email and word of mouth about 10 students showed up another 5 expressed interest in coming in the future. I will plan to do this every week until Christmas and then decide what to do after that. It was inspiring to teach a class of people who were really interested in dance, and at most had previous dance experience.

Saturday was also the day that 3 of our 4 evaluators came. Two were coming from Kinshasa, both Congolese, Jimmy Juma and Toss Mukwa. Jimmy works for MCC in South Africa and Toss is part of the Mennonite Church leadership. The other two evaluators are coming from Rwanda and Burundi respectively. They seem to be an able team and we had dinner with them Saturday night at our house.

This make the work week feel like it had been extended a day, but it was interesting to be with them and share some of our thoughts. They will be here for 2 weeks and will interview all of our partners and service workers. They will be going up country and to Rwanda. Fortunately we do not have to go with them on all these visits.

On Sunday we took them to church with us. It was good to be back after a missing last week because of our retreat. It is definitely a part of our routine we do not like to miss. David is still not old enough for Sunday school and has trouble sitting through the service though.

Rebecca's Sunday school is enormous now, but she is getting some volunteers that are helping her split the class.

One of the mother's who has helped voluntarily is our new friend Danika ( of Scott and Danika fame), who are here with Food for the Hungry. She is a family doctor and has been volunteering at the the large public hospital where she has been working in the maternity ward. She recently related a harrowing story that I am directing you to here by this link. It is about her experience of saving a life of a woman about to give birth who needed a C section. It is truly by her actions that this woman survived, but does point out just how substandard maternal healthcare is here (my-scariest-day-at-work-ever/). We have had several colleagues lose their wives in childbirth and just today Rebecca was talking to one of our partners who said they lost a nurse in their clinic this past week when she gave birth to twins then had some problem with her C section several days later in the hospital. Despite her cries of agony, no doctor was available to see what was wrong and she died of 'unknown' causes shortly thereafter. (no relation to the person in Danika's story.)

I do admit that this and other stories does give us an understandable anxiety about needing medical care here. What seems to prevail in many of the horror stories we hear is this sense of fatalism--like whether one lives or dies has little or nothing to do with medical care, it is all just fate. I think that explains why, in Danika's story there was such a lack of urgency, even in an emergency.

I will relate one last story just because it is so bizarre. A relative of one of our partners was in a car accident here. It was serious and the spinal injury could not be treated in Burundi. Her family was wealthy enough to send her by air ambulance to Kenya's Aga Kahn hospital where she was operated on successfully. Unbelievably, though, on the way from surgery to recovery she had to be transported to another floor by elevator. On the way down though, the elevator cable broke and it fell more than a floor to the bottom of the shaft while she was in it on a bed. The attendants were not seriously injured but her spinal injury is now far worse than when she arrived. And this is in one of the best hospitals in the sub-continent. (Of course in all of these incidents there is no legal recourse as far as hospital or doctor liability.)

I think I will leave the topic of health care at this point and return to the happier subject of Sunday after church.

We did take the evaluation team out to lunch at one of the local beaches. It was not one we usually go to. We had a nice conversation and when our guests left Oren and David ran down to the lake for a swim. We all enjoyed playing in the waves for about 2 hours before we were chased to shelter by a huge thunderstorm. We drove home and sat on the porch and watched a gorgeous sunset over the mountains of Eastern Congo. It is good to remember we have such a nice view from our porch. (Which we tend not to use since the birth of puppies last Christmas.) But now that Noel, the young dog is more mature, we can sit out there without being attacked to friskily.

We also enjoyed several other activities including carving up a jackfruit that I found on the road in our neighborhood (it had fallen off of a neighbor's tree.) I tried drying it to make some kind of dried fruit for museli, but I have to admit, it does not taste that good. (Like a smelly overripe banana.)

Oren has learned to play chess and we did play a few games during David's nap. It is amazing how fast he is growing. He can even beat mommy (with a bit of help from dad.) Oren and Rebecca also constructed a T-rex puzzle out of wood. Since Oren is fully in his dinosaur infatuation phase, he really loved it. (Thanks Grandparents!)

On Sunday evening we gave both kids buzz cuts and they do look really cute. (And are alot less itchy.)

Although all the fun was crammed into one afternoon and evening, it did really feel like a weekend. Next week, more travel.

Retreating Under Volcanoes

2011-11-07T21:09:00.001+02:00

Felix, our program assistant, relaxing with a book during our retreat this week.

Today has been a day of rest, more or less. It is not often that we do not go into work on a Monday. It is generally a good way to begin the weekly routine, especially when we are finally once again back into routine.

Last week I mentioned that I was writing from Kigali where we began the week before proceeding on Tuesday afternoon to Gisenyi. This town is situated on the North end of Lake Kivu, right at the border where one crosses into Goma in Eastern Congo. Among the interesting features, besides the Lake in this region, are the numerous volcanoes that rise up majestically above the hilly countryside. The Goma volcano erupted in the last decade, pretty much destroying that town, and it's still particularly impressive, as one can see the glow of lava from the crater reflecting up on the clouds above at night.

Although the town feels quiet enough, there is something that seems prehistoric about the region, the volcanic soil that produces prolifiic vegetation and the houses and walls constructed out of black porous volcanic rock. Not far from here is the home of the "Gorillas in the mist" and the dense forest climbing the hills looks like a place where mountain gorillas would hide.

But our visit was neither tourism nor nor science. We were here as part of a regional MCC spiritual retreat for the Great Lakes region. So we had our entire Rwanda/Burundi team as well as teams from Uganda and DRC (Congo).

Arriving together was not without its complications. While most of us did get there on time arriving by both public and prviate transport, the Congo family were delayed several days waiting for exit papers for their adopted daughter. They were able to join us half way through on Thursday afternoon.

Since Rebecca and I were the primary logistical organizers as well as the ones responsible for the schedule, it was not exactly restful for us, (especially Rebecca) although we were able to have most everyone else share in the responsibility of leading evening devotionals as well as recreational activities.

Generally the format was to have a thematic study and discussions in the morning, with the afternoon off for activities. The group provided many opportunities, including embroidery, yoga, water color, and origami. The hotel we stayed at, although modest by western standards, had some interesting perks including a small pool, exercise room, and sauna and steam room. There were also some nice grounds to sit around and read in. There was so much to do in the afternoons that we were not even able to do all the acitivities planned on the schedule.

The themes in the morning were focused on parables of the Kingdom, specifically the sower, the parable of the wheat and weeds, and the parable about the woman baker working yeast into the dough. The challenge in all of them seemed to be to accept the mystery of the growth of the kingdom that does not depend on our efforts, but may require much patient endurance on the part of the workers (especially to allow the wheat and weeds to grow together).

It was generally well received and it was good to have the discussions lead to opportunities to talk about the rewards and frustrations of working within our particular assignments. I think the SALTers and service workers from the different countries enjoyed getting together to share experiences. I am struck that overwhelmingly the SALTers are young women. There just do not seem to be that many young men with the focus to do such a volunteer program out of college. It is a shame because I think this kind of experience could be very valuable as a part of finding future employment, and even a vocation.

We were also very blessed to have great child care as two young women accompanied us, one was Katherine Deckert who works with MCC in Winnipeg and was out for a visit/vacation. The other, Mireille, is a teacher at the Ecole Belge in Rwanda and a friend of Ruth and Krystan. So the kids really had a blast. (Oren was the oldest of the group with David a close second.)

For me, one of the highlights was Friday when we invited a special guest to share with us on the topic of facing injustice on a personal level. (What can we do in the face of injustice as individuals?) The facilitator was a Rwandese pastor named Joseph Nyamutera. He has a fascinating life history and I am sending a link to his bio here. (Nyamutera bio) He led us through a 3 part series of discussions beginning with identity. He asked us what identities we possess and the ways that we might be either victims or oppressors because of them. He himself is Hutu, and although he was not involved in the genocide directly, he was aware of the killings as they happened. But when the RPF came in he was forced to flee to Congo where he spent several years in a refugee camp and lost many family members.

He has had the experience of being perceived as both oppressor and victim. He went on to conclude though that as Christians. we profess our primary identity to be in Christ and all others to be secondary, even if they are natural, like gender or race or ethnicity.

The second section was on wounds and trauma healing, and ended with us bringing our pain and wounds to the cross (where we symbolically nailed them) to be released from them.

The 3rd section I found particularly meaningful. It began with a discussion about repentance which Biblically is both individual, but also corporate. (Israel repenting as a nation is an example of that.) Here we looked at ways in which we as Christians might, using Peter's description of us as a royal priesthood, be intercessors, or stand-ins to confess corporate sin of the groups we belong to. He told us about how he has stood as a Hutu before Tutsis and confessed and asked for forgiveness for the sins of his people. He has done the same thing as a Rwandan before Congolese.

He has described remarkable transformations in relationships between groups in his experiences of this kind. Normally we come ready to rationalize or justify rather than to confess. By contrast, to come in with humility and penitence is quite liberating.

I was struck by the possibility that such confession might liberate one from the feeling of acting out of guilt--an emotion that drives much giving and foreign aid, I believe. Perhaps if we begin with confession as development workers and a request for pardon, we might be able to act more in the interest of others rather than out of guilt.

Pastor Joseph also warned about the trap of reparation that is motivated by guilt. He observed that often reparation is usually not possible. He gave an illustration of a priest in South Africa who had his hands blown off by a letter bomb during apartheid. He said that if someone had come and apologized for committing this injury, he would ask him how that person would want to offer reparation? Wash his clothes? Help him dress? and for how long? Today? Until next month? Forever? His point was that it is not possible to return the loss. When the perpetrator asks for forgiveness, it is in recognition that reparation may not be possible. It is up to the victim to decide to forgive.

What a heady idea to imagine confession, by individual Christians, standing in their priestly role as intercessors, to Native Americans, Jews, Palestinians, Illegal Immigrants, Colonized Countries. I would be interested in seeing a forum for public confession for Christian leaders. (Although in our country our Christian leaders seem more fixated on righteous moral outrage and judgment and not on public confession and repentance.)

Saturday, our last day, we took the morning off to go to a beach on the lake. It is nice that there are no hippos or crocs in this lake. But it is a bit unnerving that there is methane gas in the bottom of the very deep lake and once every 10,000 years or so the Lake 'inverts' killing everything within hundreds of miles of it. (Right now there is a pipe down to the methane and it is being harvested for fuel.)

But the lake is nice, and we played on a 'beach' made of volcanic rock. The kids swam and even caught a crab. We had a nice lunch at a hotel on the beach and the day would have been perfect if someone had not stolen a couple hunded dollars in Rwandese Francs from Rebecca's purse in a brief moment when she was not looking.

On Sunday we all headed home. I took the Burundi crew home in the jeep which left about 7am for the 10 hour drive. It was rough with the kids who pretty much took turns having melt downs most of the way back.

We arrived back exhausted Sunday evening and took it easy. On Monday Rebecca woke up feeling sick so I took the kids to school and swam before coming home to do some emails.

There is a feeling of accomplishment to completing this retreat and it was clearly appreciated by all who came. We will probably do it again in the future as this is the first Great Lakes Regional retreat MCC has had to my knowledge.

Small Miracles at the Hope School

2011-10-31T22:56:00.001+02:00

Three year old Emilie reciting her vowels in front of the Premier Maternelle class at the Hope School for the Batwa

“Listen, Look, Touch.” Beatrice, the education coordinator the Hope School repeated the words to me she had learned in last summer’s (2010) teaching seminar where pre-school teachers were introduced to modern pedagogical methods for the instruction of young children. The occasion was a field visit this past Tuesday. It was time to write a report for MCC and I went up alone on Monday afternoon to Burasira and stayed the night at the Grand Seminare nearby the school. I went up to the school early Tuesay morning and had a meeting with the principles and Beatrice before visiting all the classrooms in the secondary, primary, and preschool.

I am including some of my report in this blog entry because many who read this were involved in a book collecting project that is beginning to have impact at the school this year.

The Hope School for the Batwa Maternelle (nursery school and kindergarten) was excited about putting the new ‘listen, look, touch’ methodology into practice and began last year with extensive changes to the look of a traditional Burundian classroom. Rows of desks were pushed around the edge of the class to form a large circle where students could interact actively with instructors, even writing on the floor rather than the chalk board to ‘reorient’ learning more toward the perspective of wee ones. The children accepted the new methodology with enthusiasm as evidenced by smiling faces and attentive participation.

But there remained a challenge with the new ‘listen, look, touch methodology. In a classroom in one of the poorest and marginalized communities in the world, a westerner would be shocked at the utter lack of material, visual, and tactile, with which the students can interact. No posters, pictures, blocks, legos, toys, paper, scissors, paste, or any supplies, even electricity for that matter. Most strikingly though—there is not a single book anywhere—here or in most other preschools in the country and certainly not in their homes!

There is simply very little to interact with in the classroom beyond tables and chairs. Last year the teaching team was very creative in finding old magazines and even MCC calendars with which to create visual materials which was a great success.

This academic year though, thanks to a small miracle in the form of a container of children’s books collected by Mennonite and MB churches as well as other groups (organized by Jean Sack) and sent by MCC, there has been a virtual renaissance at the preschool.

It is an emotional sight to see the 4 and 5 year olds opening colorful books of pictures of tropical fish, wild animals, construction vehicles, planets, aircraft and ships, and stare in awe turning the pages with slow intent concentration. Others play with alphabet blocks, or small toys.

The visual and tactile experiences have truly unified theory and practice. Teachers are able to use the books and other materials to give children the necessary visual and tactile experiences to enhance the aural learning (rote listen and repeat). Listen, look, touch is now a reality in the classroom and it has transformed learning so much this year that parents and neighbors in the commune and even neighboring school districts are taking note.

“One of the most exciting outcomes has been a much deeper involvement of parents in their children’s education” exclaims Innocent Gihimbare, the principle of the primary school. We now have a very active parents group that meets regularly and has a new genuine interest in the school.”

Challenges remain, for the nursery school as the simple brick and mud constructed rooms have no secure windows or doors and there is fear that these treasures, which may look to Westerners like Salvation Army give-aways, have high market value and may make the school a target for thieves.

6th Grade Class which has 50 students in one small room
this year.

Nonetheless, with a newly reanimated parents committee there is hope that parents will take responsibility to hire and pay 2 night guards to protect the classrooms at night.

“We don’t want to lose these gifts” said kindergarten teacher M. Silas. Children used to come to school crying dragged by their parents, now they come running ahead of them and arrive laughing.”

I am always deeply moved and often stunned at the obstacles students must overcome to even go to school in this country, especially in a remote rural commune like the one where the Hope School is located.

The school, for instance does much to keep Batwa girls going beyond 6^th grade. But it is a huge struggle and there is about a 6 to 1 ratio of boys to girls in the secondary school.

Girls who do go often have to overcome even parental opposition to their continuing their education.

The most extreme testimony of hardship I heard came from a girl in 8^th grade named Athanasie. She was very marginalized at the school in her commune and eventually forced to leave. She came to the Hope School which she enjoys very much, but must walk 2 and a half hours each way to school and back. Her mother, fortunately, does encourage her to go.

When I asked her what she wanted to do when she grew up, she said she wanted to be a teacher.

I left the school after 4 straight hours of meetings and visiting classes. (It did not seem long to me at all.) I drove back to Gitega with Beatrice and dropped her off before continuing onto Bujumbura. I arrived back hom about 4 on Tuesday. Just on time to meet Oren at karate class. It was a very inspiring trip.

The rest of the week was filled with work. We are trying to prepare for a program evaluation (something that happens once every 5 years). A group of 4 sent by MCC will interview all of our partners and help us to discern some strategic objectives in the next 5 years.

We also have an audit in the beginning of December. But the most concentrated work has been on preparing for a retreat in Rwanda where we are hosting the entire Uganda and most of the DRC team. We have been preparing a program, arranging logistics like childcare, etc. (and by we I mean mostly Rebecca.)

At this writing we are in Kigali waiting to go up to Gisenyi our meeting point. I will say more about the retreat in next week’s blog.

Felix has also been very busy this week getting the book container, sent to Burundi, to continue on its way to Rwanda where books will be distributed to schools of the Friends Church. (The books came up to Kigali yesterday and they could be cleared from customs as early as tomorrow).

We actually left for Kigali on Sunday after church, which meant we got on the road around 2:30 pm. That is later than normal for church, but we had a special day there because we officially installed our new pastor and had a very nice celebration afterwards.

We really had a car full with the whole family plus Felix, Janelle and Yolanda. We arrived in Kigali around 8:30 pm, pretty tired, but not too much worse for the wear, especially since both kids fell asleep the last hour of the trip (when the real whining can begin.).

We had meetings all day today (Monday) and connected with the rest of our team.

I will post more about the retreat next week.

Bonus photo: Oren in Karate Class.

Power Struggles and David's Birthday

2011-10-24T12:48:00.000+02:00

T-Rex (me) vs. Stegasaurus (Oren) at David's Costume Birthday Party.

The family is actually relaxing in front of the TV this evening (watching Vegi-Tales). We have just finished cleaning up from David's Birthday party this afternoon (Sunday). Preparation actually began in earnest on Friday as we were blessed with a long weekend (national Holiday). The party planned for Sunday was a week ahead of David's real Birthday but I was not supposed to be in town for it next week.

Despite the fact that it is still early for Halloween, we did decide to make it a costume party, so preparation meant, not just baking a cake and decorating the house, but also constructing costumes (as there are none commercially available here.)

It is kind of fun, if one has the time, to do everything oneself, and that was the case this weekend. All of us took part. Rebecca made 2 cakes--(a brownie one decorated as a ladybug and a bundt cake that was decorated as a millipede). Oren made a picture of an elaborately decorated 23 layer cake on which the kids played a game called 'pin the candle onto the cake. (The idea was to hit a particular layer). My contribution was dinosaur masks for the kids and a piniata. Rebecca also contributed to the costumes helping Oren design a stegasaurus spiny back and tail to go with the mask. Oren was very excited to help on every project and from time to time he was actually a help.

Saturday we did take the afternoon off to go to Entente Sportive for a swim. This is Oren's preference these days as he now loves to jump off the 3 meter platform about 30 times every time we go. He was very excited to see that his 'friend' was there. This was a kid who would count for him before jumping and would jump with him on the adjacent platform. Weighing at what I would guess was about 250 pounds, he made quite an impressive splash every time he jumped off the board.

We were going to get food out for dinner but discovered that we did not bring enough money so we stopped at a boucherie and bought hamburger meat and had burgers and salad that night while watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. It was a nice family evening together and David and I actually got through half the movie before falling asleep.

Sunday was quite a change of pace from the relaxing two days preceding. The morning was complicated as we had to pick up someone at the airport at 8am, then Rebecca was preaching at church at 9. We decided to send Rebecca for the pick up so she could have some quiet time while I dealt with the kids and brought them when church started. It all worked out well and we were all at the church by 9:10.

Rebecca preached on Acts 6. The passage about appointing deacons to resolve an ethnic conflict in the early church. (Between Greek and Hebrew widows.) She made some excellent point about leadership:
1) Leaders recognized their limitations and stayed faithful to their call
2) Leaders gathered the assembly to acknowledge and address the conflict and built consensus
3) Leaders came up with a solution but then handed power over the the assembly to choose the delegates to resolve it.

The involvement of everyone and the humility of the leadership were important lessons here where participation is not always encouraged and leaders, even in the church can be quite autocratic.

She also reminded us that most church settings these days in the West and here are monocultural, and that we have both a privilege and responsibility in participating in a multicultural church. But practically speaking, conflict will arise even as we try to love each other.

(She gave an example of a day when a meeting was scheduled from 11am to 4pm. She came at 11:30 knowing it would not start on time. But it was raining and what she did not know was that normally here, when it rains, all activity is postponed until after the rain, then everyone picks up where they left off. She waited for the meeting to begin for about 2 and a half hours. When they did meet she stayed until 4:30 but then had to leave having been gone from home all day. As she was heading out, one of the leaders who was just arriving passed her on the steps and said in surprise: "You're leaving already?)

Rebecca told it in a humorous way and everyone in the congregation, Burundian and foreign, laughed out loud, but the point was well made. It is hard to connect culturally when our different perceptions and responsibilities sometimes permit us to only meet each other in brief passings coming and going. (She suggested that probably Greek and Hebrew widows had very different needs and lack of sensitivity to that might have contributed to the conflict.)

Her final challenge was for the congregation to recognize that when the leadership asks us to take responsibility that we do so. It is not right to expect that a small minority do all the work that is required to build a loving community.

The sermon was well received by all who heard it. I was able to enjoy about half of it before David's restlessness required me to take him out of the service.

After church Rebecca was obliged to stay for a committee meeting while I took the kids and our guest. Violette (who is here to teach at GLPI) home. Rebecca got home an hour later and we began the frantic last minute house cleaning and preparations for the Birthday.

We invited families with some very young children. this included Scott and Danika with their 2 young sons (link to their blog here). They are a new mission family with Food for the Hungry. We also invited Kirsten with her daughters Emily and Rebecca as well as Ann Glick and her husband with their 2 boys and Tim and Jeanette with their daughter Isabel.

We did have plenty of activities starting with a parachute that someone gave us this summer that the kids loved to run under. We also had a costume parade, played pin the candle on the cake, opened presents, ate cake and knocked down the piniata. It was a good Birthday for David as you can see in the pictures in this blog.

The week preceding was one with several trials. The first was the continued lack of power which lasted until Friday. After a couple days without any power, our back-up system cannot keep up with demand, especially since it rained Monday- Wednesday which meant there was no solar power to help charge the battery.

We spent several nights in the dark which makes many things difficult in terms of getting the kids to bed. We also had to provide the dogs with a feast of all the left-overs we had not used in the refrigerator which once again served only as cabinet storage space.

Power shortages have been getting worse and worse and there is a lot of speculation as to why. My favorite rumor has to do with the large new nickel mining operation that has begun in a province up country. According to the rumor, a South African mining company is doing the extraction but under the contract is obliging the Burundian Govt. to supply the power to do the work. They need about 245 megawatts and Burundi produces about 11. So most of the power is going up there. The govt. is saying that there is generally an increase in demand and has not mentioned the mining at all. (Which makes me suspect even more that this is part of the problem).

But as far as our neighborhood, when I was complaining to my gardener about the lack of power he told me that if I looked outside at the transformer for the neighborhood, I could see that it was open and all the fuses were stolen. Sure enough he was right. We alerted the power company who was aware of this and said they were planning to fix it the next day. Amazingly they actually did come the next day.
They told Rebecca that this problem of fuse theft is growing and in fact this was the second time in 2 weeks that all of these fuses were stolen. (They welded a metal plate onto the transformer making access at this time impossible.) That should keep the theives out as well as anyone who may need to repair it in the future.

Activites parascholaires (extracurricular activities) have been in force this month and I taught my first ballet class for little kids this Wednesday. Sadly interest this year has dropped of significantly with the change in date to Wednesday (not my choice.) Particularly the class of the older more advanced girls had to be cancelled because I only had 1 student. (I am thinking of adding an adult class in its place.)

The other activity we have added is for Oren, who now goes over to the Ecole Francais for Karate every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. He had his first 2 lessons last week and got measured for his uniform. I will get a picture when he wears it next time. He seems to like the class and it is another opportunity for him to be exposed to and practice French.

We continue to have many guests pass through. Jodi was with us for lunch on Wednesday and I mentioned Violette who was with us on Sunday on her way to GLPI. We also had Yolanda pass through last night as well.

Generally our family has been healthy but one of our staff had a very sick baby suffering with severe diarrhea. The mother took him to a local clinic seriously dehydrated first thing in the morning. The nurse told her she would have to wait at least until 3 in the afternoon and to take the child home and come back later. Fortunately our worker let us know and we sent him immediately to a less busy (more expensive) clinic where they started an IV (with difficulty) soon after they arrived. Again another poignant reminder of the healthcare system here and the lack of access to those without resources--eventhough it is austensibly free for children. If our worker had not had the means (through us) to pay for a better clinic, I fear the child, in severe dehydration, would not have survived until he could have been seen by a doctor. Please pray for continued healing of this child as he is not well yet and still has the diarrhea although he is receiving treatment.

**update on the situation: Rebecca went to the clinic today to see the child. He had not received any tests yet (waiting for payment). When Rebecca showed up the treatment for the child took on a new seriousness. Apparently if it is true there that if a rich mzungu takes an interest in an individual their chances of getting necessary life-saving diagnoses and treatment improves greatly--a sad truth that has been our experiences in other health crises as well.

This morning (Monday) I am off to Mutaho to visit the Hope School and get some photos and interviews for reporting. Rebecca will be home with the kids. I will return on Tuesday.

Bonus Photo: David brandishing the scar on his forehead he got while playing with his dog Noel. Looks a bit like Harry Potter, but the hair is Draco Malfoy.

An Entente in Abyssinia

2011-10-17T21:21:00.001+02:00

Ethiopian Airlines arriving in Bujumbura on Wednesday afternoon to take us to Addis Ababa.

A Challenge: You are charged with bringing together representatives from several countries in West Africa-- Chad, Burkina Faso, Congo (DRC), Nigeria, Rwanda, and Burundi. You want to minimize travel time for each one, so where could one meet that would allow everyone to arrive in 1 travel day?

The answer would be Paris, France or Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

It would seem reasonable that a common meeting place would be more centrally located in Africa rather than the far east edge of the continent or in Europe, but not when you consider travel routes available for these countries. (West Africa is not particularly well served by airlines, particularly between countries.)

So once again the MCC Reps. from the Central West Africa region (CWARM) gathered together for our semiannual meetings, this time, for reasons stated above in Addis Ababa. For all of us, the travel time was to be reasonable. (about 5 hours from us counting a stop-over in Nairobi) But as usual, Africa did offer up some frustrating logistical hi-jinx's for several of us that completely undermined our best laid plans.

For the Rwanda Burundi crew (our family) we had bought tickets to leave on Tuesday, only to be told on Monday that our flight had been cancelled. We rebooked for Wednesday but that meant we would miss the first day of meetings. Gopar, our regional peace rep, who is from Nigeria but was with us in Burundi last week was virtually assured a visa up until the moment we were to leave on Wednesday and then was told he could not have an Ethiopian entry visa. (He was able to obtain a transit visa and was with us for 1 day.)

The worst situation were the Nigeria reps, our good friends the H_____n-S_____s (names omitted). They live in the North, in Jos, and had to make a 4 hour dangerous trip down to Abuja to catch a flight to Addis. They were having trouble getting exit visas, but had been assured by their lawyer the night before that the papers were signed. They made the trip down only to find, as we so often do, that this assurance was in fact a 'false hope' and their exit visas were not granted after all because of some small irregularity discovered at the last minute. So their trip to Abuja was completely in vain and since they had to miss the Wednesday flight they were not able to get to us for the meetings at all.

This was a big disappointment for all of us at the meeting, even for our kids as they have an older son and daughter that Oren really likes to play with.

The good news is that we were joined by 2 new families as Chad and Burkina Faso both have new representatives. The Burkina Faso reps, (Chad and Isa) have 2 kids about the ages of our kids and Oren and Conner hit it off extremely well the whole time. (They share a common interest in trains.)

The Chad reps Doug and Naomi have an older daughter Hannah (college age) who was with them and graciously offered to do childcare with one of the MCC Ethiopia service workers. All the kids seemed very satisfied with this arrangement and had a good time playing together in the hotel garden in the morning and watching a movie while the little ones napped in the afternoon. Oren and Conner also produced reams of drawings of trains, dinosaurs, hotels, volcanoes and other things.

So despite all of the aforementioned snafus we did have a good set of meetings. As the more senior members of the group now, Rebecca and I did feel we had a share of good advice based on our experience in the field.

We were also able to have some good conversations with our Area Director Mark Sprunger as well as Tim Lind the DRC rep. with whom we share some common interests being so close to Eastern Congo.

I will say though, it is humbling to hear the challenges that the other countries in our region face. Even with the incresased instability here, our life in Burundi is far less complicated and difficult than say our colleagues in Nigeria who, in Jos, live with a civil war on their doorstep. The insecurity is palpable, there are parts of the city where a Christian even passing through without stopping would be killed immediately (and vice versa). The school their children attend is closed frequently because of bomb scares or other threats of terrorism.

DRC (Congo) is a challenge because of the daily assault of corruption which one must confront daily even driving to work. Tim Lind described doing programming there like "setting up a fine china tea service on a boat in a hurricane." (the things that will go wrong are completely out of one's control).

N'djamena Chad, where our reps live face temperatures that soar up to 120 degrees fahrenheit. To make matters worse, they have electricity at best a couple hours a day. So they live in this climate without airconditioning. (They do have fans that run on solar power.)

Burkina Faso, is also terribly hot although enjoys more political stability than some of its neighbors.

As I said, when we look at what other reps in our region face, I feel I have no right to complain when we arrived home and have been here for 48 straight hours with no electricity.

So meeting together is also an opportunity for us to encourage each other. I will say that Mennonites as a rule are not very verbose evangelists, or comfortable in the victorious Spirit-filled language of Charismatic Christians, but their witness of service in these very challenging places speaks volumes about their faith and what it means to serve Christ in the world. I come away from these meetings feeling a sense of awe and pride that our family is able to be part of this witness, however cushy our assignment is by comparison.

The days were mostly but not all work and no play. Although we did not get to go out on any extensive field trips, we did get to go out one evening for Ethiopian food. For any of you who love it (the injera bread with those incredible spicy sauces) imagine having that in Ethiopia! It was awesome! I admit I get a craving for it every time I think of it.

A group of us also did go out one evening to get some Gelato. This was a real treat for the kids who love icecream. As you can see from the picture, Oren, David, and Conner enjoyed it thoroughly.

We did go out one evening for a walk in the neighborhood around the hotel as well. While the Tegen Hotel was a lovely well appointed place, it was located in a fairly poor neighborhood. Nonetheless, even in that brief sortie into the neighborhood I could sense a profound cultural difference between Ethiopians and Burundians. Even as we passed numerous children, none of them were remotely interested in following us. Those engaged in playing ball on the road would occasionally kick it to Oren to get him to join in, and one little kid came up to kiss David, but there just was not the fascination with 'mzungus' that we experience in Burundi.

There could be a lot of explanations for this but certainly Ethiopia's history is part of it. An ancient culture with even its Christian roots going back to AD 300. It was never colonized (except briefly by the Italians during WWII who were then routed by Emperor Haile Selassie who had been in exile. All that to say, that Ethiopians all seem to exude a cultural pride that does not make them particularly enamored of Europeans.

The other thing worth mentioning is that it was REALLY COLD THERE!! That is to say it was like autumn weather in the US. We had to wear long sleeved shirts, jackets, etc. and slept under very comfy down duvets. Despite all the coziness, I did not sleep particularly well as I am now acclimatized to sleeping in fairly warm conditions. I had a terrible time with a stuffed and runny nose that kept me up at night.

The meetings ended Saturday and we all headed home on Sunday morning. The flight which stops in Nairobi both ways was not bad. The plane for this trip was a wide body (boeing 757) and it was full to Nairobi, but only about a dozen of us continued on to Bujumbura. It is always odd to feel like you have this enormous jet all to yourself. The kids did enjoy the trip a lot as they like to go on airplanes and have their routines down both in the airport and on the plane.

Oren particularly likes to get meals on the flight and usually keeps his tray in front of him for over an hour to savor it all.

It is quite a contrast to fly on non-US carriers where serving food is standard procedure even for a short flight. Between Nairobi and Addis which took about 1 hour 10 minutes we had a full meal which even included a free bottle of wine. (In the US I have flown from Seattle all the way to NYC without hardly a snack.)

We got home Sunday afternoon and made plans to go out with our missionary friends Jesse and Joy Johnson. Their kids and our kids ran around the grounds of a Chinese restaurant that Rebecca and I had never been to before. It was not bad, and we had a great visit with Joy and Jesse who will be on a 5 month furlough in a few weeks. They have not been home in 2 1/2 years so it is really needed and well deserved.

That about wraps up the highlights of the week. 2 milestones worth mentioning:
1) David's potty training seems about at an end. He regularly gets himself to the potty. (Oddly he prefers to squat on the seat and not sit.) So I think we will not be buying anymore disposable diapers when this last bag is done.

2) He misplaced his pacifier on Monday and we told him it ran away. He was not pleased the first night but has gone 8 days without mentioning it so I think those days are done as well. It is good not to worry about always having to find it at bedtime, but I do feel a bit sad to see him growing up so quickly. Next thing I know, he will be driving.

Bonus photo: The boys with a lizard the dogs caught last Monday. We brought it into the house and put it into a box thinking it was about dead. But an hour later it was gone. We found it the next day in our living room climbing up the screens of one of the windows. It looks like an iguana with a very blue head.

Double Dipping into Illness

2011-10-10T22:21:00.001+02:00

Rebecca in her Invutano at a dowry ceremony at the home of Janelle's host family.

One big change that has occured since our return that has nothing to do with culture, is David's personality. I know many parents know what I am talking about, but I am surprised at how abruptly the 'terrible twos' came on in the past month. The change is very marked. No longer the happy-go-lucky child who wakes up humming a tune in the morning, his disposition is very sour, testy, and generally lousy.

As the parent of a an older child it is easier to recognize this phase. When Oren entered it though, we thought it was just the way he was, a very intense, easily frustrated little guy who spent much of the day in a bad mood. But low and behold, at the end of 5 and now 6 he is once again generally a very sweet natured happy kid. So I guess we can look forward to the end of the phase for David in about a year and a half. In the meantime we are bracing for at least one more year of tantrums with our last toddler. It is some small consolation to know that this too shall pass.

Actually, quite independently of this was David's (and my) health. Sadly, like the economy, we double dipped back into illness for most of the week after feeling we were on the road to recovery around Monday. In fact David was spiking fevers up to 104.5 right up until Friday. We did do several more Doctor visits and emailed our pediatrician at home for advice, but it all seems to have been pretty much a severe flu virus.

Because of this, David was home all week which put Rebecca and I back into an un-ideal 'tag-teaming' work mode rather than having mornings together to strategize on what we need to accomplish. In fact since I was under the weather as well, I stayed home with David most mornings except Wednesday.

The other significant break in routine came as a result of a large number of MCC people who passed through Bujumbura on the way to one place or another and spent a night with us. The first person to arrive last Santurday was Gopar Tapkida, our regional peace officer for Central West Africa (based in Nigeria). He was on his way up to Gitega where he was teaching the first unit of the Great Lakes Peace Institute. (an institute supported by MCC in Burundi as explained in this earlier blog entry: GLPI. )

Gopar did not actually stay the night, but did greet us on Saturday afternoon before heading for Gitega. Tim Lind, the MCC rep for DRC (Congo) arrived on Tuesday and was obliged to stay until Wednesday before heading to Bukavu in Eastern Congo. He was visiting some partners in Eastern Congo and found that coming from Bujumbura would be the easiest way to get there. I picked him up at the airport on Tuesday afternoon and brought him to our house for the night. The next morning he was dropped off at a matatu taxi that travelled to Bukavu from Buja.

Wednesday, despite my less than ideal health was a travel day for me as I had several meetings I needed to attend in Gitega. I needed to visit Innocent and Beatrice who run the Hope School for the Batwa as well as stop off at MiPAREC where the Great Lakes Peace Institute is held. I went up fairly early with Felix. We stopped at MiPAREC first and took in about an hour or so of the GLPI workshop led by Gopar before having lunch. I was pleased to see that it was running well and now that I have been here for 3 years, was not surprised to hear that the whole thing had begun a day late as no one arrived on Sunday evening as planned. (In Africa a start-time is more understood as a time to begin to end other activities to get ready to begin something new, not as an arrival time.) But other than that it seemed to be going well and they had some very experienced peace builders participating.

In the afternoon Felix and I met with Innocent and Beatrice to go over some financial matters at the school and then left town at 3:10 pm. Enough time to get down to Buja before dark as it is no longer considered safe to drive upcountry after dark in Burundi anymore because of rebel activity.

It is sad as this was the case when we arrived but it got better, now it is insecure again.

On Thursday we had another guest. Jimmy Juma, the MCC regional peace officer for Southern Africa arrived in town on his way to Congo as well. He also will be teaching at GLPI after Gopar so was eventually on his way up there. He stayed the night with us on Thursday and we put him on a bus to Congo as well the next morning.

On Thursday afternoon Rebecca and Janelle attended a dowry ceremony for a sister of Janelle's host family. Rebecca was our family rep since David and I were still sick. It is always great to see her dawn her traditional Burundian Invutano (like a sari as shown above.) Of course the photo was taken just moments before one of the women in attendance took Rebecca discreetly in the bathroom and 'readjusted' it completely seeing that Rebecca did not really have it on right.

The family is apparently very well connected to the Anglican church as many priests were in attendance and the Arch-bishop of the Anglican Church here played role of the 'Uncle' who negotiates the bride price with the husband's family. (A ritualized performance that is often quite amusing but steeped in tradition.)

Friday was fairly low key and David and I were both feeling better. In fact David went to school and I was able to swim and go to work in the morning with Rebecca. I worked as well Friday afternoon writing reports about my Gitega visit.

Saturday was a nice break from work and in the afternoon our family went over to Entente Spotive where Rebecca and I swim. It was an outing that began badly but ended very well. The kids were in horrific moods (especially David). Upon arriving and putting our towels down, a family of 4 children and 2 parents bizarrely moved from their place and set themselves up as an audience about 4 feet in front of us where we were setting out our towels etc. It was very weird to have them all sitting on a step as if we were some kind of a circus act. Things got worse when one of the children stole Oren's peanutbutter sandwich and really set him off. I was ready to leave by then especially since neither child expressed any interest in swimming.

Fortunately our friend Naja was there with her 2 kids and we joined her for a bit and our kids' moods improved somewhat and the spectator family moved on. Then after an hour they were having great fun and enjoyed a long time in the pool. Oren decided to try the 3 meter platform again after not doing it for a year after he first did it. He went off of it about 25 times and made a new friend who knew just enough English to count off for him when he was jumping. 1...2...3...jump!

We finished off the evening by going to Ubuntu for pizza for dinner. Actually before we did that, we dropped Janelle at the wedding that was connected to the dowry ceremony I mentioned earlier.

Sunday was a bit of a work day again after church because Gopar and Jimi both came into town again and rendez-vous'd at our house as one was replacing the other at GLPI. They talked for several hours on our porch before Jimi headed upcountry with Oscar from MiPAREC. Janet hitched a ride up as well as she will be doing one unit of the training this week as well.

Gopar has remained with us as he will be heading to Ethiopia with us on Wednesday for our regional meetings. (more on that later.)

Rebecca also has put in her own 2 cents about the experience of the week as well. Here is her report:

I have realized more clearly over the last three years whata privilege health is. In the majority world – previously known as the thirdworld – mothers do not live with the assumption that their children will behealthy and grow to adulthood. There is no sense that good health is anentitlement – instead it’s a rare blessing. Partially this is due to the moreserious diseases which are endemic in the majority. But mainly this is due tothe poor quality of health care available to the majority of the world. It’sunjust and terrible to know that many children die of diseases which could beeasily treated, if only their parents had the money to pay for good treatment.But the parents don’t have the money and the children die. I hate this reality,and ending this type of disparity is part of why we want to be here in Burundi.

But let me be very honest: in the past week, I have hadmoments of longing to be back in the USA. As David went through several nightsof running fevers at 104 degrees and above, I longed to be in a place where Icould say, well “it’s either a flu or a throat infection.” I was wishing for the privilege ofliving somewhere where malaria, typhoid and meningitis were not also on my listof things to worry about. And then wondering if David’s sickness was one ofthese last, where we would be able to get adequate treatment. Or if it was aninfection, would we be able to get an antibiotic that could treat iteffectively? Would we be sold a fake, or an expired drug? If we did a test fora disease, would it be accurate?

David has now been well since Friday and I am so thankful.Probably it was just another severe throat infection, something he could havegotten in Poughkeepsie NY, too. It’s been great to see him eating in the lasttwo days (making up for almost a week of not eating). He’s been able to run andplay and throw normal tantrums, instead of just lying on the couch in a stupor.But I know that even in this situation, we were able to access certainprivileges to help him get well. We bought a reliable malaria test kit inKigali for $4 (negative again) and used antibiotics imported by ourpediatrician, which are not available on the market here. The average Burundianchild could not afford to see our pediatrician, whose $20 consultation fees arevery expensive for here, compared to the 50 cents to go to a government clinicand see a nurse of questionable expertise.

There’s something here that needs to be said. Our ideals,the faith which has led us to live in a country like Burundi are all very fineuntil we start to see one of our children suffer because of this. We aren’tabout to run home because of a week of bad back-to-school flu. But it IS hard.I have felt very strained, knowing that David could have a serious illnessbecause of our choice to live here. Strained just dealing with the illnessitself. And also strained by the knowledge that I don’t have the faith orcourage in me to live in true solidarity with my neighbors. If my child is ill,I am prepared, like any parent, to use every means in my power to help him get well, and yet I have so many more options available to me than even fairly middle-class people here, and Ican’t offer those means to everyone else around me. I hate the contradictionswithin myself that manifest themselves under pressure.

Paul again:

I am hoping the trip to Ethiopia this week will be an opportunity to enjoy some great Ethiopian food. I have to admit, our schedule since returning has been more 50% travel which means we have not been able to keep our very thoughtful routine in force. Sadly there is no end in sight after we get back as the weeks between now and Christmas all have some travel for one or the other one of us every week.

BONUS PHOTO

Artwork by Oren. It is Martha the talking dog, his hero,
who he saw for the first time this summer on
PBS kids in Baltimore.

Kigali, Gitega, and a Hard Weekend

2011-10-04T05:21:00.003+02:00

Yolanda looking out her kitchen window in Gitega. She made the tree out of bottlecaps bent around string.

I mentioned several weeks ago the phenomenon here of the good and the bad here often being a zero sum game. So to offset the nearly perfect weekend the week before, we had a far less than ideal one as all of us were a bit sick and David and I were actually quite sick. All of us suffering with flu like symptoms, throat and ear infections, fever, etc. Although David's has been as high as 103.5 we have not suspected malaria because of all the respiratory problems.

The timing of this is about right for the infections that happen when kids are back in school for a month. Most everyone we know has been suffering with the same malady. So today (Monday) David and I skipped school and work respectively and went to the doctor to get a check-up and a prescription of antibiotics. I have said before that I have been on antibiotics here more in the past 3 years than in my entire life prior to arriving. But infections here are rampant. One of our friends poetically remarked that without winter 'nothing ever dies'. So it seems that it is easy to catch any number of infections, respiratory, intestinal, in the skin, etc.

So the weekend was pretty laid back. With fevers setting in on Friday we did get through morning yoga on Saturday, but decided to lie low in the house in the afternoon. That was good because I had asked our electrician to install a second solar panel on our roof (which we had in the garage). With the lack of electricity we are experiencing and the expectation now that change is not coming soon (the power company is not able to meet the growing demand), we are trying to keep our back-up power system as high-functioning as possible. (We still can't run the fridge on it, though.)

As an aside, it is interesting to see the process of adding a solar panel begins with construction of tools. Since we don't have a ladder to get to the roof of our house we had to buy one. Unlike the US where one could get one at a hardware store, here, you go out to a construction site and buy about 8 lenghts of eucalpytis tree stalks and hire a carpenter to cut and nail them together for you. (price=$6 for lumber, $3 for labor.)

Despite not feeling great Saturday evening, we did have a very nice dinner with Tim and Jeannette (our South African missionary friends.) They invited us to arrive early for some surprise games they had planned. Indeed were quite surprised to find that they had brought back a Wii from South Africa on their homeleave this summer and the four of us played DDR (Dance Dance Revolution)--while the kids watched a movie. (If you don't know what DDR is, it is the video game where you have to do steps on a footpad corresponding to arrows on the screen in rhythm to music. (I confess I have had the chance to play this in the past so I was actually quite good.-- Why I played in the past is a long story but it has to do with an experiment in a Cognitive Science class I helped design at Vassar during my academic days.) In short, we had a blast!

We had dinner as well and it was really good to catch up with them. We have had a small group in the past together and we discussed the possibility of restarting it. One of the big problems last year is that we were the only 2 consistent couples, but with small kids one or both 'mom's' were off managing the children which meant that it left Tim and I and one other guy alone to do the small group. We acknowledged the fact in our discussion that having a small group with kids our age was going to be a serious challenge.

Sunday we did go to church even though David was definitely sick. I took care of him while Rebecca taught Sunday school. I did peek in a bit: she was teaching on the Lord's supper and had prepared a 'love feast'' for the kids with some pastry that looked like a donut hole and juice. It seemed to go quite well considering how many kids are in the class.

I also tried to hear most of the sermon, preached by a Congolese woman pastor about the role of a pastor and the expectations the community should have about pastoral care. I was struck by just how different cultural expectations are about pastors. For instance I struggled with her call for pastors to receive a 'double portion' of the blessing. And her call for members to bless the pastor with food and gifts otherwise "how can you expect him to pray for you if he is thinking, 'what has this person ever done for me?'"

All in all the sermon seemed well received by the Africans and the ex-pat westerners seemed non-plussed.

The rest of Sunday was again spent laying around at home while David nursed a high fever. We watched a lot of videos which gave me a pretty big headache.

Going back through the week though, I am happy to say that prior to Friday, we were all in good health and did not miss any work or school. It was, as I had mentioned, another travel week with Rebecca going to Rwanda from Tuesday to Thursday and me going to Gitega on Friday.

I will let her tell you about the trip to Rwanda:

Continuing on the theme of practicing solidarity with our volunteers, I traveled to Kigali by bus -- I'm ashamed to say it was the first time! It was actually a very pleasant way to travel, and the drivers of those coach buses are much better disciplined than the drivers of small taxis to Gitega. The border was a breeze and we stopped part way through Rwanda for a refreshment break at a place named "You cannot pass this place without stopping." I had a really yummy beef kebab on a reed for about forty cents. It was a quiet trip and I enjoyed listening to an audiobook called When Helping Hurts.

On arriving in Kigali, I found our volunteer Krystan on the street. We had some errands to run in town, and then eventually met up with all the Rwanda team for dinner at an Indian restaurant. It was great to catch up with our two Rwanda SALTers and hear how their host families, language study and cultural discovery are going. Fortunately, there doesn't seem to be any major difficulties to report right now. It was also great to see how much Ruth and Krystan's daughter Misha has grown, and how she can express herself in sign language now.

I was staying on the Friends Church Compound in a room of the house of the missionary teachers there for a very reasonable sum. So it was easy to share breakfast with Ruth and Krystan, and then walk the 15 minutes up to Friends Peace House for a meeting. As usual, it took all morning, but it's good to check in with them. I also had the opportunity to stop by and see the Rwanda Children's Peace Library at the Friends' Church. SALTer Annie was there supervising a dozen kids as they were practicing their after school reading. The library looks great, with six new large shelves, semi-empty to receive the long-awaited shipment of books which left the USA in February. Unfortunately, there have been many major formalities to work through in re-exporting Rwanda portion of the books from Burundi, where the container arrived. It's not simple, but it looks as though we've jumped through almost all the hoops now. We sincerely hope the books will arrive in Rwanda for distribution in October. There was one more evening meeting before supper again with all the volunteers at Ruth and Krystan's house.

My final errand in Kigali involved picking up an anti-rabies vaccine from a Belgian doctor. In brief, one of our volunteers was bitten by a dog in August and has had to get a series of rabies vaccines. She was able to get good quality vaccine and bring it here to Burundi. We asked the best local private hospital to store it in their generator backed-up fridge, and administer the vaccine on the normal schedule. It all went well, until the volunteer went to get the last dose. She found out that the generator had been broken for two weeks! And during this time, our city has had power cuts that lasted up to two days. So her vaccine was no longer reliable. We felt that if the best private hospital couldn't keep their vaccine cold, we didn't know whom we could trust to have a reliable vaccine available anywhere in Burundi. So I brought back the replacement dose, wrapped up with cold packs and 3 frozen mozzerella cheese balls (something special from Kigali). Hopefully, this is the end of the saga! I arrived back in time to go with Paul and the kids to the horse place in Bujumbura for a little play time on Thursday evening. And back to Paul...

The trip to Gitega was interesting despite the fact that its purpose was not an activity I relish. We were celebrating the 15th anniversary of one of our partners MiPAREC. This peace and development organization was actually founded with the help of MCC during the crisis (civil war). It has had a significant impact in reducing tension and resolving conflicts in the countryside through local peace committees.

An anniversary celebration in this French-African culture requires certain things, a lavish banquet, music and dancing, (burundian drummers) a string of government officials and NGO partners to make speeches. And a long list of acknowledgement and presentation of certificates of appreciaton for just about everyone who has been involved and is on the invited list.

I actually went up with Janelle (our SALTER) and Yolanda (she was getting a ride back to Gitega). So they participated in the ceremony as well. I was one of the people invited to give a speech and I had it prepared and proofread by Felix ready for presentation. I even wore a suit, and it is the first time, I think, that I have worn a tie in Burundi.

I think the speech went well, I was sandwiched between the Governer of Gitega Province and the 2nd Vice President of the Country. (Neither of them showed but they sent their emissaries to speak in their stead.) I did manage, in listening to other speeches catch all the important names that must be mentioned before beginning my speech...

Excellence M. Le Vice President
Excellence M. L'Ambassadore de la commission de Verité et Reconcilliation
Honorable Deputé
Honorable Conseilleur de Gouvernor de Gitega
M. Le Represantant Legale de L'Eglise Evangelique des Amis
M. Le Directeur de MiPAREC
M. Le President de l'assemblé generale,
Invitees Distingués
Mesdames, Messieurs...

I tried to talk a little about the history of MCC and MiPAREC even though I was not present for most of it, and did get one good line in about MiPAREC springing into bloom at the time of the crisis, like a flower in a battefield.

Anyway, it was well received and afterward we all went and shared a very large meal together which included several layer cakes. Afterwards we said our goodbyes in time to be able to get back to Bujumbura before dark.

We stopped at Yolanda's house briefly. which was the first time Janelle had had a chance to see where Yolanda lived. We spent about a half hour there then headed back down to Buja. The fever started hitting about midway home, and you know the rest.

Working Toward a Perfect Weekend

2011-09-27T17:03:00.001+02:00

David and Oren climbing on a 'dinosaur fossil' at Cercle Hippique.

I am admittedly late to report on the past week, which is surprising considering the leisurely pace of the weekend and the number of interesting events, but I think I was just enjoying the bliss of a perfect Sunday evening too much to want to step out of the immediacy of the experience to the greater challenge of making it all into a coherent whole in prose.

I do not enjoy the actual act of writing, but I do enjoy 'having written' and I like having this kind of intentional reflection as a kind of regular weekly discipline, especially when it all seems to come together in a way that surprises me.

The weekend as I mentioned stands out among the best I have had in Burundi. So why not start with dessert today. We had a fairly busy and ambitious week with both Rebecca and I taking turns at separate difficult responsibilites on our work days. So the weekend was a very welcome opportunity to regroup. Instead of 'relaxing' though, we had made plans the week prior to host one of our 'contradance' parties at our house. This is a fairly ambitious project as it involves cleaning and tidying the entire house for guests, preparing some food (even though it is a potluck) and clearing all of the furniture out of living room and putting it on the porch so that our living room becomes a makeshift dance hall. We invited all of the usual suspects as well as some new friends (the McKenzie's) among others and expected about 40 people counting children.

On Saturday morning after yoga which we did at a friends' house, we went home to face the daunting task of preparing. Yolanda was down from Gitega and Janelle our SALTer was there too so we did have some help. We were ready at about the moment the first guests arrived. We did have a very nice group including Astrid and Travis' famiiy, Thomas and Naja's family, the McKenzie's, Bela and Nina's family, as well as many other individuals. It was a really fun evening with great food and great dancing! That was a pleasant surprise as we are seeing the results of past experience paying off. After starting off with "Cotton Eye Joe" (an icebreaker) we did a progressing circle and then square dance that became increasingly complex. We ended of course with the Virginia Reel. People seemed even more into the dancing than they have been in the past.

Rebecca and I got to bed about 10 an hour after we had cleaned up the last spills and put back all the furniture. We felt really satisfied and grateful for having such a an enjoyable community to be part of.

Sunday started similarly in that a great effort was required on our (my) part. I had been invited to preach at our church BICC. ( I mentioned this last week.) I was honored to be asked but was intimidated by the topic that was assigned: Christian Giving. I had mentioned last week that this seemed particularly challenging to engage cross-culturally as we have very different assumptions and expectations about giving in our respective cultures. But since we are together in an international church setting it seemed like a worthy challenge. I used the story of the widow's mite as a take off point to about why, how much, and how we should give as a community of a newly formed church.

The feedback I got was that the message was well received but very challenging to hear. I did challenge the church to own its financial responsibilities and not look to foreign donors or missions to support the maintenance and salary needs of the church. Since that is the case at the moment it will mean the congregation would need to take on the burden with a more systematic collection of offerings based on pledges. ( not done now.)

I particularly challenged ex-patriates to consider their role in the church, especially those, like me who are here for several or more years. "Where are you giving now?" I asked. "Are you like me, caught between your home and this place but not pledged to support either one?" In 'tithing limbo' as it were. Many as it turns out are just in that place.

But I also challenged Burundians to see themselves not as poor, but as capable, together of supporting a church independently of foreign money.

The testimony that most impressed them though was when I told how I had been invited to preach at the church of one of our workers at our house. He lives in a very poor quartier (Kanyosha) and I don't think any of the members of that church would have made a tenth of my salary. I did accept the offer to preach there and the message was well received. But after the service the pastor took up a love offering for me! A rich mzungu! And they gave me the money collected. (This was after the regular offering.) I told our church that I accepted it with humility and in awe of the act. Instead of seeing themselves as impoverished I felt they saw themselves as having even more than they need. I am so used to being asked by everyone for money that it completely floored me to see those with so little ask me for nothing, but give me something instead. I concluded by remarking that that church was financially independent as well.

After church it was great to feel that we could really enjoy an afternoon as a family and after a leisurely lunch we went to Club du Lac Tanganyika and swam in the lake for several hours together. Oren and David both love to play in the waves and to try to stand on my shoulders. The weather and water were perfect. We ended the afternoon with dinner by the Lake watching the sun set over the mountains of Congo. It was a perfect evening and that night Rebecca and I agreed that it was one of the best weekends we have had here.

Backing up to the work week that preceded this I will say that it started out normally enough. We did take both kids to school as usual at 7:30 am but were a bit non-plussed to find David's teacher was out sick and was not expected back for more than a week. All the children were left with a single teacher's aid. We felt that this was too much responsibility for one person and raised the issue with La Directrice. She explained that it was hard to get a quick substitute here and did not feel that much could be done immediately.

We did leave David there with some consternation, but feeling that we would have to trust that the responsible teacher's aid would be able to manage this situation temporarily.

Work on Monday for me involved prep-work for a 2 day conference on Planning and Monitoring by one of our back donors (CFGB). I was going with one of our partners who receives a grant from them to better understand the process. We had a pre-meeting with the facilitator Akililu (a Kenyan from Canada) at the office of our partner Help Channel Burundi that took most of the day.

I came home beat but prepared for 2 more long days of meetings.

Lunchbreak at the conference.

On Tuesday and Wednesday it was as I expected. The conference involved CFGB partners from all over Central Africa so we had people coming from DRC, Zambia, Uganda, and Rwanda to join us. (About 25 in all). I really enjoyed starting each day with a morning devotional, singing, and a prayer. It was striking to see all of these highly trained development and agricultural specialists ready to engage in technical conversations beginning with worship. A reminder that the motivation to do this work here usually goes beyond professionalism. There needs to be a heart and passion to be willing to work in this context and bring ones professional skills to bear here. It was inspiring to me see this level of profesionalism following a vision guided by faith.

The 2 days of meetings though were fairly dry but certainly had value for those of us working with CFGB in terms of understanding their reporting guidelines. (In case anyone is surprised, I can assure you the life of a modern missionary can be far more about results based management and logframe analysis rather than smuggling Bibles through the jungle.) That is because for many of us, our witness to the Gospel is expressed in our efforts to accompany those in the majority world to overcome injustice, scarcity and other issues that keep them imprisoned in physical and spiritual poverty.

I was glad to have a break after 3 full days of such meetings and on Thursday Rebecca and I reversed roles. We had partnership meetings and other issues to deal with in Gitega so she agreed to do that trip while I stayed in Bujumbura with the kids and took them school and stayed home with them in the afternoons.

Here is her report of her time in Gitega:

During the first part of the week, Paul was really involved in hosting a visitor from CFGB and attending the M&E Workshop. So, I and the kids made independent plans for the beginning of the week. One afternoon, Oren and David got to go play with their friends Emily and Becca. It was very impressive to see how their mom had gotten a local carpenter to construct a playground set in their garden, with all local materials. It had a platform (castle, boat, etc…) with two swings on each side. More items will be added. While we were there, their gardener was constructing a chicken house underneath said play house. The chickens were a gift from the carpenter himself, presumably as thanks for receiving so much employment-- and encouragement for more jobs!

Another afternoon, I took new Bujumbura resident Danika out to explore more obscure shopping places which Oren was in afternoon school. We buy rice in bulk in the Quartier Asiatique, usually fairly good stuff rom Tanzania that is quite cheap. But this time the cheapest rice was from…the USA! The shopkeeper told me that it was food aid that was now being sold in the market. I've heard that often our government dumps low quality grain in countries like Burundi, ostensibly to benefit the people, but it actually allows the local government to sell this grain to get money. The major downside of this policy is that our low quality (subsidized) grain undercuts the prices that poor local farmers could get for their own grain. So, these are the things we see as we go shopping around here. I also took her to the Italian butchery (location of good dog food meat) and pointed out the best private hospital.

On Wednesday, the boys and I went to visit my German friend Tanja in the afternoon. Her son is in Oren's class and they enjoyed climbing a big mango tree together. Unfortunately, Nils is a better tree climber than Oren, and was able to swing down and jump from a semi-high location. Oren didn't feel comfortable following him -- I guess I'm glad he knows his limits. We ended up bringing a ladder to get Oren down. Later all four boys went to play in the mud behind the house -- the joys of rainy season! Tanja let me give David a bath before we went home.

On Thursday morning, I was the one taking a work trip up to the town of Gitega, about two hours away. I decided to take a taxi up there -- that is, a station wagon carrying at least 4 or maybe 5 passengers (4 in the back seat) and lots of cargo in the trunk. It's the way that our service workers get around, and it's a lot cheaper than driving up myself, and I wanted to leave the car with Paul. But it is nerve-wracking to be at the mercy of a driver one doesn't know. I prayed a lot in preparation for this trip, and did my best (with the help of a local guy) to find a chauffeur who would agree to drive slowly. It wasn't too bad, honestly. And once in Gitega, I was very glad to be a pedestrian.

Gitega has a really nice, small town feel. I can walk from the two farthest points of meeting partners within 20 minutes. It has a cooler climate than Bujumbura with lots of big old trees. My first assignment was to help our service worker Yolanda discern what to do about her housing situation for the next two years. She felt that she wanted to have more opportunity to meet people and go visiting in the evenings with Burundian friends. But her current house was too out of the way, and she ended up spending lots of nights alone, feeling quite isolate. So she had just found a small apartment that was available. It was not as nice as her current place in my opinion, but she was excited about living more simply on the level of her colleagues and having more of a local social life. She really is trying to practice the MCC value of solidarity. In the decision-making process, we consulted a number of people including Yolanda's colleagues. They are truly a wonderful, motivated group of Burundians, working hard to make a difference in their country. Yolanda really appreciates working with them and joking around with them, and I enjoyed the opportunity to be in their orbit.

In the morning, I met again with Yolanda's supervisor to do a mid-term evaluation of Yolanda. It's great to evaluate someone who is doing well in their position, who is appreciated and making a good contribution, and who is requesting to stay and serve even longer. I had another meeting with another partner, who is trying to catch up on an AIDS education project that got delayed by the printer (Paul will tell that story). It was good to talk with them also, and see how their organization MI-PAREC is growing in maturity. They will celebrate their 15 year anniversary this coming week, and MCC was very involved in the inception of that peace and reconciliation organization during the Burundi civil war.

Later that afternoon, Yolanda and I helped write the contract for her new apartment. Then we found a taxi to take us back to Bujumbura. This time, the two of us were sandwiched in the back seat between two men. We were really rolling local style. One of the men was a doctor with Doctors without Borders. He was very engaging and funny, and seemed to be someone who could help connect Yolanda to other expat medical people at their project in GItega. He is an extension officer for a new project in Gitega which provides care and treatment for women with fistulas. They are really reaching out to the most marginalized and disadvantaged women and giving them a new lease on life.

I think the visit for me was a bit of an opportunity to practice solidarity myself, at least solidarity with one of our volunteers. I enjoyed feeling more a part of things, speaking more of my limited Kirundi than usual, and not rolling in a big 4x4. There is a balance between security and immersion, but I think on this occasion, it was the right choice to travel low-budget. It's good to get out of the office and a bit away from the administrative work and closer to the work on the ground from time to time.

Paul again:

photo by Oren

During Rebecca's absence the boys were extremely well behaved. (They knew Daddy was going to struggle alone) and were very willing to observe their normal routines. The highlight was Thursday afternoon when we went to Cercle Hippique, the colonial era stables and riding fields where they still have horses and European riding lessons. David and Oren joined their friends Jonah and Milo (Bela and Nina's kids). Nina was also out of town upcountry (she works for a German development agency, so Bela and I had a man play-date with our sons. After riding at Cercle Hippique we went out for soft-serve icecream at the one place in Burundi where it is avaiable. And it was actually open and the electricity was on so there was icecream available!!!!

So that is pretty much the week from both of our perspectives. This week is not much different in terms of division of labor. She will be in Rwanda for several days then I will go to Gitega at the end of the week for my speech. Oops, I am going to be late to get Oren from afternoon school. Until next week...

New Arrivals

2011-09-19T21:38:00.001+02:00

Oren lighting the candles on the cake he decorated for Janelle's Birthday.

I really have to keep this weeks post short (if not sweet). I have a ton of writing assignments to do this week including a sermon on giving (stewardship) this Sunday to my church here which has just officially become a church. I am more than just a bit intimidated about tackling this topic cross-culturally. Especially coming from a culture where tithing is, for the most part, an ideal and certainly never perceived to be a commandment for Christians, and preaching to a culture where many are indoctrinated to believe it is a salvation issue. Not to mention the fact that I am a rich mzungu bringing this message to a congregation whose median income would be at least 3 times less than me.

I also have to give a speech next Friday. Yes, a speech. It is a 15th Anniversary celebration of one of our partners and many local govt. officials and other VIPs are invited. Giving speeches in the context of a former French colony is at least as, if not more, intimidating than giving a sermon. First there is the consideration of language. Then there is a precise protocol and decorum for addressing the honored guests (in the right order of importance) and leaving out no one who might be offended. There also needs to be content, something about the history of the long partnership between MCC and the organization (to which I am privvy to 3 years out of 15.) The conclusion also has to observe a precise protocol, and finally, I need to provide a written copy to several of VIPs involved when I conclude. So talking 'off-the-cuff' is not really de rigeur in these situations.

skyping Grammy and Grandpa

OK that's 2 paragraphs and I have not even touched the events of the week. What I will say in summary, though about the week was that once again I felt vindicated by our new routine, especially keeping the kids' schedules as regular as possible. They now fall asleep quite easily on their own at 8pm, although we do try be sure to have a bedtime routine of baths, stories and prayers prior to that. They both have continued to have a positive attitude about school and I don't think we had any morning complaints at the gate about not wanting to go. (Actually it is amazing to see how much that school has grown in the 3 yeares we have been here. I think the primary school has increased from about 200 to 500 students. I guess people are coming here.)

Some of the highlights for the week include:

1) We finished our data entry on schedule for the mid-term reporting due date. Not a very glamourous sounding accomplishment, but we did it without any late nights or working after hours! That is a huge improvement from last year. (If there are any MCC reps reading this, we are not bragging, just pleased with our good time management :-)

2) We had an interesting evening Tuesday. It was our SALTer Janelle's birthday and we also had some new arrivals who came into town join us for dinner that evening as well. The new arrivals were Scott and Danika McKenzie with their 2 kids John and Jonah (see picture above). They are here working with Food for the Hungry. He is a pastor and will be working on church connections (and pastoral training), she is a physician and will be working at a clinic in town doing some training. What is especially interesting about meeting them is that they are one of the families that have contacted us because of this blog months before coming. So we had done some help in their preparation with as much advice we could offer as parents of young children here.

They are Canadians from Abbotsford BC near Vancouver and he even went to Regent Seminary for his M.Div (where Rebecca went as well.) They know many of the same people. So it was really nice to welcome them and to feel like we have some new friends who will probably be here for several years. (It is not clear whether they will be in Bujumbura the whole time or spend some of the time up country.)

Kids playing at Ubuntu restaurant.

We also have made efforts to connect them to others doing similar work. On Sunday evening, for instance, we out to Ubuntu restaurant with them, Tim and Jeanette (our South African friends) and Emmanuel Ndikumana's family (founder of our church.) Tim and Emmanuel have had extensive experience in pastoral training and were able to give him some good advice on what to expect and how one might start in such an assignment.

3) We have been getting back into social networks including the men's prayer group and Rebecca's Wednesday Bible study. We have not restarted our small group again yet but we are hoping to recruit some new candidates.

We had people over, in fact, most evenings this week. And up until Friday we ate by candlelight as the power unfailingly went off right about dusk. Happily, we finally replaced our inverter battery and are now enjoying light at least in the evenings when the power goes off. (Our refridgerator and freezer are still merely functioning as storage closets but we are hoping that a more regular regimen of electricity will be coming soon.)

I still feel like we function here in a roughly zero sum game of good and bad news. For instance, we finally have our staff Marcelline and Gaspard back today after several weeks of illness, but now our car is out of commission along with one of our toilets. We are getting them repaired but I almost fear what will go next when they are back on line. We also had a small scare as David had a high fever on Saturday night. We did do a home malaria test just to sure he did not have it (which was negative) and he was better by Sunday morning. Having this as a routine part of our parental care of our children is interesting and a bit traumatic as it involves drawing some blood (a few drops) to do the test.

If you heard about the news about the killings in the town of Gatumba. (Which was an international news story) I just want to assure those who keep up with us that we were not affected by the incident although it is disheartening to see these continued exchanges of killings between partisans of the ruling party and partisans of the FNL rebels. I don't believe it will escalate into a civil war, but I do not see any end in sight as far as the low level of violence that continues to plague the country since the elections.

Finding the New Rhythm of Life

2011-09-13T11:02:00.000+02:00

Oren and David showing off their bags on the first day of school. Oren has a Buzz Lightyear jet-pack! Thanks Kate Hicks.

I have to say, this was a great week!

What made it great was the fact that we were really able to test out whether the new rhythms we have established with regard to routine will truly bring about the results we had hoped for:
1) more productive time together
2) more quality time with children
3) more quality time as a couple
4) a regular regimen of exercise
Definitely sounds like an ideal no? And perhaps I am not quite ready to write a book on good time management, but I do think that our routine this week really did accomplish all of the above even with a fairly regular flow of guests and illness that kept 2 of our 3 staff home all week. (the cook and the nightguard)

I feel like some of the changes were small but have made a fairly big difference. The first is the fact that David is old enough to begin premiere maternelle which means he can go to the same school as Oren. (The Ecole Belge). He is on the young end of the class at 2, but will have a Birthday in October.

Oren is in Premier Primaire (first grade). This will be his 4th year at the Ecole Belge (seems hard to believe.) School begins for the kids at 7:30 am which is better for Rebecca and I than last year when it began at 8 and we had to do two drop-offs at different schools and then 2 pick-ups at noon. This left little time to work together.

The extra 30 minutes allows us time for a morning swim, prayer and we arrive at the office at 9 to work together for 3 hours. In the afternoons we alternate days between parenting and working. The simplified morning routine was a great success this week.

One of the not unimportant reasons for success was the ability of the children to habituate themselves to the school routine again. I was especially worried about Oren going into the first grade. It is somewhat intimidating because it is at this level that children learn to read and write french. Oren still struggles with speaking and verbal comprehension. He brought home about 6 workbooks of math, language, spelling, and even writing cursive. (kids write cursive right from the beginning in Europe apparently.) But Oren did not seem intimidated. Indeed he knows most everyone in his class from the previous 3 years and has been going with little or no complaining.

David was a bit less enthusiastic as he misses his old school with the virtual menagerie of birds, rabbits, fish, turtles, etc. He cried the first several days off and on according to his teacher. But he seems to be getting used to it.

The other end of the day, the evening routine, has also been adjusted. We have committed to feeding the kids at 6pm bathing them by 7 and having them asleep by 8. It is not too hard because it is dark here by 6 and they are usually quite worn out by 8.

This gives the evening for Rebecca and I to chat. We have created a small space with 2 chairs and table in our bedroom for conversation and reading. Computers are not allowed in this area! We usually go to bed by 11 at the latest.

This is more or less the weekly routine we want to maintain, and felt very sustainable this first week. True, one of us will have to travel still about 8 days per month, but when we are home this really works.

To say the week was good is a true endorsement of the routine because there were many things that made it difficult. As this is the end of dry season we have had unusually long water shortages which makes bathing, flushing, laundry and dishes very difficult.

To add to the problem, Burundi's power is hydroelectric so have had bad electricity shortages, sometimes off 3 days at a time and rarely on for more than about 8 hours per day on a good day. (I know people in the East Coast US can sympathize after Irene.) This will probably last for several more months for us at least. We do have a back up solar powered battery, but it is not strong enough to endure the periosds of outages we have. We have spent a lot of nights in the dark.

The lack of staff is no small matter either. We have had several guests this week and had all 3 guestrooms filled for about half the week with Janelle our SALTer still waiting placement in her host family and Jodi coming down for a visit as well as Yolanda. It is nice to have company, but without a cook and the absence of any quick microwavable meals here, or someone to even clean up, work is very hard. Marcelline has typhoid now and it is just another reminder of the toll illness takes on productivity around here. (Recently a cholera outbreak has been added to the list of maladies that people are suffering with.)

Other highlights of the week fell most heavily on the weekend, although I did go, one evening, to a parent teacher conference to meet the kids' teachers and the new faculty and administration at the school. (I also put in a plug for my ballet classes which will begin in October.) Both the children's teachers seem great. Mlle. Mayviolaine is Oren's teacher, and I found that there were other anglophones in his class from her. She said this was an excellent level to be learning french.
Mme, Marie is David's teacher and she seems great as well. (Less coloring technique and more work on vocabulary is her focus.)

We also had several meetings at our church here which has recently taken steps to consolidate its status. We selected a new pastor and with Rebecca on the Commitee des Anciens and me on the Commitee de Communite (It is like she is in the Senate and I am in the House of Representatives), we had several meetings each to confirm this decision.

As an aside, I will say that I am getting better but am not perfect at accurately translating the African meaning of time into Western equivalents. In this case, I was told to be at a Saturday morning meeting at 8:30 am. Since it was on a Saturday I knew it would start at least an hour late so I did not even show up until 9:30. But I had misjudged as the chairman actually arrived and began the meeting at 10:30 am! The one other mzungu (who actually did show up at 8:30 had to leave before it began.) But it was good to see the church choose a good pastor to continue to lead it, and it feels good to be part of a local church community here. Our church is now officially called the Burundi International Christian Church. (BICC)

Saturday afternoon we spent at the beach with the kids (Club du Lac T). We went with Yolanda, Jodi, and Janelle. Oren and David had a great time in the waves of Lake Tanganyika. In the late afternoon as we got some dinner (fish briochettes) under an awning we watched a spectacular thunderstorm, a sign that the dry season is coming to an end.

We got home about 6pm and Rebecca went out as our representative at the wedding of Zachee's sister Ina. We have finally decided it is not worth it to drag the kids to all of these events.

Sunday, Rebecca began teaching Sunday school again and even got a bigger room (as the number of english and french speaking kids is exceeding 30 now.) Still no chairs of tables though.

Sunday afternoon I went to a town hall meeting at the US Ambassador's residence. Most of the embassy staff has turned over in the last 3 months so it was a chance to see the new faces. We do rely on the embassy for security information so it is good to be in touch with them. I wish I could say that things continue to improve here and in some ways they are. But there is a lot of criminal activity as demobilized rebels turn to banditry. There is also the problem of active rebel groups like the FNL who have left the political process and gone back to the bush.

Last week, for example, while I was at home with the kids, I had heard a firefight that went on for 15 mintutes with several spates of machine gun fire. I found out later that the head of the FNL leader's body guards was chased in a jeep and gunned down by the police not far from our house. This probably sounds really bad from the outside, but as the embassy security officer assured us, expats. are not the targets of these attacks and what is important is not to "be in the wrong place at the wrong time." As we have lived here for 3 years I think we have a better feeling for what that means. Still, we do ask for prayers of protection on our family as I know that there is little in life we are truly in control of, both here and even in the US.

Sunday evening we invited our friends the Withrows: (Astrid and Travis with kids Nani, Zoey, Davine, Yaya, Jazzy as well as Stella and Astrid's mother who was visiting). They are an awesome family who are establishing a children's village in the interior. They have been in the region for 7 years and several of their daughters are adopted. These are people who truly give testimony to what it means to be 'called by God'. They are not people who are here with their return ticket in their back pocket. I imagine extricating themselves from this place where they are committed to work would be exceeding difficult with the family ties they have here.

They are always positive though, in the face of often crushing obstacles and continually bring us testimony of how God is working to transform the lives of the children they minister to on the ground, despite the challenges they face at other levels. (for more info. about them check out their website: http://sozoministriesafrica.org/

I am always encouraged by others who have made a long term committment to be here, and often people like us do not find a lot of time to get together (everyone is so busy in their ministry) but when we do it is always a special time.

We shared mexican food with tortillas made by our substitute cook Enoch. We finished at 9pm and the kids were asleep on the couch before everyone even got out the door. Just as well since there was no water to bathe them. We all went to bed early to begin another week.

Orienting and Reorienting to Burundi and Rwanda

2011-09-05T11:14:00.000+02:00

SALTers Bethany, Annie and Janelle being oriented by Yolanda (on Oren's bed.)

I am trying my best to get back to the discipline of a weekly blog. I am realizing that this is necessitated by the fact that I am having trouble with any recall beyond about 5 days. I did not succeed this week, but that is partly because of how busy we have been since we arrived back home.

This is definitely a good place in the week to recap a bit. It is about 10pm on Saturday and the kids are in bed. We just had dinner with Onesphore and his wife Innocente. He runs our partnership Moisson pour Christ which is the place where our SALTer Janelle will be working this year. It was a nice evening and our children are about the same age.

Rebecca and I have somewhat different stories for the past 2 weeks since we had to divide up the work most of last week, and I ended up going to Rwanda with our new volunteers while she stayed in Buja with the kids. We will tell our stories separately, here is her account: `

We have hit the ground running with our three new SALT volunteers. They are all sensible, well-travelled young women, and I think they will do well in their assignments. We've been trying to give them the important information they need to get started practically, culturally, emotionally.

Although our most important task was orienting the SALTers, we did not have the luxury on concentrating solely on that. As soon as we arrived back, our phones started ringing non-stop. Lots of people were calling to welcome us back, others were putting in their requests, reminding us of their existence, hoping for some kind of windfall, etc.

Also, entropy is a powerful force in Burundi – you can’t leave the country and expect your house to be the same as you left it, no matter how good the house-sitter was. We've had to repair our kitchen sink plumbing, toilet, back up power system, and other small electrical things. Our internet is totally not working in the house during the day, so we had to go into town to check email during our first week. It's just par for the course, I guess. But it's been hard that the basic systems were not running well when we're trying to do lots of work.

Paul had to squeeze in at least one very essential meeting. We were trying to get caught up with our program assistant Felix on all the important news. So it was very hectic. The kids were not getting nearly enough attention -- although they were really excited to be back with their familiar toys and trampoline. Oh, and I forgot to mention jet lag…not very good for helping the little grey cells get moving and working in the morning.

We were scheduled to take the SALT volunteers to Rwanda last Sunday as a family. But on Saturday morning, Paul suggested to me that he go to Rwanda without me and the kids. Since Felix was available to join him instead for backup, that sounded like a better and better plan. It turned out very well that we planned that way because everything went really haywire with our planning in general. One of the SALTers didn't get visa permission to enter Rwanda in time, so Paul had to leave without her (planning to send her on the bus tomorrow). But then about an hour into the drive, Paul realized that there was a problem with his passport and they had to come back. The consolation prize for this sad development was that all the SALTers got to meet our other Burundi volunteer Yolanda on Sunday night.

(Paul’s interjection—Actually Rebecca is being diplomatic here. The ‘problem’ with the passport was that I had driven about an hour upcountry when I realized I had grabbed Rebecca’s passport rather than my own.)

The Canadian SALTer still did not have visa permission the next day, so Paul and the other two SALTers and Felix left Monday instead without her. I helped her start the visa application process again at the embassy here. I know it was a disappointment for her, but she and Yolanda were able to go out and tour Bujumbura on foot for a day, a nice additional orientation activity. The volunteer was finally able to get her visa on Wednesday morning and got straight on a bus to Kigali within the same hour. It was a bit of a nail-biter, but I was really thankful that this young woman felt secure and confident about taking a bus in a country she’d never been to before.

By Wednesday afternoon, I was finally able to work on our other major task: establishing a better routine for our kids and getting them ready for school. Because our house had been so full, and because of jet lag, we were all keeping crazy hours and sleeping (all four of us) in one bed.

The kids started on Thursday morning, Oren in first grade and David in the youngest level of preschool. I am positively impressed by both of their teachers, and both children were willing to go to their classes without tears or drama. I was particularly touched when I ran into Oren’s teacher from last year, Mdme. Christelle. She gave me Oren’s “Graduation Certificate from Kindergarten”, which she had saved for him because we had left the country before the ceremony. I asked if she might consider tutoring Oren as he tries to learn to read in French. She said that she already had this in mind that she wanted to remain involved in helping Oren learn French, since he knows and trusts her.

When I went ot pick up the kids, I found David asleep in the class. His teacher told me that at about 9:30 am, after snack, he started crying and crying. She told him he could lie down, and he did and fell asleep – until I came to pick him up at noon! This is unheard of for David! I think it was his way of getting out of the first day of school. In any case, by Friday, I felt pretty good about the kids being used to their own bed again, getting up on time for school, getting us all there on time, even in a taxi!

Over the past week, I’ve seen some signs that Oren is feeling more at home in Burundi (in contrast to past years). Even as the plane landed, Oren said that he was really kind of excited about being back. Last week on our veranda, he said a very long prayer of thanksgiving that included thanking God for many of the good things about Burundi, (as well as other things like thanking God for outer space). Another night, our neighbor friend Cedric came over to play for a few minutes, and Oren's play-ground french seemed to return easily. They boys are really happy to be back with their dogs, and actually have done a super job of entertaining each other and not competing too much.

Bethany Janelle and Felix with Ruth, Krystan
and baby Misha.

Paul Again:

The trip up to Rwanda was packed with what I would characterize as ‘relational work’ with our partners as well as the host families. We arrived Monday evening with Felix and Bethany (Annie was still in Buja waiting for visa approval.) We met Ruth and Krystan (and baby Misha), checked into our guesthouse and went out to dinner together to plan for the week.

We began full throttle Tuesday with extensive shopping to get the SALTers set up with supplies, phone and internet connectivity, pharmaceuticals (malaria kits) etc. On Tuesday afternoon we took Bethany over to meet her host family. Augustin Simparinka (the husband) is the legal rep. of the Friends Church and lives in a very modest home near our partner Friends Peace House and about a 10 minute walk from Ruth and Krystan. By modest I needed to take a deep breath and appreciate what ‘middle class’ is in Kigali. The house was small and Bethany’s room was the size of a walk-in closet. (It really is great that they even had a spare guest room) It had no furnishings except a twin bed and a small broken refrigerator. She shares the house with Simparinka, his wife, and their 23 year old daughter.

Bethany with host family.

We went as a group to drop Bethany off and I felt like a father leaving his daughter off at College. As the MCC rep. I had the responsibility of making the official speech and presentation of Bethany to the family, almost like a marriage betrothal. It felt a bit awkward but I think Bethany will be well received and cared for while she is there. They are a very kind, generous family.

Wednesday was a bit unusual in that we had two simoultaneous field visits. Felix went on a field visit with Bethany, Janelle and our Friends Peace House partners upcountry to the North to see the work of some women's groups. I, on the other hand went south, back to Burundi to the Hope School for the Batwa in Nyangungu with Dr. Robin Wilde, the director of Hope for Africa foundation--a group that is supporting some building projects at the school. He wanted to go down in preparation for a mission team visit in January. I acted as guide and translator. We met Innocent and Beatrice (our partners) and inspected some of the construction that was underway. We also confirmed some lodging for them at the Seminary (next to where Jodi used to live) then headed back to Kigali after a 2 hour visit. It was exhausting as the trip itself was about 3 hours each way.

(One side benefit of doing this visit was being able to see the many cartons of books that had arrived from the US thanks to the efforts of many to send them here. The next challenge is to build some shelves on which to put them.) Innocent was very, very appreciative for this gift!!!

Innocent with books in storage at Hope School

We all (MCC team) rendez-vous-ed again in the evening at Ruth and K’s house. By this time our third SALTer Annie had arrived. (Her visa finally came through.) We all had dinner together at an excellent Indian restaurant in Kigali called Zaffron.

Thursday was the day we visited the SALTers workplaces and made introductions. Bethany will be working at the training school for street kids called Mwana N’shuti, and Annie will be working as a capacity builder at the Transformational Leadership Center. We then had lunch with Annie’s host family and took her over in the afternoon and installed her in her new home. She also has a very modest room in the home of a couple (Jean-Paul and Jeanine) who do not, as yet, have any children.

Dr. Wilde with Twa elder
visiting the Batwa community.

Friday morning Felix, Janelle and I were definitely ready to leave. We were quite exhausted from all the work of setting up the SALTers as well as from the numerous meetings with partners that I did not mention specifically, but happened, thoughout the week.

We arrived back Friday afternoon and found Yolanda here again for the weekend.

Saturday was good in that we had our regular morning Yoga class and visited some friends in the afternoon. We had dinner with Janelle’s ‘boss’ Onesphore and his family. (He is the director of our partner Moisson pour Christ.)

All the SALTers will begin their terms with 3 weeks of intenstive language study in Kirundi before beginning work at their offices. But the dinner was a nice informal setting for introductions.

Sunday was another day of visiting after church. We had lunch with Janelle’s host family (she will actually move in at the beginning of October). Then we went to one of our ‘school’ friends houses to meet some new American arrivals. One was the head of the UN mission here. It was nice to get to them and for Oren to play with some Anglophone school kids.

Sunday evening brought one more interesting surprise (for regular readers). I went to the airport at 7pm and picked up Jodi Mikalachki! She is back in Burundi, not with MCC this time, to work back up in Burasira near the Hope School.

Epilogue: Coming back at the end of the dry season is a tough time. The water supply and electricity are at a low ebb, so we have less than 12 hours of either per day, and often less. (We do have a water tank and solar power to soften the blow.) Also, as Rebecca mentioned, the ‘entropy’ of life here takes its toll when you are gone for 2 months. We have had a plumber visit, 2 electrician visits, and 2 internet visits to get things back up to speed. I have not even begun the quest to restore our landline phone service yet. To add to this I would describe the political climate here as tense and a bit pessimistic once again. There is increasing violence with back and forth killing between rebels and ruling party militia groups. Innocent neighbors, though, tend to be targets as well. Many, many people are being attacked by bandits in their homes in the popular quarters of town. The dollar is very strong here which means there is inflation and the currency is not stable.

Despite this we are happy to back to our routines and have been overwhelmed but feeling what we are doing is worthwhile. (The only thing we might change is to arrive back from a long break with new volunteers in tow. It was hard to get our household set up again at the same time that we were orienting them to their new places.) Live and learn.

I am posting this morning having just gotten the kids off to school Monday morning. Oren told me he had a dream that he went to school without his pants on. I remember having that dream but I did not know that kind of anxiety started at 6 years of age! I think school is harder on kids these days then when I was young.

Back in Bujumbura, Eyes Wide Open

2011-08-25T06:52:00.000+02:00

The Family wading in the Gunpowder River near Fallston, MD.

I had said I was going to try and write this blog in flight between Baltimore and Bujumbura. I was not sure I would actually have the discipline to do so as this can be fairly distracting with 2 small children, but everyone is asleep on this second leg of the trip and from the window of the A-330 I am flying in, I can look down on a clear sunny morning over the Swiss Alps.

It is an interesting place to begin to write this entry as travel time between the very different worlds that currently comprise my identity is an odd space, physically, mentally, and emotionally. I know as soon as I hit Burundi soil the memory of home-leave will seem to be as distant in time as it is in space. (The converse was true when I arrived in the US). 17 hours may seem like a lot of time on planes, but it is almost too short considering the magnitude of the transition. I often think of early missionaries (like my Grandparents) who would have taken weeks to arrive in China by steamship, and would not have returned home once in 6 to 10 years. Now the world is much smaller and a jump between continents takes about a day. Convenient yes, but extremely surreal, like passing through some kind of time/space worm hole.

--Especially going back to a place like Burundi which could not be more different than the quiet, pristine Baltimore suburb where we spent much of the past 2 months.

One thing that was nice to experience about a week before we left was that subtle change of season that is so familiar to me as an East Coaster. The movement from summer to Indian summer. One day the air was just different and I could tell that the earth’s tilt would not sustain anymore blistering hot days. I associate this time (from my academic life), with preparing syllabi and getting supplies to start the new school year. It does not have the same meaning in Burundi of course as our work does not follow an academic calendar. The change of season also happens later, in October, with the first rains heralding the end of the 3 month dry season. (I think one becomes more sensitive to seasonal change with age, probably a valuable capacity to agrarian societies of yore who respected their elders.)

The last week in Maryland was pleasant and almost reflecting the new seasonal mildness, we found ourselves focusing more on ‘being’ in our last days rather than ‘doing’. We squeezed in a few final visits with life-long friends who we only need to see occasionally to reaffirm relationship. Jeff Kenney, who was best man at my wedding drove down from DC and we met him half way at a restaurant for a happy hour entente. It was good to see him and catch up on his life. It struck me that we managed to see most of the people in our wedding party or involved in our wedding in some important way. (Sorry we missed you Amy, Adam, Richard, Lani, Barb and Sarah).

We also did some outings to enjoy nature, something that is sadly most difficult to do in Burundi, without being a public spectacle. (It is hard to find a place to be out alone in the woods there). We went as a family to a place on the Gunpowder river where Oren very much enjoyed riding on his belly down some shallow rapids with Mom while David and I went wading. It was one of the last things we did before our visit before our first departure to Burundi so this return to it after our ‘half-time’ break seemed appropriate.

I also enjoyed running during my time in the US. Although I have found swimming very renewing in Burundi, I used to love running long distances through the country side of the Hudson River Valley and through parkland in Maryland. I was able to do several runs around Loch Raven, a watershed north of Baltimore. It is about a 13 mile loop the way I run it and I have run it often at significant times in my life. (notably several times the week before and the day of my wedding.) I also ran it several times during my discernment about going to Burundi. I ran it twice in the last week before we left this time. It was always more than exercise, and is a place I have really heard God’s voice in a very direct and prophetic way in the past.

Another outing into nature was a final return to Charter Hall, a retreat center partially owned by Rebecca’s parents along one of the furthest estuaries from the Chesapeake Bay. It is a lovely place that teams with waterfowl, and fauna. We saw bald eagles, beavers, 12 inch bass jumping out of the water, and numerous ducks, geese, osprey, blue heron, kingfishers and the like.

We enjoyed kayaking, canoeing, swimming, even some kite flying. We were thrilled to share this final weekend with both sets of our parents as well as Rebecca’s brothers’ family (cousins too) But also several folks from our small group in Poughkeepsie NY came down to pay us one last visit. (Wendy Hart with her kids Justin, Alecia, and Lance, and Don and Rosaura with their kids Gabriella and Raphael). We played games and did church together Sunday where our small group members prayed for us and vice versa. It was great to hear updates about our church in New York where they had just finished another very fulfilling Mexico youth mission trip. (A tradition Rebecca had started in 2004 and they have continued ever since.) Our church youth developed a strong relationship to a church in Ensenada and have deepened ties with many of the youth there over the years. Hearing about this was very encouraging to Rebecca and I. (There is a passage in the Bible where Jesus says you will harvest where you have not sown and sow where you will not harvest.) I think that is meant to be encouraging and that is how these testimonies seem to us.

We were also able to celebrate Grandma Jean’s Birthday while we were up there which brought several other family friends (Charlene, the Ballards, Stan, and others) as well who were happy to wish us well on our return. The kids enjoyed decorating Grandma Jean’s cake for her. It was an appropriate last hurrah for our final weekend in the US, and we got back to Baltimore late Sunday night.

Monday and Tuesday were dedicated to packing except for our ‘last supper’ on Monday in which we took our parents out for Thai food. (The kids stayed with their cousins and ate pizza.). We wanted to have a chance to thank them for their generosity in giving us a place to stay the past 2 and a half months rent free , and for taking our children out for enriching activities (especially the Grandmothers). They assured us that it was their pleasure to do this but we know what a blessing it is first to even have all of our parents still living, but also to have them having the will and means to be able to host us so completely. This is not something we take for granted as MCCers.

We left for Dulles after lunch on Tuesday, my mom and Rebecca’s parents accompanied us. Once we crossed behind the security gates and they were out of sight we knew the shift to our other reality was now irreversible. This was even more evident in that we knew, waiting for us at the gate were three new SALT volunteers, Janelle, Annie, and Bethany who would be accompanying us on this flight back to Bujumbura to begin their one year term with us. They will stay at our house the first week.

Accomplishments:

I am not sure if I would measure the value of our leave time by the extent to which we succeeded in completing any stated goals we had set out for ourselves before leaving. But then again, a lot of our job is reading reports in which just such ‘indicators’ need to be exemplified. So here goes:

1) We did want to do a bit of continuing ed./ spiritual renewal and I feel the Psalms course at Regent Seminary and week in Vancouver fulfilled that desire.

2) We certainly did our fair share of nature walks in parks, etc, and visits to playgrounds with our children.

3) We had some specific goals for Oren, learning to read in English before starting French first grade was top on the list. We did not succeed in this at all despite some efforts by us and his grandmothers. BUT Oren did learn how to ride a bike really well, something he loves and is very proud of, so that was an unexpected benefit. (Sadly not something he will be able to do in Burundi.)

4) For David our sole goal was potty training. This was a complete failure as he managed to allude us every time he wanted to poop and would deliberately hide in a corner and finish his business before we were ever aware no matter how vigilant we tried to be. On the other hand, his vocabulary and language skills exploded and he speaks in clear sentences now, something he could not do before we arrived. (He also can ride a tricycle now.)

5) Videography. I did have a desire to archive some of my choreography on U-tube while I had high speed video. I had some success and put up about half a dozen works in the last week we were there. Hopefully I can add to that when I am back again next year. If you are interested, the web address Is http://www.youtube.com/user/pamosley99.

So are we ready to go back? It is a good question, about 2 weeks ago I had real sense of dread about leaving, then last week I felt very antsy to back to a normal routine as soon as possible (It is hard to try to live every moment to its fullest day after day with no routine.)

We have been in Burundi 3 years and will probably do at least 3 more to finish our assignment, so this break was the half-way point as I mentioned earlier. Going back though, is very different than going for the first time. There is so much spiritual momentum and energy one gets from going into a new challenge. One does not know what to expect and is hopefully flexible and open to anything.

But we are going back with our eyes wide open. We know what we are returning to, and have been blessed as well as bruised from the first 3 years there. We can’t return with the naïve openness of our first arrival. But we hope that the homeleave has revitalized us enough to remove the cynicism that can be a result of too many diminished expectations from the naïve hopes of our initial arrival.

I believe we are ready to return to a clearer, more realistic, hope for our next 3 years. We will be overwhelmed with work the first 3 weeks or so, but hopefully will be able to come up for a breath by the middle of September. I will do my best to post faithfully once a week again, and I hope you will continue to share this journey with us.

Postscript: Landed in Bujumbura at 7:05 pm Aug 23rd where Felix picked us up in 2 cars and we were home by 8:30 pm to 2 very happy dogs!!

Homeleave #7: Winding up--Chautauqua, Niagara Falls, and back to Baltimore

2011-08-15T01:32:00.000+02:00

Classic view of Niagara Falls which I saw for the first time last week.

As we enter the 'late afternoon' of our homeleave, I am amazed, in looking back at all the traveling we have done, particularly with regard to the geography we have covered in the US (and Canada). We have actually been to every region, (Northeast, South East, Midwest, and Northwest, even the Great Lakes) except the Southwest. (There is no plan in the working to get down to Phoenix or San Diego anytime before we leave.) It has been quite an adventure and we have felt very successful in visiting many, many friends and relatives in our time here in a way that has not been excessively stressful.

Last week we completed our final set of family vacations by spending a week in Chautauqua, New York with Rebecca's parents and her brother and sister-in-law with their 2 kids. The timing in terms of travel the first day was a bit tough in that Rebecca and I returned from Vancouver/Seattle on a red-eye to Baltimore, then left the same morning for an 8 hour road trip to Chautauqua, which is in western New York, about an hour south of Buffalo. Although we were tired, the timing was good in that we arrived on the same day as everyone else so we had the maximum amount of time together.

If you have not heard of Chautauqua and the Chautauqua Institution, it is worth a bit of explanation and description to try to get a picture of the place where Rebecca's family decided to vacation this year. At a glance, one might describe it as a kind of close-knit gated community along the side of Lake Chautauqua, a small lake in a fairly remote part of Western New York. Visitors can rent rooms or houses that are owned on the property, which is quite large and even includes a golf course, tennis courts, a dance studio, art studio, art gallery, several theaters including a large ampitheater that houses 3000, stores, restaurants, a large library, bookstore, a town square and much more. I would say that it is part town, part University and actually has a faculty that is invited each year as well as a dance and opera company in residence, numerous artists, authors, and other distinguished individuals. During the summer season there is a different theme each week, that vary from the Arts, to Global Health, Economics, Innovation and Technology, and even Iran: from Silk Road to Middle East Powder Keg (which was the theme for our week).

There are also, of course numerous lake activities to choose from including swimming, boating, skiing, sailing and fishing to name just a few. Needless to say, there was plenty to do and choose from.

The history of Chautauqua is interesting because it was founded in the 1870s as a camp to train Sunday School teachers. About 2000 teachers from different denominations were invited to participate and set up camp in the place in tents. This eventually evolved into what is now the Chautauqua Institution. Because of its Christian roots there is a worship service every morning that features a very well known preacher. The week we were there, the preacher was the Rev. Dr. Raphael Warnock, from the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, GA, which was the home church of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

He was an excellent speaker and quite inspired, coping deftly with an audience that was probably 99.9% white. He joked about that and told us how to 'talk back' to the pastor: "If you like what I say, say 'Amen'. If you agree with what I say but it is hard to hear say, say 'Lord have mercy'. If you disagree with what I say, say 'Help, Lord!' He tested us out with the proclamations God is Good--Amen! Drinking is a sin.-- Lord have mercy! I could go on preaching all day-- Help, Lord!

He led us each morning and the adults in our group took turns going on different mornings while others watched the kids.

Rebecca and I did get a chance to swim most mornings as there was a pool available for lap swimming as well. By day we did various activities with the kids including miniature golf, biking, and swimming in the lake. Oren continued to improve his biking skills along with his cousin Miriam and they preferred to bike just about everywhere on the grounds.

During the evenings there were many special programs for adults and we took the opportunity to split up childcare again so that different ones of us could go to experience some events. Dave and Jean Sack (Rebecca's parents) went to the opera The Magic Flute on Monday, Paul and Gwndolyn (Rebecca's brother and sister-n-law) went to a lecture by author Dan Brown on Tuesday, and Rebecca and I went to a performance of the North Carolina Dance Theater on Wednesday. It was great to see a dance performance by this repertory company and I did see some works of choreographers I was familiar with (Jaqueline Buglisi, Dwight Rhoden). It was an enjoyable evening.

When we were staying home with the kids we enjoyed playing some adult board games, particularly Ticket to Ride, a pretty cool board game where the idea is to construct rail lines between major cities in the US.

We also took turns cooking and enjoyed great food prepared by different families. Rebecca and I prepared a very nice Indian meal on Friday evening which included Aloo Gobi vindaloo (cauliflower and potatoes), channa saag (spinach and chick-peas), raita, and chicken tikka masala. It came out really well eventhough we improvised on many ingredients.

We did some special outings and because of that this week was quite unique. On Thursday we left the Institution and headed north about an hour and a half to Niagara Falls, NY and Ontario. We were not just going as tourists though--we had made a plan to meet Zachee, Bridget and Timmy!!! Yes, they had recently arrived in Toronto from Burundi where they will be for the next several years. Zachee's visa for Canada did not permit him entry into the US, but it was not a problem for us to cross into Canada. Since we were close to the border in Chautauqua, we made plans to coordinate a visit to the falls with them.

Although we did a get a flat tire on the way up (something I am very used to from driving in Burundi), we did not have much trouble getting up. When we crossed the rainbow bridge into Canada we saw Zachee and Co. as we drove down toward the visitor center parking lot.

Oren and David were ecstatic to see Timmy! David hugged him and rubbed his head quite a bit. They all looked great and we introduced Zachee, Bridget, and Timmy to Rebecca parents, her brother as well as the cousins Miriam and Gabriel.

The kids had a ball at the falls. It is quite a spectacular view on the Canadian side where you can look directly into the immense Horseshoe Falls. (It was the first time I had been there.) We really enjoyed hearing Z and B's stories about leaving Burundi, traveling through Europe, and arriving in Canada. We shared lunch together as a big group, then Rebecca's family went on back to Chautauqua while our family stayed and had dinner with Zachee and Bridget. We all enjoyed sitting in the visitor center restaurant that over looked the falls as the sun was setting. It was a fabulous day and we drove home in the evening and got back around 10pm without incident.

Bujumbura will be a bit emptier without Zachee, Bridget, and especially Oren's best friend Timmy there.

But the Burundi connections did not end on Thursday. It happened that Jodi Mikalachki, our former service worker who taught at the Hope School, was also in Toronto. So she took a trip down to Chautauqua on Friday and paid us a visit. It was nice to spend the day with her there and we reminisced as well as talked about her future plans to return again to Burundi sometime in the fall.

We left Chautauqua on Saturday and headed back home to Baltimore, arriving in the late afternoon. This was an important landmark as this ended all of our journeys prior to our return to Burundi. We have left the last 2 weeks for time in the Baltimore area to get ready for return, in terms of packing, and preparing spiritually, emotionally, etc.

The kids are spending time with their grandparents and cousins for the most part this week. They went to the train museum with Grandma Jean as well as the library. Rebecca and I have begun shopping for gifts to bring back to friends and colleagues, not a small job.

Because of Oren's enthusiasm for biking, we did plan a family bike trip on Thursday. There is an old railroad that has been converted into a bike trail along the Gunpowder river (NCR trail). It goes about 20 miles, but we chose a short section of it, about 7.2 miles round-trip. We felt this would be a challenge for Oren but do-able. (remember my goal of biking across the US with the family in 2020!) We borrowed bikes from my parents and Rebecca's brother (he had one with a baby seat for David) and we set off mid-morning. It was a perfect day and despite some complaints about being tired, Oren did make it to the halfway point which was an old train station where we had lunch. After lunch we rode back which was much easier as it was on a slight downhill grade that way. I was very proud of Oren for accomplishing this goal and gives me hope for future adventures.

Friday the kids went to the train museum but in the evening we had dinner with Rebecca's parents then out to a baseball game. We watched the Aberdeen Ironbirds, a minor league team, with some great seats right behind home plate. Although they lost, it was a good time with Rebecca's family and the cousins.

Saturday was Miriam's (Oren's cousin) 8th Birthday and although it rained the kids had a great time together again at their house which featured great food and a piniata. (It was funny to watch David go after the piniata with a bat--he knew exactly what to do.)

Sunday we went to my parents' church where Rebecca taught a Sunday school class and I preached. It is the last chance we will have to visit this church (Valley Baptist) before we leave, so they did pray for and recommission us for our return to Burundi. It is good to know how faithfully people in this congregation have been praying for us during our time there.

I shared a message based on a series they are doing on the book of Acts. (chapter 14). It was interesting to read and exegete this passage. It is the first time I have gone back and done some studied reading of the book of Acts since I entered the mission field 3 years ago. Hearing about Paul's struggles on his 2nd missionary journey through Iconium and Lystra really felt alive to me. I was able to share from the heart the frustration of being misunderstood cross culturally, as in what happened to Paul and Barnabus at Lystra. After performing a miraculous healing, they are immediately proclaimed to be Gods (Zeus and Hermes) and even after much debate are barely able to keep the people from sacrificing to them.

In our context we are not called Hermes and Zeus, but the name Mzungu has similar implications, and with all of our access to resources, it is easy for local Christians to confuse the messenger with the message, and look for the benefits of the Gospel in the material benefits provided by the foreign mission or Christian NGO.

Here is a quotation from the sermon on the subject:

I know it is important in terms of encouraging our partners to go out and see their work, and while people do not actually acclaim me as Zeus when I go out in the field (these are Christian partners) the treatment I receive as a donor is uncomfortably close to deification. In fact there is a word for white foreigners, it is Mzungu. And while we may not be seen as God’s we are just as good from the perspective of most Burundians. We have power, we do amazing things with our medicine, and computers, and money. So we receive ‘divine’ treatment from our local hosts and receive innumerable petitions for help in healing diseases, providing education, food, jobs, and money. We are seen as saviors.

And I can tell you, poor rural African Christians are in awe of seeing us and other missionaries roll up in 4X4s with lots of money to spend (for good causes—provided by faithful givers in North America), driving around the country, jetting in and out of the region. And African pastors say, “Hey, I’d like a piece of that. I’d like to drive around the country in 4X4 preaching the Gospel, I would like a big church building and a church band with electronic musical instruments and a soundsystem, and I would like a computer to write my sermons and do word searches on the internet. And as a witness to the Gospel I need it and deserve it.

You see, our good actions, our charity, even as Christians is so easily misunderstood and can take the focus away from the gospel and bring the focus on the donor and the benefits. Paul and Barnabus struggled to do damage control in this situation, and we see many historic mission churches having to do the same damage control around the world today.

This brings the blog up to date on this Sunday. I intend to make one more entry, probably on the plane on the flight back to Burundi. We have a bit less than 10 days here and I am amazed at all we have done, and everyone we have seen and yet timed in a way that has not felt overwhelming and unrestful. Hopefully we will be able to maintain this in our final week.

Homeleave #6: O Canada

2011-08-01T19:52:00.008+02:00

Rebecca and I on a suspension bridge that crosses over Lynn Canyon, North Vancouver, Canada.

This is another important juncture and opportunity to put down 'on paper' the happenings in our homeleave. I am writing this for friends in Burundi who are interested in keeping up with us, as well as a way for me to reflect back on the experiences and how they have renewed and enriched us mentally, physically, and spiritually.

I had mentioned in my last entry that we were leaving the children with the Grandparents for a one week trip as a couple to Vancouver. The plan was to audit a one week course on the Psalms at Regent College (a Christian seminary) where Rebecca received her M. Div. We had chosen this option for several reasons not necessarily in this order of importance:

1) Spiritual renewal-- We feel we have needed this both as a result of our overseas assignment as well as parents of young children. Both are equally trying I would say, even though we love our children and do find a great deal of satisfaction in our jobs. MCC encourages us to do something intentionally renewing as part of our leave time and even provided a contribution to the tuition fee of the course.

2) Visiting the Pacific Northwest again-- Both of us did our graduate work in the region (me at UW) and Rebecca at Regent. We also spent time during our courtship together in Vancouver so we did relish the idea of going back and reliving some of those memories.

I should add that our decision to take a course in Old Testament theology (the Psalms) over some of the more topical courses offered was due to the fact that Dr. Bruce Waltke was teaching (one of the foremost evangelical scholars of OT theology and Hebrew in the world, as well as one of the greatest men of sincere faith I have ever met.), and also because we really felt a need to 'get back to the basics'. So we forewent some interesting options including "Reading C.S. Lewis", "Writing with Scripture", "Faith in a Postmodern World", "Poverty and Transformtion in the Gospel", etc. in favor of what could have been a very dry series of lectures on exegeting the Psalms using various critical methods.

In fact, Dr. Waltke did exegete and give us tools to exegete using various critical methods, but through it he opened my eyes and heart to receive them for the bursting garden of hidden treasures they are. He also restored my confidence that indeed those psalms attributed to King David were most likely written by him despite the doubts cast by some late 19th century Bible scholars who have claimed they date to the more recent 'second temple' period, theories that remain in vogue even today.

I cannot go into the details of everything I learned about the Psalms and that might also detract from talking about the important way that reading them daily worked on my soul. Class was from 8-11 followed by an hour chapel service at the seminary with beautiful music and inspired speakers. It was the perfect beginning to each day. Rebecca and I would walk back to the sublet apartment we were staying at then have the afternoon to relax and do things in the City.

Before I go forward though into our extracurricular activities in Vancouver I should back up a bit to talk about our arrival. We left on a Friday from Baltimore. My Dad dropped us off at about 7 am at the airport and we headed for Seattle where we planned to connect with some old friends of ours (Matt and Jana), stay the night, then head out in a rented car the next morning.

The weather was bad in Chicago, our connecting town, and our flight left Baltimore several hours late. We were quite sure we would miss the connection but by a miracle, our next flight was also delayed taking off so we made the connection with about 10 seconds to spare but sprinting through O'Hare Airport when we landed.

The long flight and even delays were not all bad. Not traveling with kids meant that Rebecca and I actually had a chance to read a book or two. I brought a book called When Charity Destroys Dignity: Overcoming Unhealthy Dependency in the Christian Movement. It is written by Glenn Schwartz the son of the missionary martyred in the movie The End of the Spear. It is a good book about the problem of charity and worth reading if you are in the mission field. I got through most of it on the flight to Seattle.

The arrival in Seattle was less dramatic and Matt met us at the airport. I could not do justice to Matt and Jana in trying to 'sum them up' in any brief way. I have known them for many years, probably most notably during my dance mid-career. I lived in New York at the time but did some work in St. Louis at Washington University from time to time. Matt was a student and then later got a job at MADCo a dance company I had worked in in St. Louis. Jana was a dancer there and I set several works on them as a guest choreographer. When I went to grad. school in Seattle, Matt and Jana had moved there and founded their own dance company 'The Rockhoppers'. We became very close those 2 years because of our past connection. So close that when I did get married in Baltimore to Rebecca, they came out and even performed a duet at the reception of our wedding.

They are unique in many ways I cannot even explain. I get the impression, for instance that they succeed at everything they try. They have since left dance and have an amazing landscape architecture business that does beautiful garden work in Seattle called Terabithia.

They were very happy to welcome us to their house when we arrived and Matt smoked ribs, beginning on the morning we arrived. We had a fantastic dinner and spent a lot of time laughing and reminiscing about the old days. They gave us a lift to the car rental place after breakfast and also gave us some fall/winter clothes as we had no idea that while it was 105 in Baltimore it has not ever been above 80 the whole summer in Seattle and is in the 50s and 60s most of the time. It was cold there and Rebecca and I were not at all prepared for that.

We started the 3 or so hour drive North to Vancouver but stopped for lunch to see another friend, Elizabeth, who was a housemate of Rebecca's when she was a student at Regent. (She was also at our wedding.) Elizabeth has since married a man named Nick and they live in Skagit Valley about an hour north of Seattle where they work in a ministry alongside migrant farm workers, ex-prisoners, former addicts, and other marginalized people. Nick also manages a community farm project where they grow some of the most beautiful vegetables I have ever seen. (The soil there is probably the best in the world for things like cabbages, broccoli, berries, etc.) We had a very nice lunch with them and talked about some shared interests in ways, as Christians, to engage poverty which do not lead to dependence but rather empower those we are serving to find sustainable solutions to their problems. The spiritual leader of their ministry is a man named Robert Ekblad who wrote the book Reading the Bible with the Damned. I read it when I was doing prison ministry in New York and it is one of the best books I have ever read on sharing hope, through our faith, with people who are deeply marginalized and alienated from (and by) mainstream western culture.

We continued on to Vancouver after our visit with Elizabeth and Nick and arrived in the afternoon. (It was so simple to cross the border--did not even get out of the car--its lush gardens and parkland were a real contrast to the border between Rwanda and Burundi that we drive through monthly.

We found our apartment and key, dropped our stuff off and decided to take a long walk from the UBC campus along the shore toward the City. It was cool but perfect weather to walk in. We marveled at how clean everything was, how well-cared-for the City looked. And of course marveled at the sublime back drop of snow-capped peaks which surround the City across the picturesque English Bay. We also were interested to see expressions of Vancouver culture (where everyone seems super healthy.) Here is a picture of an outdoor yoga class with about 300 people in attendance.

We made a loop back home and had some sushi and Korean soup at an Asian restaurant near the campus. We had decided to eat very healthily and exercise daily during our time here as well.

The next day was Sunday and we were invited to preach at Peace Mennonite Church, where Rebecca had interned while she was in seminary. We shared our video and reflections on Psalm 126 with them. There were some MCCers there who really appreciated the presentation. There were others who still remembered Rebecca from her seminary days including the pastor and his wife who Rebecca had actually been in Seminary with. (Tim and Sandra) Although Tim was not in town, Sandra invited us over to lunch afterward and we had a nice meal with her and their 3 sons.

What most impressed me that day was the story she told me about how their family had biked across Canada in 80 days two summers before. I was amazed that they had the wherewithal to do such a thing. The youngest son was only 12 at the time. It apparently was something they had planned to do for years. I was so impressed I am thinking about maybe working toward doing that with our family in about a decade (maybe for my 60th Birthday). I imagined what a lasting memory that would be to leave with one's children as well as a time to really grow together as a family. Anyway, we will see if that ever happens. I certainly admired their willingness to do that. We also talked about some common interests as they had served as a family in Zimbabwe and had been back in the past year.

We left in the afternoon and had made a plan to do a hike that day. Specifically, we had decided to hike up Grouse Mountain on a trail called the Grouse Grind. I know every Vancouverite knows what this is but I will try my best to describe it to those who do not. It is not a remote trail, in fact it is quite well used, probably hundreds of people a day ascend it. If that were not the case I would call it the most grueling vertical ascent short of mountaineering. Several thousand feet up in less than 2 kilometers. I know that we were dying and wondering if we were near to the top after half an hour. We were sure we must be, until we saw the one quarter sign about 300 meters above us. We trudged on, Rebecca did her best not to look down as she is extremely acrophobic. Meanwhile we were being passed every 2 or so minutes by individuals or groups that were virtually jogging up, trying to beat their previous time. (Which you can get recorded on an e-card.) The world record is about 24 minutes and Rebecca and I probably took about 1.5 hours. To the average person this hike is a grueling struggle against nature and fear; for Vancooverites it is Nature's stairmaster, and many do it several times a week.

The top is a real tourist attraction and can be reached as well by a giant cable car (the way we came down.) It is a real thrill ride, like a roller coaster only thousands of feet down hanging by a thread. There is skiing at the top in winter and there was still snow on the mountain when we got up there. (We were not cold after the climb though.) We shopped on the way home and ate dinner around 10pm, which did not seem late as the sun just barely sets by that time.

Monday we began class and as I mentioned above, we felt very good about the course of study we had selected for the week. It was really satisfying to be back in a class setting and listening to a lecture by an inspired teacher!

On Monday afternoon we took a brief walk on the beach but then rode the bus into the City in Vancouver to have dinner with another former classmate of Rebecca (who also came to our wedding). Scott and his wife Patricia live in a really nice apartment in downtown Vancouver that reminds me of a highrise on the upper westside of New York City. Very small but extremely well-appointed. He is working for the Catholic Church running a homeless shelter and helping people with transitional housing. They prepared an exquisite dinner for us perfectly presented including a cake that Patricia made. She even went to the internet and found the phrase Kaze Abagenzi (welcome friends) in Kirundi and wrote it in icing on the cake. We took our dinner to the park by the waterfront and then took a walk around the marina to the entrance to Stanley Park. It was great to catch up with them and hear about what it is like for Scott as an American to be working now in Canada. We ended the evening with cups of imported Colombian hot chocolate before Rebecca and I returned to our apartment.

Tuesday we went swimming in the afternoon in the UBC pool. We chose to use the 50 meter outdoor pool even though the air was quite cool. The water is kept at a reasonable temperature so the workout was very satisfying. We took another long walk afterward and found a park on the waterfront where there was a 135 meter pool! It was phenomenal and we planned to return to try it out on Thursday.

Wednesday we took a walk through Stanley Park downtown along the waterfront. It is very scenic and includes beautiful views of mountains, water, as well as ocean liners, enormous oil freighters and cargo ships coming and going, and sea planes taking off and landing. We also saw seals in the water as well as a family of otters.

Thursday after class we did take a trip to the gigantic pool for a swim. It was quite an experience to swim laps that measured 135 meters. Going across and back once was the equivalent of doing 11 laps in a 25 meter pool. Afterward, since it was our last evening in Vancouver, we went out to eat again at a Japanese restaurant (we love sushi--something you just don't get in Burundi or much of Africa for that matter.)

After class on Friday we packed and left Vancouver and drove back to Seattle where we met Matt and Jana again after dropping off the rental car. We arrived about 6pm and since our plane was leaving at 11:30 pm, (red eye) we had dinner with them at a Thai restaurant. Another unforgettable meal for both the food and the conversation. They dropped us at the airport afterward and we took the overnight back to Baltimore (with a stop in Chicago) without incident.

We were extremely grateful to our parents for watching the kids for the whole time. We did Skype regularly and got very good reports about them. For most of the week Oren stayed with Rebecca's folks and David stayed with mine. Splitting them up was actually really good since sibling rivalry is one of the main programs they run when they are together. Being apart at night made them very compatible by day and they did many things with cousins including visit the zoo, train museum, a farm, etc. They were extremely well-behaved the whole time.

The challenge of ending this trip was the lack of transition time to the next activity. We landed in Baltimore at 9:30 am Saturday and left 3 hours later, bleary-eyed on the next stage of our leave- a vacation with Rebecca's family at the Chautaqua Institute in upstate New York. I will say more about that next week, but I am writing right now from New York. The 8 hour drive up here was probably the most difficult part of the trip since Rebecca and I only had the fitful sleep one gets sitting upright in a plane the night before. Still we are glad to be here and to see our kids again and are enjoying our time now with Rebecca's parents, her brother's family and the cousins are having a blast.

Postscript: I want to reflect a bit on the experience of visiting Canada as an American, particularly during this week when all the news seemed to be about the impending debt crisis and the inability of Congress to reach a compromise. I guess the tension will always exist here in our culture between the recognized need for an effective federal government and the desire to be left alone to pursue one's own destiny. Our forefathers overthrew their own colonial overseers in order to pursue individual inalienable rights of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

In Canada the 3 words that probably best express the Canadian citizen's worldview is Peace, Order, and Good Government. That is, they do, on the whole, privilege the good of the community over the rights of the individual. It is evident in that Canadians pay very high taxes. But the trade-off is also evident in the well working efficient mass transit system, in low unemployment, in beautiful parks to be enjoyed by all, in free health care, and in a highly regulated banking system that did not get caught in the sub-prime lending crisis that plunged our economy into recession. Scott, who works with the homeless also noted that in Seattle (3 hours down the road) there are 10,000 homeless people on the streets, in Vancouver there are less than 2500. This is because all new building in Vancouver City must make provision for 20% low-income housing in the facility and homelessness is a priority for the city. (the mayor was elected on a platform of providing more bike lanes and ending homelessness.)

I think the Tea Party in our country represents the apotheosis of the rights of the individual over the state. Rightfully they ask why the government should force us to provide for those who cannot provide for themselves. (I think Tea Partyers believe that unemployment is more due to ones unwillingness to work rather than bad fortune beyond ones control and helping out just makes it worse.) I disagree, but I really don't know who is right. -- I will say, however, that there is a lot to be said for a nation that takes care of all its citizens and foreigners and puts the good of the community over the individual. Whether Canadians are generally less lazy and likely to take advantage of the system than Americans, I can't say... but I doubt it. And yet government regulation and taxes seem to succeed there in promoting the good for all better than unregulated private enterprise in our country. Many who read this may differ with me on this analysis, but I would suggest taking a good hard look at a place like Canada before rejecting the notion completely.

Bonus Photo: Oren at a farm in Maryland that his grandparents took him to.

Homeleave #5: Southern Comfort

2011-07-22T05:51:00.001+02:00

Oren and David sitting atop a corn seeder in Kansas City.

As inconsistent as I have been about blogging regularly during homeleave, I am trying to update from time to time to keep friends in Burundi informed about what we are doing, and also to keep a record of the way we spent our time.

We were quite intentional about planning our homeleave. 3 months is more than a vacation and there are times of leisure as well as times of intentional visiting and relational work. There is some keeping in touch with our program in Burundi, although Felix seems to be handling the added responsibility during this time masterfully. There is also the shopping, doctor visits, etc. that need to be done here due to the lack of these options in Burundi.

We divided our homeleave into several parts, some more relaxing than others. The first 4 weeks were spent mainly in Baltimore with our parents (alternating between houses) with a one week visit to Poughkeepsie, NY where Rebecca and I worked before moving to Burundi. This was a fairly relaxing month, we did do some church visiting, but the days were spent mainly taking kids to play grounds and even going almost daily to a healthclub ourselves to enjoy some exercise.

Beginning on July 6th, we moved into a more relational mode and are dividing this into 3 parts, we spent about 12 days visiting members of my family (brothers, Aunts and Uncles, nieces and nephews). We begin tomorrow with a week of personal time for Rebecca and I away from our children in Vancouver, Canada, and then we will do a week with Rebecca's family at a vacation spot in upstate NY.

This will leave the last 3 weeks for us to have again less programmed time back in Baltimore before returning to Burundi.

So I want to recount a bit about the visit to relatives on my side of the family. I might preface this by saying something about the cultural experience this offered. Most of my relatives live in the midwest or deep South--some natively and others transplants while Rebecca and I are basically a family of 3rd culture New York Yankees. So going to a part of the country folks down there call the U-nahted States (emphasis on the U) can be intimidating. (They can tell our 'ethnicity' by our accents and generally don't take kindly to Democrats.) ;-)

We made plans to visit one of my Aunt Binnie and Uncle Bill in Kansas City as the first stop. (I had lived with them some in College.) Since KC is a bit off the beaten path we flew there from Baltimore. Although 2 of my 3 cousins were not there at the time, we had a great time with Bill and Binnie and my cousin Beth. (Incidentally, my cousin Beth Armstong is author of the excellent book What's Prayer Got To Do With It).

Bill and Binnie live on the edge of the city limits on a 40 acre farm, so our children really enjoyed playing out in the fields, by the pond, and climbing on an antique iron corn seeder. They also loved all the nooks and crannies in the fabulously redone old farm house where they live.

We mainly relaxed and enjoyed great food, but did go out for a tour of the city on one day. Kansas City is a railroad town and we were able to see many model and real trains including long coal trains and double-stack container cars that fascinated Oren. (His chief complaint about Burundi is that there are no trains there.)

We left early on Monday morning to return to Baltimore and on the same day headed south by car this time to North Carolina where we stayed the night at my brother Mark's house before joining most of the rest of my family and spouses and kids at Fontana Dam North Carolina for a 3 day stay at a Smoky Mountain resort. The trip down went well and we visited with Mark who was still at his house eventhough his wife Christine and my nieces had gone ahead to Fontana with my parents.

We left early the next morning and got to Fontana Dam in the afternoon. (The roads through the Smoky Mountains reminded me of Burundi roads upcountry in terms of curviness, but these were extremely well paved and even banked.

Fontana has much to recommend it and when we got there Oren and David were happy to be able to play with their cousin's Abigail, Grace, and Fletcher. (The latter is his age.) We all rode bikes, swam, and even did karaoke, square danced, played put-put golf, frisbee golf, went on a boat trip, to name a few of the activities.

The time seemed to go by too quickly and we could not do it all in the time we had. We continued on from Fontana, NC to Nashville Tennessee where my brother Jonathan is an MD at Vanderbilt Hospital. His wife Emma works there too as a researcher. We arrived en masse with our family and my parents.

Oren and Fletcher, being age mates had a lot in common which created about as much conflict as it did amusement for them. All in all it went well and bike riding was one of the favorite activities for them. (Especially when Fletcher took Oren to see Engine 475 an enormous old steam engine now stationed in a public park.) They circled the engine on bikes for nearly an hour.

We did enjoy a date night with Jon and Emma while my parents watched the 3 children. They took us out to see the sights of historic Nashville (home of American Country Music for those who are reading this who are not American.) We saw the original Grand Old Opry as well as the new enormous Opryland hotel complex. (Imagine acres of enclosed airconditioned indoor gardens, like Versaille under glass. It was impressive in its opulence.

We left Nashville on Monday and headed back the 2 day journey to Baltimore. The kids were more antsy coming back than going out. We stopped back through My brother Mark and Christine's house in North Carolina on the way home. It may be the last time we see them until next year. We left mid-morning to Tuesday and got to Baltimore by evening. (We did stop through Harrisonburg Virginia and saw Eastern Mennonite University, but missed our ex-SALTer Robyn Mast who was working that day.) We did not miss any McDonalds playland from Baltimore to Nashville and back though. It does help to wear the kids out a bit during our lunch breaks.

It was nice to be back in Baltimore at my parents house and we enjoyed working out a bit on Wednesday after all that driving. We also had a Birthday party for Rebecca at her brother Paul's house who lives up the road from my parents. Many of our long time family friends were there and everyone shared a fond childhood memory of Rebecca. It is hard to believe that all of us have known her since she was 2 years old. (I could add that this was her 39th Birthday but none of you would believe me, but it really was her first 39th Birthday!)

It is late Thursday night and I am trying to get this posted before we head out again tomorrow morning for what I might call the centerpiece or crown jewel of our homeleave. Rebecca and I are going to go to Vancouver Canada to her old seminary to ostensibly take a 1 week course on the Psalms, but it is also a getaway as a couple, away from the kids. Our parents have generously offered to watch them for a week. This is the first time we have ever left them alone for such a long time (in fact they have never been without us both overnight.) So we are anxious, but excited about the chance this will give us to renew as a couple. (Those of you with young kids know having time as a couple is rare, and I would say has been a more challenging part of our work than living in Burundi.)

So we will leave at 6am Friday morning. Please pray for a renewing time for us and that our kids will be OK with the grandparents.

Homeleave #4: Baltimore Highlights

2011-07-05T05:14:00.002+02:00

Independence Day Celebration in Baltimore.

We have just completed one month of our homeleave and while I have posted a couple times since arriving here I want to try to a brief synopsis of some of things we have done here with some photos as well as give some impressions of what seems different now that we have lived outside the country for 3 years.

Since Baltimore is the home of Rebecca and my parents it is a place we have visited frequently over the years, even before moving to Burundi so there are things we like to do here, and Oren in particular has favorite activities which we have done on outings over the past 4 weeks.

Actually tonight is the July 4th, American Independence Day and we went out to a place near Baltimore called Oregon Ridge to watch fireworks with accompanying music by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. It was interesting to realize how little Oren knows about his identity as an American at 6. Rebecca showed him the American flag and explained that it was the flag of our country, and that July 4th was our country's Birthday.

The kids loved to be out in the evening and played on a large playground in the park prior to sunset then watched the fireworks afterward. I was struck by what an anomaly this would be in Burundi. Any explosion in or around the city can cause fear or panic and a sustained volley would almost certainly be mistaken for rebel groups firing mortar shots from the hills into the city. We do here the pops of firearms and grenades almost nightly there still, the result of criminal activity we are told. So it is quite a contrast to stretch out and enjoy the the thundering report of exploding fireworks and 'oooh' and 'ahhhh' under the brilliant colors of flaming debris.

An American public playground

It seems important to share these American cultural traditions with our children, moreso since we are not here and their exposure to their cultural heritage is not experienced in any regular way.
Prior to this however, we have made efforts to get the most out of our time here with visits to other typically American things. It is amazing, though how some of the more mundane activities are the most appreciated. Going to a playground at a park or school is a daily event. It is something I took so much for granted here before we left, but now it is something I cherish as a special opportunity to play with our kids. I can't say there are no playgrounds whatsoever in Burundi, I think there are 2 or 3, but none are engineered with the safety requirement of playgrounds here. Even more, it is great to be able to go to a place where there is no wall and where your children playing in one place for more than 10 minutes does not attract an enormous crowd. We are so anonymous here, it is, I admit, such such a relief not to be stared at so much in public.

Besides the daily playground visits though, we have gone on the following outings:

1) Railroad Museum-- Baltimore has an amazing historic railroad museum with many old steam locomotives and other cars, all resting in an enormous old round-house. Oren is a train enthusiast and he and David, with their cousins Miriam and Gabriel and Grandma Jean went to the museum and had a marvelous time. Oren particularly likes the engines where he can go into the cab and pretend to drive the train.

2) Baltimore Zoo-- My parents went with us to the Baltimore Zoo it was a lot of fun to go with the kids as they have only been to one once or twice in their life. They loved to see the animals in cages although I don't know if they were too impressed with the zebra, giraffes, rhinos and lions, which they have seen in the wild very near to where they live. There were slides and a zoo train. David was most enamored by the farm animals like donkeys and goats because he could pet them. He definitely seems far more comfortable on a farm than in a city in my opinion.

3) Orioles Baseball Game-- We did get to see the Orioles beat the Cincinnati Reds last week. We went with Rebecca's family (her brother's family and their parents). Oren did not really understand the game although he did let me explain it to him somewhat. We were in the upper deck so the distance did not help in terms of keeping the kids engaged. They did make it through the 7th inning before we had to go home. It was a fun day all-in-all.

4) Oren's 6th Birthday!-- This was a big event that we celebrated last Thursday. He invited his cousins and their parents as well as all of his grandparents. Oren is in a robot phase right now and wanted more than anything, some kind of robot for his Birthday. We were able to find him one that teaches some reading and math skills. He also wanted a robot Birthday cake and wanted to make it himself. His Grandmother baked a brownie cake that we cut up in the shape of a robot and Oren iced and decorated it using his new toy robot as a model. It was a very good likeness and the family really appreciated his efforts. He also received many other gifts to take back with him to Burundi including a baseball glove, snorkel and mask, tennis racquet, basketball, as well as a bike to use here. (He learned to ride it this week.) He also got some badly needed underwear and t-shirts. The kids played together most of the day and had a treasure hunt to find the presents after dinner.

5) Washington D.C.-- Oren is just getting old enough to really appreciate something like a visit to the Smithsonian museum of Natural History. It was something I loved to do as a child as well. We went as a family with Rebecca's mom. We decided to add an element of adventure by taking the kids there by train from Penn Station in Baltimore. Oren loved the double-decker passenger cars and the whole train trip. We even had to take the metro (subway) once we arrived in D.C. That was also a special treat for him. Of course it meant that by the time we arrived it felt like we had done quite a bit. Still, the children loved the museum where we saw an imax 3d movie and saw many animal and aquatic exhibits. Their favorite place was the insect exhibit which featured all live animals and the kids got to hold live caterpillars, stick bugs, and even a Madagascar hissing cockroach. (As if a non-hissing cockroach is not dreadful enough.) David probably liked this best because he will happily pick up just about anything and has even caught a turtle, a frog, and crayfish on his own around our house.

6) Church-- We have been going to different churches since being back, we were at my parent's church for a presentation, but went to the North Baltimore Mennonite Church the past 2 weeks. This past Sunday Rebecca preached from Matthew on the parable of the weeds. I won't tell about it in detail, but there is a link here to a recording of it: http://sermon.net/enbmc

Other activities we have done include berry picking--bluberries, rasberries, strawberries, black caps, thus far, with Grandma Jean, trips to the barber, the private airport where their grandpa has use of a Cessna airplane, several trips to the library where the kids have checked out many books and played reading games in their media center. Again something that we have nothing like in Burundi!

News from Burundi has generally been good from our colleagues. We have heard that the books that were sent this past Feb. have all arrived and the ones for Burundi have all reached their destinations. The Hope School is grateful to receive so many. I hope to take some photos when we get there.

I got some interesting news from my dad of all people. He had to go to a conference in Nairobi and passed through Bujumbura. On the way home he was on the flight with Zachee, Bridget and Timmy who were leaving Burundi for good (temporarily). They talked a bit in the Brussels airport. We are hoping to see them on a visit to Niagara Falls we have planned in late July. It is a small world.

It is good to feel like I miss Bujumbura, even as I have been enjoying daily the experience of walking down clean paved sidewalks, going into air-conditioned houses, being anonymous, not being asked for money constantly. But, maybe because of that, I do feel like being here feels like a Club-Med vacation even just walking in the neighborhood. I don't know if I really ever want to get used to this again. In many ways I enjoy feeling like it is a special treat rather than an entitlement.

This week we will be visiting my brothers and cousins in various parts of the midwest. We leave for Kansas City on Thursday. If there are any friends in Burundi reading this, we are thinking about you and miss you all. More in a couple weeks.

Homeleave #3: A visit to Poughkeepsie

2011-06-24T06:01:00.002+02:00

Poughkeepsie United Methodist Church, NY, --seen in the rain as we headed out of town.

I think it would be good to put a few things down 'on the record' after the past week and a half have elapsed. We have been in Baltimore since our arrival in the US with Rebecca's parents, but we planned and took a trip to our old stomping ground, Poughkeepsie, NY, this past week between Wednesday June 15th to the 22nd. In many ways, since I know there are many faithful readers who live in Poughkeepsie, I feel like this blog post should serve as a heartfelt thanks for all those who hosted us, cared for us, took us out, and prayed with us, during the time we there, and a sincere apology to all whom we were not able to see because of time constraints.

The road trip north began with a stop on Wednesday in Akron, PA, which is the home of MCC headquarters. We went there to debrief a bit on the last month of our time in Burundi (and all of the emergencies). One would not think that throwing a work day into homeleave would be particularly ideal, but we were actually happy to go. One reason is that MCC Headquarters in Akron is a beautiful place with some very nice guesthouses where our kids love to stay. Childcare was even provided during our meetings. There is also a fabulous playground nearby.

We met with several people in International Programs as well as Human Resources, and even saw our West Africa area director Mark Sprunger who was on home leave himself and lives very close by. We stayed the night and headed on to Poughkeepsie on Thursday.

We arrived in the evening and had dinner with our friends Don and Rosaura Andujar-McNeil. Oren has been a friend since birth to Gabriela their daughter, but now they have a new son as well (Raphael). We had a plan to see them several more times during the week, but actually went on that evening to Bob and Frances Thompson-Gee's house where we stayed for the week. Bob is the pastor of the Poughkeepsie United Methodist Church where Rebecca served as Pastor of Youth Ministries for 5 years.

Every day was full and quite different. Friday morning we went to Vassar College and visited some of my ex-colleagues from the Dance Department (Steve Rooks, Joanne Jensen, and Michelle Whalen.) It was nice to let them see how the boys have grown, and for me to see the current condition of the dance department. It looked great and it sounded like the Vassar Repertory Dance Theatre continues to do fabulous work each year. (It was also nice to see that they were still using some of my templates for programs, publicity, etc.) I feel like I did leave some things of value there.

Friday afternoon was a real treat. We had a good pastoral visit with Bob and Frances and were able to shear some of the challenges that weighed heavy on us in our work. They prayed with us then took us over to the church where we received an hour of 'soaking prayer'. (a kind of prayer meditation which lasts about an hour.) We did this with the healing prayer team in the sanctuary.

We felt completely 'cleansed' when we finished and had dinner with them. It was an extra blessing that childcare was provided during the entire experience.

On Saturday we began the morning by joining Don and Rosaura at their farm pick up. This is a cooperative farm that Rebecca and I used to be members of. It is really pleasurable to pick up fresh produce as well as gather some things right from the fields. Strawberries were still in season and all of us picked several quarts. David was probably the most diligent of all. After that, we took a hike across the Eads Railroad bridge which spans the Hudson river. It is now a kind of state park and very scenic. We did struggle a bit keeping Oren going and I think he was perplexed about why we would walk all the way across a bridge then turn around an walk right back, but on the whole it was very enjoyable.

In the late afternoon we stopped by a block party near our old neighborhood where we met our friend Heidi, then headed to the annual Greek Festival to enjoy carnival rides and gyros for dinner with Don and Rosaura again. It was a long but not particularly exhausting day.

Sunday Rebecca and I were given the honor of preaching in both of the morning services at the Poughkeepsie United Methodist Church. We shared the sermon time presenting our meditation on Psalm 126 in the last blog as well as the video that appears in last weeks blog. It was really awesome to be able to share our work with these many friends who are part of our home church. It was good to see so many familiar faces even after 3 years, and to hear how well the youth are doing as well.

After church we had lunch at the Riverstation Restaurant on the Hudson River with the Caramico's (Courtenay, Antony, Asa, and Alexander ). Asa was born shortly after Oren and was one of his best early childhood friends. They had a playdate after lunch and had a great time at Asa's house. It was a very nice afternoon.

On the way home we stopped by to see some other friends from church, the Hicks'. John was one of the other youth leaders and Kate helped out with youth as well. Their daughters Kate and Laurel watched Oren as well from time to time. Oren and David were very happy to go to their house especially when they were laden with gifts! Oren got a new school Buzz Lightyear backpack that he loved!! He will definitely be the only kid with one of those at his school in Burundi.

Sunday evening we were actually back and Bob and Frances' on time for dinner and enjoyed a nice evening together on their back porch sharing food that had been prepared by them as well as other friends from church.

Monday morning I was blessed with the opportunity to go to swim at the Poughkeepsie Middle School pool where I used to go all the time when I lived there. Coach Ron Terwilliger who was at church on Sunday said it was OK for me to come. It was the first time back in swimming since I broke my rib, but the water felt great and it was so good to swim in a real lap pool with lane dividers, etc. I felt like I was flying.

After that, we took the kids to a playground, then off to Lake Minewaska in the Schawangunk Mountains. This is an area we used to love to hike and we took a walk around the lake and even went swimming (despite the fact that we actually encountered 3 water snakes on the journey.) It was a refreshing afternoon. In the evening we went over to Chris and Theresa Garretts house to have dinner with our small group. It was a very nice evening to spend time with these friends. I do lament the fact that despite the fact that we have made very good friends in Burundi, we have not been able to create a prayer and share group like the one we had in Poughkeepsie when we were here.

Tuesday was our last very full day. I did go swimming again in the morning, early, then afterwards we headed up north about 45 minutes to Tivoli, NY to see Bruce Hempel and his wife Muriel at their farm. Bruce is a spirtual mentor and a brother in the Kairos Prison Ministry. It was really good to catch up with him and hear some news about the ministry at the Coxsackie Correctional Facility where we served together for several years.

They also have a farm with a calf, goats, chickens, horses, dogs, etc. This, I think felt like home to David as it was like the seminary upcountry in Burundi. He was happy to walk around and pet goats and chase the chickens around. We had lunch with the Hempels as well. It was a very good day.

When we got home there was time to go to the Children's museum (an old haunt of Oren's) and while I took the kids there, Rebecca visited a bit more with Rosaura. That evening we had dinner with Heidi for the last time where we had a fabulous strawberry shortcake among other offerings.

We went back to Bob and Frances' for our last night then woke up early Wednesday to participate in morning prayer that meets weekly at the church (something Rebecca and I used to do) before heading back to Baltimore.

The roadtrips here feel so much easier as far as comfortable vehicles and roads. We also did make a rest stop at a favorite McDonalds with a playland in it. (To actually be able to use a restroom is quite a novel experience on a roadtrip compared to Burundi.)

I think the kids loved most every minute of the attention lavished on them by friends they barely remember during their time in Poughkeepsie.

Rebecca and I were reminded of what a beautiful place we used to live in, and what a supportive work and church community we dwelt in while there. I hope we could remind those who have been there for a long time, what makes that place so special.

Thank you again to all of you there who have cared for us over the years, even after we left.