Friendships and a Good Samaritan

Oren and Dad on top of the swingset at Club du Lac Tanganyika


I would have to place Oscars Night among the many things that seem extremely remote and irrelevant to me right now (American Idol would be at the bottom of the list).    Not just that the an opulent display of wealth and glamor is such a contrast to anything around here, but more that we are so much less exposed to what I would call the daily hype of media in every form that exists in the US.  I do log on to the New York Times online daily to see what is going on in the world, but generally my interest is far more engaged with events like what is happening in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Nigeria, Congo, and other parts of Africa.  These places are far less remote to me now, not just geographically, but we find that among our friends and acquaintances, more than a few are from countries that are or have been in conflict recently.  Generally, getting information here is a far more proactive process than it is in the US where media competes for one's attention so incessantly.  On the good side, making choices about what to be informed about is refreshing and I do feel less caught up in the 'crisis of the moment' being served up for ratings competition among the media moguls.

I did have a moment of nostalgia though as I remembered the Vassar Repertory Dance Theatre Annual Bardavon Gala was happening this weekend as well.  As former director, this is the 3rd year it has happened since my departure and career shift.  Consequently the last group of freshmen I taught are seniors now.  It is funny how the mind experiences time-- at once these things seem so vivid and yet as distant as if they are memories from my childhood.

But this week had much to keep me engaged--not all good.  It started again with illness, both our cook and David.  That meant that Rebecca and I had to split the morning work on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday between us, going in one at a time rather than together.  This always makes sharing a position tricky as it is not always clear where one left off and we often find ourselves either duplicating tasks or letting them slip through the cracks.

David's illness was not too serious, a bit of fever, maybe a cold, and in fact I had come down with it myself by Wednesday and had it until Friday.  (Rebecca was feeling it by Sunday evening.)

Oren was in excellent health all week and in fact had quite a full week of social engagements beginning on Monday when he went over to see his friend Emily after school.  Tuesday he had Timmy over to his house between morning and afternoon school.  (I don't know if I have mentioned recently that on Tues and Thurs the kids come home for lunch then return to school for an afternoon session.  This is because there is no cafeteria or school lunch program at the Ecole Belge or any school in Burundi.  It means 2 extra car pick ups on those days along with everything else, and they do not coordinate with our workday.)  We often try to coordinate with Zachee and Bridget on Tuesday and Thursday to have one of us take Timmy and Oren to one or the other's house on one day, then vice-versa on the other.  That saves at least one set of pick-ups per week.

Oren is also extremely good with Timmy and they can play together for almost an entire day with little adult input.  (Oren will be sad at some point this year when Timmy's family moves to Canada to live for some time since Timmy is definitely his best friend here.)

Wednesday was also a special treat for Oren as an old friend Kierin, came back to Burundi for a week visit.  Kierin's family moved to Uganda last year from Burundi because of a change in work by his parents.  He had been the only other American child in Oren's class last year.  (This year I think Oren is the only American in the troisieme maternelle (kindergarten) and one of 3 in the entire school (K-12)).

Friday we all went out to Khanna Kazana (Indian food restaurant) together with Joy and Jesse Johnson, our American missionary friends.  Oren and David are about the same ages as their sons Zack and Micah and the four of them had fun tearing in and around the restaurant which has no walls, only an enormous roof.  David was a particular challenge in this regard as he wandered out into the nearby garden and caught an enormous black toad and was very keen to release it onto the floor in the middle of the restaurant.  To try and stop him immediately turned the activity into a game of tag as he would tear away hiding behind other seated groups or weave around the tables in the crowded restaurant in an effort to escape, brandishing the toad like a broad sword and laughing mirthfully the whole time.  In general though, it was an enjoyable evening.

not my photo

Saturday, after exercise, we spent most of the day at the beach.  Oren saw his friend Kierin again and we had a very nice day playing with the kids.  The lake was quite placid and David really enjoyed splashing about in it.  It is interesting for me to see the continued growth of a tourist industry here.  When we first arrived there was basically one place frequented by mzungus, and those were overwhelmingly UN peacekeepers, military contractors, and some die-hard missionaries.  Now there are 'resorts' springing up all along the lakeside and I have seen a steady increase in watersport activities.  Kite boarding is one of the most popular and I saw this sport for the first time in Burundi.  But it is also obvious that sailing, jet skiing, water skiing and fishing are on the rise.

This Saturday though I saw something else new.  Someone flew a small, nearly ultralight sea plane over the hotel and landed it right out on the lake in front of us.  They then took off and flew out toward the mountains of Congo.

Lake Tanganyika is interesting because it is very large, tidal, and the 2nd deepest lake in the World.  It is quite picturesque as well.  We do enjoy swimming in it, but also sitting in the Ubuntu restaurant in the evenings where we frequently see a family of 6 hippos who spend the evenings basking in the shallows there.  It is true the Lake does have hippos and crocodiles, and probably shistosomiasis in some places, but to date I have not heard of anyone being eaten, or killed or becoming sick as a result of swimming there.  So maybe Burundi will be able to market it to water sport enthusiasts.  (As long as Burundians find another place to dump their trash soon!!)

After our day at the beach Saturday, which had the partial intention of wearing out the kids, we actually enjoyed a parents night out.  We were able to recruit a couple of the single young women who are volunteering with some Friends church related NGOs to sit for us.  (They attend my morning exercise class.)  The occasion for a 'date' night was the birthday of Naja Spanner, our Danish friend.  It was a very nice adult party with fabulous food and a very large gathering of friends from the missionary and NGO communities.  We had a very enjoyable evening with friends and got home about 11:00 pm.

Sunday, after church, we had one more social encounter that reminds me of the transiency of the lives of ex pats here.  We went to a 'fire sale' of some friends of ours.  This event was a not so subtle reminder of how unpredictable our lives can be here as ex. pats.  Our friend is a lawyer who works for the UN who has been here with his family for about 2 years.  Their kids attend the Ecole Belge and even take my ballet class.  We got an email from him that told us they were moving in a matter of days to a new assignment and had to sell everything in the house.  (It was a bit sad because the kids and his wife were actually not in the country when this transpired so they left without even a chance to say goodbye.)  We went over to the house which was truly an opportunity for some great deals and we bought a few items from the pantry that could be used by future volunteers.

We passed on a lot of the great toys, electronics, etc. because we have honestly accrued a considerable amount of stuff from other mzungus who have had to leave precipitously and sell or give away everything.  I will say that this is one of the reasons forming community here is a challenge.  While we often feel the need to have relationships with other expats, it is hard because no matter how long one is here, there is an unacknowledged awareness that this situation is temporary, and in fact may change suddenly, unexpectedly, if not for you, then for others in your circle of friends.  It is not, and cannot be, home because of this.

This is not to disparage in any way the close friendships we have made with Burundians.  We do have several Burundian friends that we consider to be very close.  But I have learned now that it is naive to think that making friendships across cultures is simply a matter of extending oneself or 'being nice'.   To begin, I have learned here that even the idea of friendship is a cultural construct and carries very different implications for different cultures.

In our culture, for instance, an intimate friendship is probably based most centrally on shared experience and common interests.  But if someone you consider close asks you regularly for money and is constantly in debt to you, I think you would consider that friend to be superficial at best and a perhaps a manipulative con.

But here, it would be unimaginable to have a relationship called friendship in which exchange of money or other resources was not a regular and expected part of the bargain.  Close friends are ones who you can count on or can count on you for a financial need.  To be in hock a friend is a benefit to both you and the friend, certainly would not be a cause to avoid him.

All that to say, negotiating a friendship across cultures begins with an agreement on what friendship is.  I admit that the Burundian friends I feel closest to are the ones who accept my cultural construct of friendship.  I know that the friends here that ask me for loans or other items from time to time are harder for me to feel comfortable with.  But I wonder if the ones whom I see as close friends on my terms regard the relationship as more superficial than I do.  I guess I should ask.


Probably the low point of the week both culturally and just in terms of misfortune happened to Rebecca on Wednesday evening when she was driving home from work.  Here is her story.

About 1 minute from home, our LandCruiser engine started losing power, and spluttered off as I pulled over to the side of the road. I could not believe what had just happened. So I started the car and prayed that I would make it to the turn off up to our house, just ahead. I did make it that far, and was the next in line to turn off this narrow thoroughfare, but I had to wait half a minute for on-coming traffic. And before I could make the turn, the engine coughed, spluttered, screamed and clouds of black smoke started pouring out from in front and behind. The cars behind were honking. I tried to start the car again -- more pyrotechnics. People started screaming for me to turn off the car. My car was flanked by a crowd of 20 adolescent schoolgirls in uniform, waiting for their parents to pick them up. They were laughing and laughing, calling out mzungu! Obviously, it was such a riot that a foreigner would wind up in mess like this. But meanwhile, the mzungu circus (that's me) was blocking all traffic in all directions. 


Fortunately, one blocked car was driven by Kieren's dad, who had just left our house with Kieren in tow. He hopped out and got to work helping, with one other Burundian man, to push our big old truck off the road. It was no easy task, and meanwhile, the school girls continued to watch and smirk without lifting a finger to help solve the situaiton, even when I begged them to help push.  I must say, this was the most irritating aspect of the experience for me, and I continue to brood over what motivated their thoughtless nastiness.  (Paul reminded me that a group of adolescent girls in any society would not be the cultural ambassadors of choice--unless caddie, cliquish bullying is a sign of goodwill in ones country--so that probably explains it...) 


On the positive side, there was our Good Samaritan (aka our Good Muslim Neighbor). Somehow, he noticed it was me in trouble and walked down the road to help me, and even sent his guard to watch the car while Paul waited for a mechanic.


I (Paul) was struck by the poignancy of the "Good Samaritan" reference--the outsider who truly behaves like the good neighbor.  The girls who stood by and laughed would almost certainly all have been church attending Christians (most everyone is here) but the one who helped was the Muslim foreigner.   Anyone who thinks parables aren't still relevant or may not have anything to teach us as Christians should be warned.

I am going to end here as this is getting long and it is late.  We are going on a team retreat Friday and will be upcountry through the weekend, then off to Rwanda so will probably not post again before midweek next week.  We enjoy your thoughts and comments.

Phases of 50 Part 2--Collective Memories

One of the highlights of my 51^st Birth week, was receiving nearly 50 Birthday wishes from Friends on Facebook.  What is particularly gratifying about this is the span of time and space this network embodies.  Not counting my family, I received messages from friends whom I have known since as far back first grade.  This is no small thing since I was a 3^rd culture kid and went to Elementary School in a Country that does not even exist any longer.  (East Pakistan).  But also the breadth of relationships was gratifying, many are lifelong friends I made during my 25 year dance career as a dancer, a choreographer, and then teacher at Vassar College and other places that span the US and many parts of the world.  Probably the most cohesive group is my senior class in High School (Woodstock ’78 in Mussoorie, India)  I think we had a class of about 60 and I am friends with most on Facebook.

I have to say, I am not the only dancer/choreographer that has gone on to other things after 40.  Many of my peers have left the dance world (although among the few that remain, some have gone on to impressive careers choreographing for movies, on Broadway, or working as Professors at dance departments of different Universities.  Many of my former students are in mid career all over the US and the world.)  But I am very impressed by those who left and have gone on to other careers.  Some are doctors, social workers, successful entrepreneurs, many went back to school at some point in life for graduate studies, and most have families with great kids.

I am mentioning this for the benefit of parents of teenagers who are about to set off to College and may want to pursue performing arts (particularly dance) as a career.  My own experience and the experience of my peers would suggest that it is hard work, but good preparation for life.  It teaches, discipline, sacrifice, commitment, frugality, and other values that serve one in any pursuit in life.  It is not a dead-end or waste of time!

I certainly do not regret my choice to pursue dance after college for many years, I am proud of what I accomplished, and I also do not regret setting it aside it to pursue work in mission and development after 25 years.  I am very blessed to have a wonderful family, 2 awesome sons and an amazing wife.  But also I am thankful for the many friends I have met along the way through the many phases of life. 

I also appreciate greatly the fact that Facebook allows me to enjoy a collective memory of much of my life through friends that I had made along the way and with whom I shared significant experiences.  It is also gratifying to find that many are genuinely interested in what has happened to me, the ways I have changed over the years, etc.  I don’t spend a lot of time communicating on Facebook but it is like a living Year Book that I can open from time to time and see the past and the present of people I know.   

Celebration this week really began for us after Wednesday Feb 15^th when all of our reporting was due for the fiscal year.  Replicating the data to our headquarters in the US on Tuesday night successfully was almost an emotional event.

We had several social events afterwards on different nights.  On Wednesday we had the Horsts (our service worker family) over to dinner.  The reason for this was partly to officially pass on the first of the puppies who are going to new owners.  Jal (their 7 yo son) was very excited about bringing home the boy pup that they named ‘Scooby’.

On Thursday we went over to Allison Gill’s house, a young missionary woman here who actually helped us breed  Bella and has been promised a puppy.  We delayed on delivering the puppy though, as she will be going back to the UK briefly for several weeks, so we will hold onto her pup until then.

On Friday we dropped a second puppy at the house of John and Nadine a long term missionary who has married a Burundian. He has kids about Oren and David’s age (all girls) and is the owner of the male dog who is the father of the puppies.  It was interesting to talk to John as he is very much a jack-of-all-trades, but among his more impressive jobs is being sound engineer for the President of Burundi.  He is very busy and has a ‘lorry’ of equipment stored at his house which he takes ‘on tour’ whenever the President is upcountry.  (The President usually travels with an entourage of several choirs and a dance company when he goes campaigning or Evangelizing around the country.)

Oren and David had fun playing with the girls who have several swingsets and slides.  The puppy was a bit scared by the other big dogs there, but they did not seem to be threatening her in any way.

After our puppy drop-off we returned home and had a family dinner followed by a Birthday cake which I shared with Oren, David, Rebecca and MY PARENTS (on Skype.)!  You can see the picture of them on the computer next to the cake.  Friday was my actual Birthday, but we had planned a party on Saturday.

Admittedly, the party we planned on Saturday was fairly last minute with all of our time focused on deadlines at the beginning of the week.  Rebecca started texting people on Thursday that we wanted to have a contradance on Saturday for my Birthday.  (Actually it has been my ambition to one monthly.)  Anyway, we did get the message to all of our close friends and had a very good turn-out on Saturday.  Most of the folks from our small group were there including Tim and Jeanettes family, and Peter, Astrud and Travis came with family, many of our German friends were there as well as Naja and Thomas, and Zachee and Bridget (all with their families).  There were several other guests as well and we definitely had enough to do some dancing. 

I like to transform our house into a dance hall, that is take all of the stuff out of the living room and put it on the porch.  It is nice to sit out on the porch and have all that space in the house, like a dance studio.

We had prepared 5 dances that progressed in difficulty and were able to teach 3 of them but danced the more difficult one several times.  I am hoping that by the time we leave our friends will all be adept contradancers.

We ended the evening with a pot luck, and cupcakes decorated with the message Happy Birthday.  It was a really nice day. 

Sunday we went to church where there was a young English guy (David) speaking who works with a British Aid Agency.  He talked about the need this country has for Godly transformational leaders, modeled by Christians, who exemplify humility.  He compared it to a recent trip upcountry with a govt. official to see the opening of a school.  The official complained about having to get up early (9am—and he actually arrived 2 hours late), took umbrage that his title was slightly misspoken by the officiator of the ceremony, looked for a cause to ask for a bribe, then, as he left, made some inappropriate advances toward a young female subordinate.  David ended the sermon by asking what it would have been like to have this leader model the exact opposite behavior—arrive on time or early, laugh off small flubs of protocol, take interest in the project without looking for something for himself, and then not abuse power over subordinates, but rather respect them.

It was a good sermon and a reminder here that as  Christians and leaders, our behavior should reflect the values we hold, and model the servant leadership of our Lord.

We ended the evening Sunday at small group where Tim was hosting 3 pastors who were teaching in Burundi this week.  I was a bit intimidated leading but we had a very rewarding discussion about the anointing of Saul and the relevance of his story in the Burundian context.  We agreed that Saul, who started out with such promise and apparent modesty about assuming power, followed by his obsession with power and refusal to let go once king, was very relevant to the Burundian and whole African context for that matter.

A Few Updates

Simon Guillebaud and Tim Van Aarde after church on Sunday.  Simon is in Burundi this week and preached at PTI on Sunday.  



This is the week of reckoning for us with regard to work.  All of last year's final reports and next year's program plans are due into our database and replicated to MCC headquarters by tomorrow evening.  We are fairly well on top of this, but we do have to work hard still the next two days, so I will make this entry a short one.

Being at home all last week meant we were able to be in our normal routine of swimming in the morning.  There were no illnesses either so the kids were in school as well.  So since there was not much news in terms of weekly activities, I thought I would update those who read regularly on some past topics:

1) ROAD WORK:  I have disciplined myself to not add weekly diatribes about the way the work is being done, or the speed, etc.  But I am happy to say that there is now light at the end of the tunnel.  You might remember that it was last summer when we came back from vacation in July to find our bridge into our driveway was destroyed to begin the project of redoing ditches and putting cobblestones on all the roads in our quartier.  My complaint was that the systematic way everything was done one phase at a time, and not broken into smaller more manageable chunks.  In fact our bridge was destroyed at least 4 months before any work actually got to our road.  Anyway it has been about 8 months now and they have finally finished our ditches and replaced our bridge.  AND this past week they cobblestoned our road.

I watched the cobblestoning and it is amazing how fast it goes.  They grade the road, then put a ton of sand on it, then bring in lots of cobblestones and embed them in the sand.  Our entire road was done in one day (which adds another layer of annoyance that they made our road nearly impassable for 9 months because of the fact that they did so much at one time.)  But anyway, I think I will say it was worth it by the end of this week when all the roads in our quartier will be fairly level stone and not deep river beds in the rainy season.  There should also be considerably less dust in the dry season.  I am including a picture of the men doing the cobblestoning looking across from our gate toward our neighbors, then another shot of the finished road and our new bridge over the gutter.

2) BOOK DRIVE:  You might remember last month I posted a blog about the work of Rebecca's mom to help MCC pack a half container of books to send to our partners who do education work out here.  I have heard now that the container will leave port in the US around the 18th of Feb with an astounding 20,000 books!! All donations from people like you.  Rebecca and I are a bit daunted about the distribution process once they arrive, but as we have been letting our partners in on the results of the drive, we have received ecstatic responses.  Our partner UCEDD, who runs the Hope School is need of a library building at the school now, something we hope to help them attract a donor for now that they are receiving the books they need.

We are considering posting a one year volunteer position out here as a librarian to help our various partners organize their collections.  If that is something that would interest you, please feel free to let us know.

3) HOME DECORATING:  I started painting the house just before Christmas and after the living, dining rooms and main hallway I have taken a break.  But last week we hired a tailor to come spend a week at our house and make slip covers for all of the couches and chairs.  This will be to keep dust off in the dry season, but it also allowed us to make a color coordinated living room.  We used some 'gitenge' fabric from Tanzania and a solid beige and covered two couches and four chairs as well as cushions.  The fabric cost about $100 but to have a tailor come and work here for a full week only cost about $30.  We had him mend all of the curtains in our living and dining rooms as well.

4) ICECREAM:  This is a special note for in honor of our SALTers last year.  A real soft-serve icecream parlor opened in Bujumbura just down the road from our office.  It offers icecram cones for about 80 cents and tastes convincingly like Dairy Queen icecream (without the variety of Sundaes).  Between this and the very good Indian Food Restaurants we have here, I feel guilty saying that I work as a missionary.  (It is like living in the lap of luxury now!)  --for those of you who don't know, when we moved here over 2 and a half years ago, ice cream was only available in expensive import stores for about $10 per pint (and that was not Hagen Dasz).

5) UTILITIES AND INTERNET:  Generally electricity is much better these days and power failures are the exception and not the rule.  We do not even have what used to be the normal power cut from 10pm to 6am anymore.  Water is still not very consistent at our house and it is often off in the middle of the day, but we do have a 500 liter tower that fills when the water is running so we are rarely aware of the times when the water is cut.

Internet seems great to me.  We can download about a megabyte in a minute 20 seconds.  But it is fast enough to skype with video both directions.  I have also found that I can stream many low bandwidth radio stations available on my itunes.

6) LANGUAGE STUDY:  Rebecca and I are not studying at this time although we use French all the time and I use Kirundi in at least a few situation each week.  Oren continues to make snails pace progress in French, but still does very well in school.  David is learning french in his creche and if I say the name of any animal in French he immediately knows the English translation.  One thing Oren excels at is drawing.  He also really likes to make puzzles out of his drawings by cutting them up.  He gives them to us adults as gifts.  Truthfully, they are very challenging to put back together.

7) PUPPIES:  All four are growing fast and strong, and in fact this week is past the 7 week mark so they are now ready to be passed on to their new owners.  All are spoken for at this time.  I wish I had video footage of David playing with them.  He really gets down on all fours and behaves exactly like one of them.

I am going to stop here and go back to relieve Rebecca who is watching David.  He had a fever last night and we administered a home malaria test.  (I usually get the job of lancing the finger).  It was negative but he does have a throat infection which we are now treating.

We did not have much of a romantic Valentines Day today, but we did have a very nice weekend with an opportunity to go out to a dinner with other adults only on Saturday night.

Sunday we went to church and we were delighted to see our dear friend Simon Guillebaud, who had lived here 12 years with his family and left last year.  He is now in South Carolina working to support the work of some very good Evangelical ministries here including our church PTI and our partner Harvest for Christ.  I have posted a link to his books and video before, but here it is again.  More than Conquerors

Arugula and Social Security

A harvest of argula is among the small blessings I am counting this evening.  The source is our porch garden, although the seeds were from Jodi upcountry who has harvested 4 generations worth in the past year.  The original seed package was sent from Rebecca's mother by mail a year and a half ago (and passed on to Jodi).  We had arugula salad with peanuts and passion fruit vinagrette for dinner tonight.  It was our first harvest of this tasty vegetable this year and we expect to get at least a dozen or more salads from our porch planter this month.

It is at times like this, (and swimming) that I marvel that most of our family in the US are buried deep in snow.  Although I did miss having a white Christmas, it is at this time of year that I prefer the balmy Burundian climate.  We are currently beginning the second rainy season, so the air is exceptionally clear and the hills and valleys are lush and green.  Our avocado tree is producing loads of fruit as well, and bananas can be head for about a dime a dozen.  (that means lots of banana avocado smoothies.)

I had said last week that this past week and the coming weeks are very busy for us because we are closing our fiscal year for MCC this month and opening the new one.  That means a tremendous amout of translation, and data entry for Rebecca and I.  (Actually Rebecca ends up doing the majority of the data entry these days.)  We also try to meet with each of our partners to talk about plans for the coming year and the level of support we will be able to provide.

Because of this we were due for a visit to Rwanda and we made a plan to go up to Kigali this Wednesday and come back on Friday.  We try to minimize the amount of school the kids miss, but we did want to go all together so we left on Wednesday after school.   The trip to Kigali was fairly uneventful, we were in town by 6:30 pm and stayed at the Amani Guest House, near Ruth and Krystan's house.  We had an ambitious day ahead of us on Thursday; we wanted to meet with all of our Rwanda partners during the day as well as have a much needed debriefing with Ruth and Krystan about how things were going from their perspective.

We planned to divide up the day with Rebecca doing meetings with partners in the morning, and I in the afternoon.  The kids stayed home and played at the guesthouse which suited them fine.  I cannot explain why, exactly, but they love to go to Kigali eventhough they often spend most of their time at a guesthouse playing in the yard or in the room watching movies.

The day was long and we had to squeeze in a shopping trip at Nakumatt and banking at the end of the day just before dinner.  We went out with Ruth, Krystan (and baby Micha) to a fantastic Indian restaurant called Saffron.  (There are actually several great Indian restaurants in Kigali.)  Afterward we dropped Ruth and Krystan off back home then stayed our last night at the guest house.

We left midmorning on Friday.  Since we were in no rush to get home, we stopped by an area in  Northern Burundi (Kirundu) called the Bird Lakes.  There is a Catholic guesthouse up there and we were curious whether it would be big enough to host a partner's retreat in the future.  It was about 10 km off the main road and did take some time to find, but we did succeed.  The guest house was a nice place with a restaurant and 10 rooms--not big enough for a partners retreat, but maybe a team retreat in the future.

We returned to Bujumbura by Friday evening and had a quiet family dinner followed by some games together (mainly puzze building).  The puppies were very excited to see us.

Saturday morning we combined our morning exercise class with a swim.  We went over to the house of a German family (Bella and Nina) to do the class.  She works for GTZ (German Development Agency) and they have a great house with a pool, trampoline, and even 2 crowned cranes stalking about the property.  We stretched on their front porch (10 of us) then went for a dip in the pool with the kids afterwards.

We spent the afternoon at home and invited an American missionary couple Joy and Jessie Johnson over to our house with their 3 kids, Zack, Micah, and Elliot.  (All a bit younger than Oren.)  We have known them since we arrived, and Jessie actually grew up in Burundi and is an excellent Kirundi speaker and 'cultural' translator for us.  They work with a church planted by Jessie's grandparents called the Emmanuel Church, which now has many congregations throughout Burundi.  It is modelled on the 'denomination' that the Johnson's belong to, a group called the Plymouth Bretheren.  They told me that they are really in need of some volunteers to help them out in teaching and other work here, so if there are any Plymouth Bretheren who feel called to mission in Africa, you would be most welcome in Burundi.  (Am I talking to you Bruce?)

Sunday at church we heard a very inspired Kenyan woman talk about the faith of Rahab the prostitute as the message.  I can't sum it all up here, but she talked in a very relevant way about betrayal.  She mentioned among her examples, Judas' kiss as an example of how betrayal may not be an extraordinary act of evil, but rather one that is very ordinary, a simple greeting, but our intent (often hidden) defines the true nature of the act, not its outward appearance.

It was very good and Rebecca actually got to hear it as she has been able to do some rotation of Sunday school duties these days.

Sunday afternoon we went over to Astrid and Travis' new home to celebrate the 5th birthdays of their daughters Jasmine and Yaida.  We saw many of our expat. missionary friends there, including some that work upcountry.  The kids enjoyed playing on the bouncy castle (I think it is one of two in Burundi) that is rented for every Birthday the kids go to.  But they all just love it.



It is already Monday now and I want to get this posted but...

I want to close with some reflection on lessons learned in the past several weeks that continue to shape my understanding of the cultural context here.  It is interesting how this seems to deepen constantly but never hit bottom.

MONEY and its availability seems to be a subtext, undercurrent, or perhaps elephant in the room, of most every interaction we have here.  It is true that as representatives of a Christian NGO, we get our share of people seeking partnerships, but I will say that even if I go to a party, wedding, or any other gathering, and am introduced to a new person, no one seems to consider it 'forward' to ask about the possibility of partnering (getting money) or other favors within the first 5 minutes of conversation.  I am blessed that our church, PTI, is one haven from this most of the time, but we are asked for favors from time to time by random individuals even there.

Since we are, by Burundi standards, definitely people of means (filthy rich?) it always is difficult to not feel a paign of guilt about saying no to even the most immodest requests.  But after 2 and a half years I have become better at it.

What I have struggled more with, though is our failed efforts to use our money to give others here a 'hand-up' instead of a hand-out.  That is, to provide money in the form of education, land purchase, training, or even to buy a piece of equipment to help others 'help themselves' get out of the poverty trap.

To date I would say my efforts have been abysmally bad and several I have tried to help are actually worse off than before because I have gravely misunderstood the network of social relations and how they function here.  Some cases in point:

We lent our nightguard money to buy land near his homestead upcountry so his family could grow some crops and have extra income.  Before buying the land, he seemed to be poor but able to meet his and his family's basic needs.  Since purchasing the land he is in constant need of loans to buy cow dung, seeds, fencing materials, etc.  On top of that, it seems his status in the family has risen and he now pays school fees for his family and the families of his brother and sister.  He now usually sends his whole paycheck upcountry and virtually starves himself while working at our house because he has nothing left for himself.

Lesson learned:  Individuals are deeply connected in social care networks.  To help a single person here to 'get out' is really not possible.  When we improved his economic position in his community, he was expected to bear a greater economic burden for his clan.  Since he had taken a loan from us to do this, he has in fact become poorer because he receives less money than before from us, but bears a greater social burden in his community.  Even the harvest that his land will yield cannot offset this burden.

Our cook expressed to us a similar challenge when she asked for a raise last month.  Both of her parents have passed away and she is head of household.  (Although there are at least 3 adults among her 8 remaining brothers and sisters who live together.)  She explained to us that because of her having a salaried job, her other family members refuse to work doing 'petit commerce' for smaller amounts of money.  She and them perceive that it is her that should provide for all since she is making the most money.  The fact that we pay for her to finish high-school has made her an even more privileged hence financially burdened member of her community.

I have had a similar experience with another individual who I have helped with tuition for college.  When his elder brother saw that this person was receiving tuition money, he made this person head of household and responsible for younger siblings.  (It had been the elder brother's job prior to that.)  To make matters worse, my friend, who also runs a stall at the market selling shirts, took a month off to do an internship for school.  (I helped him with food at that time.)  While he was at the internship all of his inventory was stolen so he has not been able to continue working at the market.  He is finishing his education but he is now a jobless head of family, responsible for his other family members.

In all 3 cases it seems that at least in the short run, our interventions to give a hand-up have put our 'beneficiaries' into a worse economic position than before.  Hopefully something will improve in the long run, but it seems like a micro-cosmic model of the problem that many aid giving NGOs find in Africa.  To wit:  Development has to take into account the social networks in which people live here.  One cannot improve the lives of a few, economically, without considering the effect on the group.

The last example I have is an interesting case study in how the social network functions very counter-intuitively to western values.

I mentioned last week that I had to dismiss several workers from the household of one of our service workers.  Happily though, the next day, because we had identified a thief, I was able to hire an honest one back.  I called her and asked to come in and told her we were rehiring her to her old job and would sign a new contract.  I explained that since she had been dismissed the day before she would need to return the 2 month severance pay we have given her, or take it as a credit and pay it back over time.

She opted for the latter because she said she had already spent it all and had only a few 'dollars' left.  I tried not to show how stunned I was that this person, who had been told she was unemployed the day before and was given 2 months pay plus the end of Jan salary would have absolutely nothing by the very next morning when unemployment is about 50% here and the prospects of finding a new job soon were very slim.

But then I remembered the social network.  I have no doubt that she took that money and payed off debts of all her family, friends, neighbors, basically leveraging herself out as much as possible in her community to be sure that she had a secure set of lifelines upon which she could rely for the hard times ahead.  I imagine that the idea of hoarding the money and using it on herself judiciously over time to make it last as long as possible would have been unimaginable to her and unacceptable to her friends and family.

I try hard not to judge.  I realize there are things to be said good and bad about coping strategies in our cultural context as well as this one.  I am always surprised to find that there are other 'rational' ways of behaving that might fly in the face of my notion of 'common sense'.  Indeed, there are many ways that Burundian traditional society resembles the early church with its communitarian ideals better than community structures in my own culture.  But I admit that understanding better has not necessarily drawn me closer.  I do find that I cling to core values that have defined me since birth and from time to time regard others as just plain 'weird'.  This is a change from my naive earlier perspective that we are all basically the same.  We are not.  For me understanding is the first step toward  honest respect, even if I cannot necesarily embrace or even accept the all the practices of 'the other'.  I do pray that from all of this I might truly have a heart of wisdom in my old age.

Hope and the Wilde Ride

Hope School student drummer, part of the welcoming committee for the visit of Dr. Robin Wilde.


I admit that there are some days that my enthusiasm for writing a weekly post wanes.  But I never regret the effort put into it when I read back over the activities of past weeks.  Sometimes I am surprised to find how quickly I forget the details of time past, even in the last month.

This week seems particularly important to get down in print.  I would describe it as challenging and at times, a bit of a nail-biter.  In retrospect I would say that the adage "all's well that ends well" certainly applies, but it did not begin that way.

Over the last weekend I spent some time ruminating over a particularly onerous task prepared for me on Monday.  Sadly, one of our service workers had been experiencing theft by someone among their house staff.  The service worker needed help to communicate the reason for dismissal cross-culturally, so Felix and I said we would do the job.

Firing people, especially very poor staff, is a responsibility that runs right up against my bourgeois sense of compassion.  By that I mean that despite feeling very violated that a trusted worker in my house may be going through my stuff and stealing things, there is something in me that feels, in some way, that because of my privilege I deserve to have someone poorer steal my money.

I have talked with Burundians here (all of whom have house staff, usually a cook and a nanny) and this makes no sense to them.  Many will dismiss a cook for shorting them about 10 cents on a trip to the market to buy food.  They insist to me that there are people out there trying to find a job who are honest. Why reward someone with employment who is not honest?

Sadly, also, stealing by workers is expected by the Burundians I talk to.  In fact, my Burundian friends have all told me that, to a great extent, the onus is on you yourself to keep valuables locked up at all times when workers are in the house.  Leaving them out is an invitation to steal them and one should expect it.  Most of the Burundians I know lock their bedrooms and don't let anyone clean in there.  Rebecca and I feel we have enough trust to let our workers clean in the bedrooms, but I have to admit, I do not know a single person here who has not had to fire a worker for theft--even us in the first few months we were here.

All that said, the day arrived and Felix and I met with the staff of our service worker one by one on Monday at the office and dismissed four of seven.  (The thief had bought a parcel of land shortly after one disappearance of money, the other workers dismissed were related to the person who stole.)

This was a hard but necessary job that took most of the morning.  I was glad Felix was there to help me.

The week had no where to go but up after that set of meetings on Monday.  Tuesday I taught ballet in the afternoon as usual.  A propos to that, I am excited about the recent purchase of 5 large mirrors that I am having installed in the room where I teach.  I was able to buy them from saving the small fees I have charged for classes over the past year; hopefully the installation will be completed next week.

Wednesday was definitely the highlight of the week.  (I should mention here that Jodi was down from upcountry this past weekend and stayed with us Monday and Tuesday as well staying with us.  Her reason for being here was to help with a task set for Wednesday).  I need to give a bit of background though:

About a year ago, I received an email in response to my blog from a pastor named Dr. Robin Wilde.  He told me was the director of an organization called Foundation for Hope in Africa (based in Wisconsin), which supported projects in Uganda and Tanzania. They were interested in doing something in Burundi.  He asked me for some suggestions, and looking at the work they did, I suggested they consider a partnership with UCEDD, our partner who runs the Hope School for the Batwa.

We had several more correspondences back and forth between me, him, Innocent (who directs UCEDD) and Jodi (our volunteer seconded to the Hope School) and out of all this came a plan for him and his colleague Roger to stop briefly through Burundi between visiting a project in Eastern Congo and returning to Kampala where they had brought a small team for some work.

The plan required precision in timing that concerned me greatly in the African context.  It involved them leaving Goma in Eastern Congo by a small chartered Mission Aviation plane at about 1pm and arriving in Bujumbura about 2.  We would pick them up at the airport and zip them up the 3 hours to Nyangungu where the Hope School is located.  They would stay the night, then I would zip them back down the next morning to catch their plane and get back to Kampala by mid-afternoon  (the pilot was not allowed to fly after 5pm because he would exceed his maximum hours).

Things went typically African right from the start.  Robin called me about 2 pm to say they were still stuck in Goma and were not given permission to take off for no apparent reason.  (It turned out of course that the immigration officials were 'holding then hostage' in an attempt to extract a bribe.)  When they were finally given permission to leave, immigration in Congo had delayed their flight for about 4 hours.

This created a dilemma for me because I realized that I did not feel it was safe to leave after 3:30 to drive to Nyangungu as we would need to drive on some of the smaller dirt roads after dark.  There has been an increase in banditry by armed gangs on the roads after dark, particularly on some of the smaller roads we would be travelling.

I made a plan B to drive them half-way, to the town of Gitega (about 2 hours up the road) if they got here by 5, and then continue on to the school early the next morning.  Plan C was to stay in Bujumbura and just describe the school to them--not a good option but I had decided that there was no way I could safely drive to Gitega after 5 pm as that would mean we would be driving in the dark at least part of the way.

I received a call from Robin at 4 pm that said they were given permission to leave and were on their way and would be in Buj. in an hour.  Jodi and I drove out to the airport (Rebecca and the kids were not coming on this trip) and the plane touched down just before 5pm.  Fortunately the airport was empty and they came out of immigration at about 5:05pm.  This made my dilemma even more difficult.  Should I try to drive to Gitega 5 minutes after my absolute deadline to leave had past?  I said a prayer and decided to go for it.  We got in the car quickly and I sped up the mountain.  We were in Gitega just before 7pm.

We had no reservations anywhere in Gitega, but it really was not a problem.  We stayed at a hotel on the edge of town that had rooms.  Robin and Roger were exhausted from their ordeal in Goma and went right to bed after dinner.

Innocent and Beatrice (his wife who directs the school) met us at the hotel the next morning and we proceeded together the last hour and 45 minute drive.  This gave Innocent a chance to say more about the school as we drove.  When we arrived at the school about 8:30 am we were met with a rousing welcoming ceremony including singing and traditional Burundian drumming (the school has a drum team now.)

Our time was going to be short.  We only had about an hour 45 minutes to spend at the school in which we wanted to visit some classes, talk to the principles, see the Batwa community, consider some project sites, as well as visit the seminary to see whether it would be suitable as a guest house for potential future mission trips.

Jodi and Innocent gave them a whirlwind tour while I acted as cameraman.  (Since funding would depend and convincing constituents of Hope Fund, good video and photos were important.)  I would not have thought it would be possible, but we did manage to do a very good presentation of the school in our limited time.

We were back in the car at 10:45am heading down the mountain.  We took Innocent and Beatice part of the way back so we had a bit more time to dialogue with them.  (Jodi stayed at the school).

We zipped back to Bujumbura and I got them to the airport about 5 minutes before their plane was set to leave.  I actually prayed and thanked God for the minor miracle of making the logistics of this trip actually work.  I have learned a lot about not setting time limits when trying to do something here, but somehow he was merciful in working within the limitations we had imposed.

I was also blessed that Roger and Robin made a good connection with Innocent and were actually impressed and moved by the work that UCEDD is doing with the Batwa at the Hope School.

I got back home around 2pm, that Thursday exhausted but relieved.  I think Rebecca was very happy to have me back to take a turn with the kids again.  She was feeling particularly pressed by deadlines looming in the next 3 weeks due to the end of one fiscal year and the beginning of the next for MCC.

Friday was not a day off for me though, despite the long trip on Wednesday and Thursday.  I had committed, several weeks earlier to do a lecture on Transformational Leadership at a conference run by one of our partners (Harvest for Christ).  This is a lecture I had given before and I do enjoy sharing it because it is a talk that I have developed from spending time in this cultural context and I feel speaks directly to the challenges of leaders (church and organizational) in Burundi.

I had prepared lecture notes so I did not feel the talk would be difficult.  However, on Thursday night I found that they in fact were not on my computer and I realized only then that they had been the casualty of a computer crash last year.  I would have been in a panic had it not been for my wonderful, incredibly organized, wife who remembered where she had put a hard copy of the notes she had found, and I was able to use them.  (Project for this week--copy them back into the computer.)

The talk was in Ruziba a commune just a bit out of town, and I only had minimal anxiety finding the location.  The talk was very well received, especially the section about power and authority and the ways in which these function in an organizational structure.  Generally in Burundi all authority is seen as positional--(that is hierarchical), the style is directional--(top down as opposed to team oriented with shared responsibility) and punishment is seen as the only way to influence others (as opposed to rewards, or even the concept of a shared vision.)  This is sadly a result of the colonial education system still very much in use today, as well as the monstrous inefficient French bureaucracy that continues to be the only truly enduring government institution here.

This leadership style, though, is also the inheritance of the church here, and pastors often play the same role as an autocratic CEO in a family business in their churches, with the congregation as the hapless employees.

The idea of a transformative leader who instills a shared vision, leads by example, EMPOWERS OTHERS to carry out the vision, are very foreign concepts here where leaders are often secretive and obsessed with consolidating power.  Also the concept of a learning organization that evaluates itself responds and adapts is equally foreign.  The young Christian leaders to whom I spoke, though, were quite enthusiastic about these new ideas.

(Speaking in a Christian context, I was able to draw on Paul's description in the Bible in Corinthians as the church as a body with many members.  In this conception every part is essential even though functions are quite different.  The brain can hardly claim that it is more important to life than a liver, heart, or even a limb.  Seeing an organization or even a local church as having the relationship of members of a body as opposed to a fiefdom with nobles and serfs was quite effective here because the passage is quite familiar, but the implications were quite a new revelation to those listening.)

Saturday was a welcome respite from the busy week.  We took it easy in the morning, played with the kids, and then went to a Birthday party in the afternoon for Isabel, the 2 year old daughter of our South African missionary friends Tim and Jeanette.  The party was at David's school and all the kids seemed to have a good time.  (Oren brought Timmy along so he would have another older kid to play with.)

Sunday we went to church then worked around the house trying to clean up from the neglect of the week.  Things were a mess for several reason 1. Marceline has been sick all week, 2) Our cleaner has been doing substitute nightguard duty, and 3. The puppies are at that age where they are not yet potty trained but Bella (the mother) is not cleaning up their messes.  Our porch gets pretty disgusting on a daily basis now.  As cute as they are, I will be happy when we can start to pass them on to new owners (after Feb 20th).

We are looking ahead to another week of travel, this time as a family, to Kigali, should be back by the weekend though.

Unsung Heroes of the Faith

Here is the recently painted hallway in our house. I am staying with the circle motif.



Beginning to write after 10pm on Sunday night is now the rule of thumb and not the exception.  I have a very full week beginning bright and early Monday morning so I will need to make this short and sweet and complete before tomorrow because I do not know when I will be able to return to it.

I would describe this week, above all, as relational.  It is a very important part of life here.  In fact visiting people for social calls is a national pastime, and pretty much everyone in the country is out between the hours of 5 and 10pm visiting friends, family, neighbors.  Usually this is done without any invitation or warning that you are going to show up.  One just goes and is always welcome.  Hospitality demands that food or at least a beverage is shared--banana beer up country, but in town among protestants, a fanta suffices.  It is not unusual for the visiting party to have some request for money or other assistance, although conversation is not always an important objective, and folks will sit around watching TV or listening to the radio together for hours.

Rebecca and I usually do not participate in this ritual because of the kids.  (We do not have a nanny, which is the exception not the rule here, especially for Burundians.)  But this last week we actually headed out as a family for several visits.  The first one was on Monday, to the home of Jean Claude and Francine, some close Burundian friends who very recently had their baby 'Duke'.  This is their first, and Rebecca had given her the book "What to Expect When You Are Expecting" which was greatly appreciated by her before the birth.  (Books, as I have mentioned before are almost impossible to come by here), so this resource was a rare treasure, and I think Francine is now the local prenatal authority.

Duke is doing very well and David seemed interested in the new baby, although the kids spent most of their time running in and around the small house.

The other visit to Burundian friends was on Saturday when we went to Onesphore's home (our partner from Harvest for Christ ministries).  The occasion for this visit was to welcome back his wife Innocente who had been in France for a 2 year residency for her gynecological training.  It was such a blessing that this day finally arrived, as we were with Onesphore on the day she left.  It was a tremendous sacrifice for both of them as he was left here with their 2 small children Jim and Deborah.  They felt like it was worth it, and we are happy that the ordeal is over for both of their sakes.  (I think it must have been hardest for Innocente to be away from her kids for that amount of time, rather than Onesphore who had a lot of extra responsibilities, not typical of a Burundian father, but that he took on willingly.  (I have a picture of them together here).

Oren and David did make some social calls of their own to various friends including a visit to the house of the Horsts, our service workers where they enjoyed playing with the animals in their growing menagerie.  (Cat, dog, rabbits, chickens, guinea hens).  Jal, their son, had built a tree house recently with his Dad and Grandfather, which Oren was really excited about climbing to.

The work week was fairly normal, and did not involve any trips out of the city of country.  Our program officer Felix was out of town all week at a conference in Uganda called the Great Lakes Initiative (GLI) run out of Duke University.  It has been in Burundi the past 2 years in January (you can look at past blogs in the month of January if you are interested) and Rebecca and I have assisted in hosting it.  We were sorry to miss the very inspiring discussion that has come out of this gathering, but were relieved to not have to be responsible for the logisitcs of it for a third year.

For some reason, perhaps because we are coming to the close of our fiscal year, I have been thinking a lot about accountability, and particularly the field of accounting.  I have to admit, I have occasionally been guilty of what I would consider a societal stereotyping of the accounting profession.  Perceiving it, it at best as the dreary repository of nerdy number crunchers and at worst, (after the Global Financial crisis), as the lair of unscrupulous, sleight of hand, con artists.  But I have realized the error of my ways, particularly here in this context.  (For those of you old enough to remember the Monty Python sketch about the chartered accountant who wants to be a lion tamer, you get the picture of the cultural disparagement of accountants I chuckled at.)

I now regard accountants as truly the unsung heroes of our faith.  I say this because I have found that in terms of honesty and integrity, most flaws in our character show up, eventually, in the way we handle money.  In MCC, I have really been schooled in this fact because of the way in which we are subsidized.     Our position is technically 'volunteer' which is to say that we are not paid a salary, but rather our needs here are paid for out of the budget MCC provides annually for our country program.  That means we do a budget for the year estimating how much we will spend on our needs (food, schooling, housing, etc.) as well as the grants we give for the work of our partners, and the needs of our other MCC team volunteers.)  Because the budget is fixed, what I spend on food, directly affects what we are able to give in grants to help the vulnerable people our partners activities support.

Consequently, our family has to do a monthly report in which we have to account for every penny we spend every month, from vegetables we buy on the street, to gas in the car, and meals we eat out.  When I think that lowering our own costs makes more money available for the work we support, there is a real incentive to be as frugal as possible.

I will say that being required to keep track of everything I spend money on, and accountable for it to our organization has been a challenging act of humility and obedience, but not one I regret.  I have learned a lot about the extent to which I wasted money in my life at home in the US.  Being accountable in this cultural context where people have so little has been one of the hard lessons I have learned.

But that has given me a new appreciation of the profession of accounting, especially for us as Christians. I have learned that it is one thing to claim to be an upstanding person of integrity, but it is quite another thing to transparently demonstrate this by letting someone shine a light into the dark  crannies of all your expenditures.  Most of us might consider this to be invasive, but in a community that strives to be 'salt' and 'light', integrity begins in ones own wallet.  (Many of us hide secrets, and most of those secrets that need correction come at a cost and leave a paper trail.)

For our partners, we demand an equally rigorous amount of accountability for the grants we give them.  Every penny must be accounted for to demonstrate that it went to the purposes for which it was destined.  Although we deal with quite a bit of money, I do think about the fact that it is mostly collected by individual Mennonites, many of them rural farmers giving small but often sacrificial contributions into church offering plates, because of a desire to help those in need in other parts of the world.  I am glad that as a Christian, that someone is holding me and all of us working at distributing gifts, accountable to those gifts and to those people.  (I admit, it is becoming a pet peeve of mine to see Christian organizations and churches that distribute money on the basis of blind 'trust' that do not insist on accountability structures that assure that 'trust' is merited.  I have come to see trust as a verifiable action, not a feeling, or some abstract religious idea.)

So the people charged with keeping me fidel to my call, are accountants--in our program, in our partnerships, and at MCC headquarters.  It is a noble profession and one that is held in high esteem in the Bible.  In the Old Testament, the Levites were responsible with collecting and seeing that the tithes were properly handled. I even found in reading Nehemiah that modern structures of accountability were built in, with local Levites collecting tithes, but then having to give an accounting themselves to a priest in the temple.  (2 people)

In the new Testament, I think Barnabus was one of the first Christian accountants, charged with making sure that money collected for distribution to widows did not unfairly favor Hebrew widows over other minorities.


In Burundi, the biggest challenge for us to work here as Christians is trying to work with local churches here with integrity.  Accountability structures are non-existent in many churches here, even well established ones.  The offering, for instance, is often seen as the property of the pastor, who does with it what he pleases, but most often treats it as a salary or speakers fee.  Money coming in from abroad from international Christian missions, or the main branch of a church, is frequently misused, going into the pockets of leaders, rather than used for purposes for which it was destined.  To make matters worse, a pastor or church leader will often take umbrage at even being asked to give an accounting of how money given or collected is spent as if such a question directly impugn his calling (and status) as a 'man of God'.

To a great extent, that has been the work of some our Christian partners--to educate pastors and churches in accountability and setting up accountability structures to use money demonstrably honestly.  It is really a new concept in churches here and often met with considerable resistance, because unlike in the US, a local church is often seen as an income generating opportunity for a pastor, and Christian foreign aid is seen as a personal entitlement to those who are working in a church or other Christian project.

So I conclude by singing the praises of one group of unsung heroes of our faith: Accountants.  Those noble men and women who put time and effort into seeing that we are wise and discerning about the way we use our money, and that the use of our resources, reflect the values we profess.  If any accountants out there want to have some opportunity to capacity building here in Burundi with Christian partners, or churches, we could probably make an opportunity for you without much problem.

Bonus photo:  When in doubt about how interesting your writing is, add a picture of cute puppies and all is forgiven.  As you can see, they are getting bigger.  The boy is looking forward, the girls right.  Name suggestions anyone?

Bearing Fruit and the Birth of the Great Lakes Peace Institute

Oren playing with his food.


It is great to have a week where one of the highlights is a sermon you heard on Sunday.  The preacher was a young Burundian man named Florentin, educated at Fuller Seminary in California, who preaches from time to time at PTI (the church where we go).  It is hard, I have found, for a Burundian or a mzungu to preach a sermon that is cross-culturally relevant.  Often I find the message directed at the issues of one culture or another, but to say something to both simultaneously is a challenge, and not an expectation I have anymore.

But Florentin spoke about our call as Christians in what he has called 'the season of work' (as opposed to the season of blessing).  This already promised to be a bit controversial because my sense was that this was a corrective to the sermons often preached here at the beginning of the year about how we are indeed entering our season of bounty and blessing, when God will 'open the floodgates of Heaven' and bless us 'more than abundantly' with all we could hope, think or imagine.  But instead, Florentin said he did not believe this was such a season, rather, for Christians here, it is a time to work in the vineyard.

For him this meant to live fully as Christians, bearing the fruits of the Spirit:  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control.  Living in our homes and workplaces in a way that 'the world does not recognize us,' and would probably hate us.  He referred to things like not participating in, but rather standing against injustice and corruption here, even at great personal cost.

As far as the work itself, he exhorted us to find the work that God has prepared for us specifically, where we are indispensible--not where a hundred other people could do the same thing.  He asked why teachers, economists, psychoanalysts, and theologians in the congregation are not going out into the interior of the country (villages) to work, where they are really needed!  (He joked that it is because we love electricity too much--touché).


But the take home lesson for me was what he said about why we do this.  He made it clear that we do not do this to 'help' others, to alleviate poverty, or whatever other noble intention we imagine ourselves to have.  He said we do it to manifest the fruit that God has given us the capacity to produce.  Good fruit is simply what comes naturally from one who is connected to the true vine.  It is the end in itself.  And not only that, but the one who is actually most blessed by bearing this fruit, is the one who bears it, not the ones receiving it.  He gave a lighthearted example, saying what is a teacher if she has no students?  It is the teacher who receives the blessing of using her gift when she has the opportunity to teach.

This is a supreme corrective to me as a Christian missionary.  I confess I came here with the naive idea that I was going to do some good in the world.  With that attitude, disappointment can come fast and furious.  All of one's high aspirations and best laid plans are quickly dashed against the obdurate realities of poverty and despair.  It would not be possible to remain here in a way that is 'goal-oriented' at 'helping' others.  One must find a different understanding of what one is doing here.

When I see that what I am doing is bearing the fruit of the spirit put in me, and doing the work that God has put before me, for Him, I can truly experience the blessing of being here.  If what we do does some good, it is He who is working through us, not us who are doing it and we may not know even what seeds we are sowing for Him in the work we are doing.

I don't know how this sermon affected everyone else, but it has helped shift more fully a paradigm I have  felt a need to reconsider.  I tried to recount it to Rebecca as well as I could as she was in Sunday School at the time (with her now quite large class), and I am thankful that David slept most of the time so I could really have a chance to hear it, a rare gift.

The remainder of Sunday was spent around the house, cleaning, watching puppies, and painting the hallway.  In the evening we met with our small group where we are studying the book of I Samuel.  We marveled at how the story of the Kings of Israel begins with the faithfulness of a barren woman--not even the mother of a king herself--yet in her prayer following her pregnancy, able to understand the profound, paradoxical character of God.  (Not unlike Mary in the book of Luke.)

The earlier part of the week was full, but interesting.  Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were business as usual in terms of work and routine.  Kids were in school, Rebecca and I swam before work every morning, prayed, and worked everyday during normal hours.  Actually, Rebecca had an interesting opportunity on Tuesday and Wednesday. She was invited to share devotionals with the senior staff of the World Vision team in Burundi. She found it a good challenge for her herself to look closely again at some of the parables of the Kingdom in Mark. She was well-received, even though people were challenged by the interpretation of the parable of the weeds: we are called to suffer and forgive the presence of evil, since we are not qualified to be the harvesters. Oren played with different friends but Timmy remains his best friend and they are able to play for long periods of time without supervision, even with David.  Oh, and I taught ballet to 'mes petites filles' at the Ecole Belge on Tuesday.

Thursday was a travel day for me.  I went to Gitega to do some strategic planning with our partner MiPAREC.  This is an organization that runs an annual, one month program, called the Great Lakes Peacebuilding Seminar.  It is an excellent training ground for peace trainers in our region.  I left the car with Rebecca and was able to catch a ride upcountry with Zachee and Bridget. (Bridget was part of the strategic planning group as well.)

We arrived mid morning to meet our hosts from Miparec as well as partners from Rwanda and Congo who are stakeholders in this program.  We were called together because the organization is experiencing some growing pains.  MCC and other donors have diminished funding for this seminar, now in its 7th year, and they were not sure how to keep funding it in the future.

I have to say, I often find strategic planning dry, but perhaps as a prelude to the sermon I was to hear on Sunday, I felt very intrigued and well-interested in finding a solution to the problem, (and gifted to do so), particularly because it allowed some capacity-building opportunities for the organization.

The meeting began typically with the our hosts handing us a budget for the seminar (about $26,000 for 20 people for one month which includes training and room and board.)  In the past, all students were invited to come for free and in fact their transportation was covered as part of the grant.  For MIPAREC the question seemed to be, 'who is going to step up and pay for all of this as donor funding has diminished?'

For me it did not take any complex accounting to see how they could still cover the cost of 10 participants with the grant money received and offer the other 10 places to other NGOs who wanted to send participants at about $1800 each.  (a great value for a month of training and transportation, room and board.)  One donor who was at the meeting immediately offered to buy 4 places of the 10 left.  That only left 6 to fill.

What was satisfying for me was to help them see how to conceive of the program as something that had market value and not simply a charity, and how to work in the direction of self-sufficiency and sustainability.  I think the solution was received with enthusiasm, as perceiving the program in this way was novel to them.

We did far more planning as well, and actually created a structure to institutionalize the seminar with an Advisory Committee with authority to make decisions, under which there is now a curriculum committee, logistics committee (that runs the seminar and invites and selects participants) as well as an Alumni association. When we were done we re-christened it The Great Lakes Peacebuilding INSTITUTE,  since we felt it had grown beyond seminar status after 7 years.

The meeting took the better part of two days, which is long.  And I admit, as a mzungu, meetings here seem slow to me.  Things that would be done in a matter of minutes can take hours here, often because of arcane French formalities that are preserved here (everyone making a speech at the beginning and end being one of them--the leader usually makes at least one response speech as well at each end.)

I also wish I could capture the old-school way of brainstorming, not with powerpoint, IPADS, magic boards, computer projectors, etc. but rather with large flipcharts and magic markers.  We went through about 75 pages of flip charts which were all dutifully masking taped to the walls all around the conference room.  I have to say, it is quite effective, maybe some of you out there in the corporate or academic world might want to try to 'kick it old school' for a change and do a meeting without electricity.

Actually electricity was a problem as we had very little at the conference facility and none all night in the room I slept in.  I was really unprepared for Gitega, having brought neither flashlight nor warm clothes (Gitega is cold at night.)  I had to use my computer to find the toilet at one point and pretty much froze in the dark all night.

When it was time to go home I left for Buja by taxi with Laurent, one of the Congolese from the meeting, as well as Yolanda, who was heading down from Gitega to catch a bus in Buja for Uganda (she was heading to a conference there).  This was the first time I had come down the mountain by cab and I was a bit nervous, but interested.  Six of us were packed into two seats and the trunk was loaded with supplies, including several hundred kilos of rice and beans.

If this were the New York City subway, I would say we were on the local, because I was surprised at how many stops and starts we made down the mountain to discharge and load on cargo.  The last hour we had unloaded the beans and started the descent with four 20-gallon plastic jerry cans of boiling hot milk.  (I guess they pasteurize it and send it down the mountain hot.)  The car actually got quite hot from the heat generated by these enormous jugs.  We discharged them at the bottom of the mountain just as we got to Bujumbura.

Yolanda and I were the last passengers let off, and we were not able to get all the way to our house by car as the roads in our neighborhood remain impassable. Still we were none the worse for wear.  The 2 hour 80 kilometer drive from Gitega to Bujumbura, cost us $5 each.

Yolanda stayed with us Friday and joined us for a group of 6 who did exercises on Saturday morning before heading off to Gitega.  Our family went to the beach with our friends Jeanette and Tim on Saturday afternoon where Oren could not resist skinny dipping in the Lake as soon as we got to the beach.  It was great to be back with the family, and I confess that of all the things I do here, my deep bliss comes from raising our children and watching them mature.

A few notes from Rebecca about the week:


On Saturday morning, after exercising I left the kids with Paul and I headed to the market to get fabric to cover our couches. I had found a really nice fabric before Christmas and wanted to get 12 more meters of it. The type of fabric is called a pagne. It comes in 6 meter pieces and it's what women wear here for skirts all the time. I had a swatch of fabric with me and prepared myself for "market battle" in advance: parked the car in a secure place, hid my wallet, stowed the money I needed in a highly private and inaccessible location, took my phone and keys and set out by foot (the battle is with potential pick-pockets). Once in the market, it didn't take long to find one of the 'finders,' a boy who helps one find things. He saw the swatch and made a beeline for the pagne section, steering past the fresh food and the fish section, bypassing the cookware and plumbing supplies. One by one, we started showing the fabric to all the vendors. One by one, they just shook their heads and said, "no, hakuna, hakuna, we don't have that, there's none of that around." We searched and searched and finally found one fairly belligerent woman who said, "yes, I've got it." Like a spider, she climbed up 15 feet of railings, on which multi-colored pagnes were hanging, and pulled this fabric off the top rail. It was the same! Apparently the problem is that it is "original," that is, it's pure cotton and well-made, not a synthetic or mixed fabric. And it comes from Congo and there aren't many of these types of fabric in circulation. So, she sold us one for a little more than I wanted to pay, after I negotiated that she should give the finder a "fanta." We kept looking for another pagne, but came up empty. As we were leaving, we passed the stall of the belligerent woman again. She said, wait, I've found another. So I left the market with 12 meters in hand -- we hope it will be enough to cover some of our living room furniture and guard against the ever-present dust.

Notes on dog food:

When consulting my Dogs for Dummies book on the question of how to feed our puppies, I found that 100% of the information refers to canned or prepared dog food. Whatever happened to "buy local" dog owners? I guess they don't buy "Dummies" books. One can buy imported canned dog food here -- but who wants to pay $4 for a tiny can? So we need to make it up as we go along. I've found a butchery here which sells ground beef for dogs. It's a paste made up of all the parts of the butchered animals which they can't sell any other way, i.e. it's offal and it smells AWFUL! But it is the perfect thing for cheap soft puppy food. I boil this up with some water, cook rice separately, mix the two, and Voila! home-made dog food. The puppies have been eating for the past three days and really enjoying it. It's good to know that I'm following historic precedent. Did you know that the first dog food was prepared by recycling expired work horses back in the 19th century? For Mama dog Bella, I can buy something called Chang Chang -- cheap bones of all kinds, which we can boil and she loves. 

Finally, we want to extend thanks to the many friends who are working to support the project of sending books to the Hope School in Burundi and the two libraries we support in Rwanda. We are very grateful to all of you! My mother has filled at least 20 boxes so far. But the container is big so there's still room for lots more. Thanks for sending them on to Ephrata, Pennsylvania before the end of January (address below two blogs ago). We really appreciate your efforts and your generosity and the resourcefulness of those of you who have tracked down French titles to send.