Social Engagements and a Goma Update

Peter and Linda Taylor at their engagement party at our house last weekend.

Among the many blessings I experienced last week, the opportunity to be in Bujumbura the whole week and to go to the pool every day for a swim before work was probably the best.  I think this is only the second week since our return that I was home for the whole week.  I was especially grateful for the opportunity to swim because if you have been following this blog you may remember that our regular swimming venue, Entente Sportif is undergoing a 3 month renovation that began at the beginning of November.  It took some serious investigation to find another pool because there are very few here.  The one in our neighborhood is closed between 8 and 9 am for cleaning which is the only time Rebecca and I have.  Fortunately Rebecca got a special dispensation from the owner to let us go and swim during cleaning time.  This is really awesome for us because the cleaning is not disturbing at all and the whole pool is empty while we are there!

Rebecca in the office.

I enjoyed every aspect of our daily routine from taking the kids to school in the morning to picking them up at noon, sharing lunch together, then partaking of afternoon activities or returning to work depending on the day.  Rebecca and I have both felt behind to the point of negligence with regard to office work.  We have been out of town so much there is a long back-log of emails and other reporting.  We slogged through that over the week. 

Oren has two activities now that meet twice per week.  He is continuing karate, but has also added soccer.  I would say he is not a prodigy in either, but the karate does give him more opportunity to be immersed in French and to exercise, and he really seems to enjoy going to soccer. 

Friday is particularly active extra-curricular day as I have 3 dance classes during the afternoon while Oren is at soccer practice.  Since he practices right outside my studio and many of our friends have their daughters in ballet or sons in soccer, it is a very nice kind of social afternoon.  My adult ballet class in the evening is also proving to be very satisfying.  All the classes have 10 or more participants many who have had dance before. 

The weekly routine has also allowed us to have family tea time again several times per week, although Oren’s soccer practice goes until 5:30 so that is not always possible.

The weekend had some fairly major social events, one of which we hosted. It was an engagement party for a missionary couple who actually met here. Peter Taylor and Linda Taylor (same last name), both retired teachers, had come here from different parts of the world (he, from Australia, she, from Colorado) to offer their services teaching. Peter has been working at the Montessori school these past 2 years and Linda has been doing English instruction at various places around Bujumbura.  They had not known each other before they came here.  Rebecca and I had come to know Peter through our small group of which he used to be a part, and both of them attend our church.

Many of us had begun to notice a budding romance, but they officially declared their engagement this fall. They plan to marry in the US, but since they met here many of us felt they should have an engagement party here in Burundi.  Rebecca and I offered to host it since we have a big house.  The big day was this past Saturday and we prepared the house for a large group, putting extra furniture out on the porch ordering a cake arranging flowers, etc.  It was actually quite a big production. 

Guests starting arriving about 3 and we had about 50 people all told including kids.  It was also a potluck so there were many snacks that others brought.  It was a very integrated mix of ex-pats and Burundians as they have many friends and colleagues here who were very excited to celebrate with them.

At about 4, we all sat around together in the living room and shared memories and stories about seeing the development of the relationship.  Peter and Linda filled in some details of the courtship and future plans.  It is likely they will stay in Burundi together for several years.  There were some jokes from ex-pats about whether Linda would hyphenate here name (Taylor-Taylor).  The most surprising and amusing anecdotes came from the Burundians.  Overwhelmingly the reaction was amused incredulity.  They could not imagine why on earth an older person would get married at all.  It just does not happen here, particularly an older woman.  (Incidentally, neither was previously married.)  To Burundians marriage is only meaningfully understood as an institution in which to produce children.  The idea of a marriage without children seemed to them an absurd idea.  But on the other hand they were very excited to see how happy their friends seemed to be about it.  (Peter and Linda did note that they have been blessed with more children than they could ever wish for through their work here)  We ended the session with prayer for the couple and had cake together.   (for more photos of the party, click here.)

After the party our South African friends Tim and Jeanette stayed around and helped us clean up and stayed for dinner.  We talked about plans for Christmas and we will most likely go together to a lake in Uganda for a shared holiday between Christmas and New Year’s. 

We got to bed late after cleaning up and went to church on Sunday morning.  I helped with David’s Sunday school because there was need of a few extra hands on deck that day but Rebecca was able to hear the sermon.

We spent the middle of the day at home playing with the kids.  We felt they had been somewhat neglected by us in all the preparations of Saturday.  We played some board games including a family game of Sorry that went through the deck at least 5 times.  Oren eventually won. 

We hosted small group in the evening where we continue to deepen our understanding of the book of Micah and how it applies to our lives now.  It is hard to read his strong condemnation of corruption in the church and state and the greed of leaders selling the homes of widows and orphans and not feel there are not parallels hear in our current context.  I observed that it is interesting that we tend to see God as overwhelmingly concerned about our sexual morality and forget that he is also a God who rages over economic injustice and exploitation of the poor, vulnerable and marginalized and condemns their exploitation by the rich and powerful.  He also condemns institutions of justice on earth who favor the rich and influential over the poor.  (I am happy to see that he does not fit comfortably into the liberal and conservative boxes we like to try to stuff him into.) 

We had an interesting discussion about whether the church as whole can have a prophetic voice or whether that comes from an individual.  My observation was that as much as we like to imagine ourselves as Christians as prophetic in our responsibility to ‘speak truth to power’ real prophets who do this often pay a high price for their words.  Many in the Bible were imprisoned or killed and in our time men like Martin Luther King or Nelson Mandela were killed and imprisoned as well.  There are very few individuals I know who are willing to risk that much in invoking God’s justice before the rich and powerful.  I also think it might be harder for a prophet now to be heard over the mass media din that seems to render all opinions equally valid and irrelevant.  Why kill a prophet when you can just change the channel?

After the small group we went out that evening to have pizza at Ubuntu.  We usually do not go out on Sunday after small group but there was a good-bye party for one of our friends.  Astrid Withrow, the wife of Travis will be going to Netherlands for a time to do some work.  We have known their family for a long time as they are all part of the missionary community and have been here for the past 4 years.  They are eventually going to return to the US but there are some delays for the rest of the family as they are waiting for adoption papers for one of their daughters.  Adoption here is quite frankly a long and difficult process that verges on the impossible.  It takes years and there is some dispute in court about how long she has legally been in their custody.  We are praying for a quick resolution this, and quite frankly a miracle.  We are sad to Astrid have to go ahead of the family for income reasons, and we will miss them all when they eventually go.  They have been a blessing in the ex-pat community with their 5 daughters and their powerful children’s ministry.  It was a nice evening with another huge gathering of ex-pats, many overlaps from the party for Peter and Linda.

This has been another travel week and Monday after school I headed up country with Jennifer Price and one of our partners from Help Channel Burundi to Buta.  This is a Catholic seminary and monastery that is famous for having a shrine to some young seminarians who were murdered during the civil war.  They were asked to separate by ethnic group so the tutsis could be killed.  Because of their shared faith, though, they refused to separate and all were martyred together.  I have a previous blog entry about it here.  (The Duke Pilgrimage)                                                .

The reason I am here this week is to participate in Help Channel’s strategic planning meeting.  It has been interesting to hear them construct a vision statement for the next 5 years and to participate with them.  I do admit that I am not happy to be away from home again and will return on Wednesday.  There is no internet up here so this blog post will be going up a bit late.

Late Update from DRC:  We have been following with concern the continuing advance of the M-23 rebel group in Eastern Congo, apparently supported by Rwanda and Uganda according to a recent UN report.  They were approaching Goma, just across the border from the town of Gisenyi in Rwanda.  Our worst fears were confirmed when Goma fell into rebel hands yesterday.  Our MCC DRC service worker (name omitted) was in Goma when they attacked the city and he apparently spent the night in some kind of bunker hearing mortars and fire fights around him. He was able to flee to Gisenyi on Tuesday and is going to be in Kigali with our team there today.  He will plan to return to Bukavu via Rwanda today.  Prayers for him and for Eastern DRC are needed.

A Much Anticipated Homecoming

David has the reputation among our friends of behaving like 'Pig-Pen' from the Peanuts comic strip. Here he is after diving into puddles while Oren played soccer and I taught ballet.

Rebecca came and offered to take my place tonight while I was reading a story to the kids so I could “write the blog tonight.” I have to admit that it had not even occurred to me that another week had gone by and it is once again Monday night and time for another entry. (Admittedly I have been slipping into Tuesday fairly regularly.)

But this could be an opportunity to actually be short and sweet. It was a fairly straight forward work week and the last (for one week) when I was out of town. I left off last week on the night of our arrival in Kigali. I had come to bring the SALTers back, but also to get Matt Gates, our new food security coordinator, set up. This was to be no mean feat in the 2 full days I was to be there. Fortunately we were able to get him an internet modem on the way to dinner on the night we arrived. I was amazed to find that unlimited 4G internet is available in Rwanda for $40 per month. I think that is better than most anywhere else I have been in the world.

On Wednesday, our second day there, I introduced him to the Legal Representative of the Friends Church and we went over to visit his house on the church compound. This had been Ruth and Krystan's house in the past, and I was pleased to find that the church had done a lot of renovation on the outside and repainted the inside, but also put all the furniture back the way it had been. It was nice for him to arrive to a furnished house with all the amenities including some food and cooking utensils. One reason it was in such good order is because we had retained Ruth and Krystan's cook Fifi who had been keeping the house clean since their departure. Matt was introduced to her and it became immediately apparent that he will need to start learning Kinyarwanda quickly so he can communicate with her since that is the only language she knows.

After meeting with the legal rep and visiting the house, we went to the bank to get him an account. Fortunately this is not too complicated in Kigali either and we left the bank with an account as well as a checkbook on order to arrive in one day. We also took the opportunity in town to visit Nakumatt, the large modern East African supermarket that is like a Walmart in Kigali.

After lunch on Wednesday we had an appointment to meet Dave and Debbie Thomas, the Friends missionaries who live almost next door to Matt. I wanted him to get to know them in case he had any problems, but I did not expect to find that their current work project, called Discipleship for Development, which involves working with very small inputs to help communities develop their own assets, would be such an area of interest for Matt and MCC.

The fact is, this approach to development based on helping communities identify their own needs and assets is very much in the direction MCC would like to go. Matt was already excited about the opportunity to see their work in practice in the field. He also talked to them about finding a small piece of land to lease where he can begin some experimental farming.

It is great that he was a Peace Corps volunteer in Senegal and lived with a family and worked with them regularly in their fields. He is used to a rural village way of life and farming, and should be able to find some helpful techniques to improve production here using the tools at hand.

We ate at a Lebanese restaurant Wednesday evening. It was not great, which is not typical of restaurants in Kigali. Matt spent the first night in his new home and the next day we had a morning of meetings beginning with a sit-down with all of our partners at Friends Peace House. It was a chance for them to meet Matt and to hear how he will work collaboratively with all of our partners and will not be seconded to just one. We also visited the Mwana Ncuti project where Alyssa works before heading back to Matt's house for lunch.

In the afternoon we did a bit more shopping found the post office and interviewed and hired a language teacher so he could start Kinyarwanda. The only thing we were not able to accomplish before I left was to get him a car. That is a project he will have to do on his own with the help of some partners or others at the Friends Church.

Matt and SALTers at Zaffron

I had dinner with Felix, Janelle, Alyssa, and Matt, at Zaffron (our favorite Kigali Indian haunt). It was a good last meal together and appropriate 'welcome' meal to Kigali. I am sure he will have many more. (It was almost certainly the place where Ruth and Krystan had their last meal in Rwanda.)

Felix and I left Kigali at 6am the next morning. I had not cancelled my ballet classes that day (Friday) so I had to get back into town by 3pm to teach. We actually arrived around noon and I was able to pick up the kids from school. It was great to see them after being away for several days. It was also great timing to give Rebecca a break from seeing them constantly for 3 days.

Ballet went well, and despite my exhaustion it was great to come back to three classes of very enthusiastic students from 4 year olds to adults. The second level of ballet girls is working on the little swans variation from Swan Lake (simplified) and they are actually getting pretty good at it.

I had about 10 adults which was also very satisfying. I went home that evening exhausted but also exhilarated to be able to teach dance. We had a nice dinner with the kids then watched the Scooby Doo movie for a family movie night.

Saturday was yoga followed by a day at home in which we did very little besides relax and play family games. Saturday night though, Rebecca and I had a date night, the first in months, and enjoyed going out to La Trattoria, an Italian restaurant in town while Jennifer (our service worker in town) took care of the kids. It was great to have an evening alone with Rebecca where we could have some adult conversation without being interrupted.

Sunday was church and Rebecca taught Sunday school. I was pleasantly surprised to find J.J. Ivaska giving the sermon this week. He is in our small group and working here with World Relief. We are beginning a six week series on the book of Micah and he did very well to make it relevant to our time as well.

We met that evening in our small group for the first time in 3 weeks. It was great to be back together again for us.

Monday was back to a fairly normal work day less our morning swim as our pool continues to be closed. We did join another for the time being but I was not able to go until the afternoon. It was good to finally be able to swim after missing it for 3 weeks straight, but we both missed doing so in the morning before beginning our work day. We did find ourselves less tolerant of the normal stressors-- random people dropping by to ask for money, having to do things 2 or 3 times before they are right, etc.

The kids and Rebecca are all asleep now and I am ready for bed as well. It is good to be home as a family to at least 7 days.

Lusaka, Kigoma, Kigali--at the End of the Campaign Trail

Superboy David jumping on trampoline outside our tent at Jakobsen's beach in Kigoma, Tanzania.

Once again I find myself beginning this entry at a very late hour-- 10pm. I feel that we might actually be hitting 'the wall'--that is to say the limit of our ability, at least for me. The last two weeks have been very interesting and unique in the relational time they have offered. But the travel is really beginning to burn me out, and I am feeling a need for a rest, which is a bit ironic to say considering we were on a team retreat the last 4 days. (Of course many of you know that when you are the organizer of the retreat, it is not always very restful.)

Melody

The biggest challenge has been the travel. I am writing this blog from Kigali tonight where I have just brought Matt Gates, our new food security consultant, along with our two SALTers. The day's drive began in Bujumbura with 8 passengers. We let off Yolanda and Melody in Gitega, Teri-Lynn at her house in Burasira, then continued on to Kigali where we arrived this evening. After having a meal at Bourbon Cafe I dropped off the SALTers at their host parents' homes, and then installed Matt, Felix and myself at the Amani guesthouse. On Wednesday morning Matt will be formally introduced to the Friends Church (who we are under in Rwanda) and our partners. I will also be setting him up with an internet a bank account and language study in the next two days before returning to Bujumbura.

This is the third straight week of travel. Last week we got back from Zambia (all flights that began at 2am) and then within 24 hours, loaded up our team (of 14) who had all gathered at our house to await our return, and take them to Kigoma, Tanzania for a team retreat. In case anyone thinks we are bad at scheduling, the truth is these two events were further apart until the All Africa meeting was moved forward to end the day before our team retreat began on fairly short notice after we had made our bookings.

One of the major factors that is contributing to stress during travel here in the region has been the intensity of the rainy season this year. I don't think I ever remember seeing one quite so wet. There are many days when it rains the entire day or more. Driving in a driving rain for long hours is difficult, espcecially when unpaved roads and long waits at border crossings are involved. Loading and unloading vehicles in the rain and mud is difficult, especially if one is also trying to manage children who are happy to get soaked and filthy before climbing into a crowded car.

Felix and Alice

Fortunately on the days we were on retreat in Kigoma itself, the weather was great. Kigoma is a place I have written about before, (at this link). I appropriately entitled the post 'Paradise, Thy Name is Kigoma.” It remains true to the memory, so I will backtrack to last week and fill in some details.

As mentioned above, we arrived back in Bujumbura after an all night flight last Wednesday. Our team had already gathered, most at our house, to wait for us. Included in the group were Michael Sharp from the MCC DRC team as well as newcomer Matthew Gates. (picked up by Felix and Jennifer.) We had an opening liturgy on Wednesday evening at our house, after finding places for everyone to sleep. Felix surprised us that evening when he showed up with his fiancé Alice! Rebecca and I had met her the week before, but this was the first time she was introduced to the team.

Yolanda and Safi

We also did some fun activities including a costume contest, since it was Halloween. It was kind of like the show Iron Chef. Three teams were given identical materials and asked to create a costume. There was judging afterwards. The materials were challenging and of the 3 entrees, 2 were aliens (Oren and Teri-Lynn), Rebecca was the statue of liberty. Oren's team, who made him into an 'alien mummy' were the winners. Yolanda and Janelle carved a pumpkin into a T-Rex head, much to Oren's approval as well. We went to bed fairly early despite all the activity. Needless to say, our family was beat after the trip from Zambia.

On Thursday morning we packed two vehicles with all of us and our stuff and headed south along the lake to Tanzania. I remembered last year the drive not being too long, but I had not factored in the extra time it takes to get 14 people across a border. We spent at least an hour on each side. Fortunately I remembered that the Burundian border crossing is 28 kilometers before the border itself. (You have to go back if you forget to get your exit stamp.) We continued on to Kigoma, the road is generally good and arrived in the late afternoon.

With the number of us going, we occupied a tent (permanent with a thatch shelter built above it) as well as two cottage. (The proprietors—the Jakkobson's made their cottage available to us for the days we were there!) I tried in my last account to describe the rustic but well appointed beauty of this setting. It is along the lake, but the cottages are up on a slope that looks down on the lake from above from very charming porches. The water in the lake in this area is clear enough to stare down at least 50 feet. This makes snorkeling around the base of cliffs to see tropical fish possible.) Above the cottages is a savannah that looks out over a large penninsula. There are wild animals here including antelope and zebra as well as monkeys and monitor lizards.)

team in Kigoma, Matt is at the back.

The cottages are not connected to any grid but have solar power and gas stoves and refrigerators and lighting. So there are all the modern conveniences available in this very quiet, remote, setting. Oren was adamant that our family would stay in the tent, and although it only had 2 single beds, we were able to sleep in it relatively comfortably.

The two days we were there (Friday, Saturday) were beautiful in terms of weather and we all took the opportunity to hike, swim, read, and relate. We also had morning and evening worship and a session of reflection each day. On the first day we talked about our assignments and shared one by one the way we have been aware of God's presence in our work and also the ways we have felt disconnected or even disappointed with God or ourselves. It was a very good opportunity for us get to know each other better.

On the second day we each took the time to do a “Spiritual Gifts Inventory” based on a kind of questionaire. We used this as a take-off point to have small group discussions about the assets we bring to our assignments and to find ways to encourage each other in our work. We also prayed together in small groups. Every evening we used an Anabaptist liturgy provided by Yolanda to close our day. I felt that the retreat was a very positive experience for building our team. I also think that for the SALTers particularly, it was a nice opportunity to relax, being out of the setting of their host families and away from the isolation of their assignments.

We generally ate well. I thought Friday night was a highlight when we roasted two large sangala (a local fish that tastes like sea bass) over a grill. We all took turns preparing meals and cleaning up, and generally ate together.

We left Sunday morning, and sadly our timing was not ideal with regard to weather. The fact is, it poured all Saturday night and continued relentlessly into Sunday. We did morning worship and communion together and even delayed our departure by an hour. But eventually we had to face the sad reality that we would have to load our stuff in the cold pouring rain into the vehicles. Doing this from a tent brought back to me a cascade of fond but not entirely good memories of Boy Scouts and the numerous camping trips that involved shivering in a wet tent and then trying to pack the sopping tent and sleeping bag into a pack to head home.

We did get everyone and everything in and made our way back to Burundi in the continuing rain. The border crossing back was even worse than before and took us nearly 3 hours as it was more crowded coming back on both sides. There was a lot of standing around under awnings waiting for immigration officials to fill out 3 or more ledgers with identical information for each one of us. I am used to seeing this kind of redundancy everywhere here in this French style bureaucracy, but it is especially trying when one is waiting in the rain.

bluff overlooking the Penninsula

We did get back in the early evening and went over to the Ubuntu restaurant for pizzas (still raining). We were all pretty exhausted when we got back to our house and did a closing liturgy and went to bed.

On Monday morning I took the kids to school for the first time in 2 weeks. (I think we only lost one book of Oren's in our travels.) Michael Sharp headed back to Bukavu and Rebecca and I spent the rest of the day doing orientation with Matt Gates and Melody Musser.

On Tuesday morning we packed the car again for a huge road trip through Burundi to drop off our SALTers and service workers at their assignment locations. On board were Yolanda and Melody, heading for Gitega, Teri-Lynn going up to Burasira, and Matt, Alyssa, and Janelle going up to Kigali with Felix and I. The first leg to Gitega was pretty uncomfortable for passengers and on the way to Burasira we did again meet rain on the dirt road. Fortunately it did not turn to mud. We had lunch at the seminary with Teri-Lynn then headed on to Kigali and arrived in the early evening.

I have been up since about 4 am watching election results. Fortunately there is good internet here. I admit that I have been relieved to be living overseas through most of the campaign ugliness. While I do not want to make much political commentary here, I do feel that the effect of the Citizens United legislation has been to allow for far more partisan disinformation to be disseminated without accountability. I long for the days of 3 networks and a sense of journalistic ethics to get at the facts without propagating a particular political agenda. FYI: My grandfather was a farmer, teacher, and Roosevelt democrat and I continue in that proud political tradition- so my absentee ballot was cast in support of Barack Obama. I have friends across the political spectrum and while I can get caught up easily in political debate, I feel as a Christian in the current political climate, this is more and more a distraction from bearing the spiritual fruit that our life in Christ requires. (Be the change you want to see.)

God bless all Americans today. Our country has much to be proud of, and our electoral process, where people can cast ballots without fear is something that should never be taken for granted. Here in this part of the world, the overwhelming sense about elections is fear, and a successful outcome for a voter is not getting killed before the balloting is done.   

All Africa Meeting in Zambia

Rebecca Oren and David enjoying cotton candy, a rare treat, on a free afternoon during our regional meetings in Zambia.

I am trying to get, in bits and pieces, news about the hurricaine Sandy that is thrashing the Eastern Seaboard of the US, between meetings and when I am able to get a good internet signal. The circumstances that we find ourselves to today is our last afternoon of regional meetings in Lusaka, Zambia. We have been here since last Tuesday, and like that day we will be leaving for the airport at midnight tonight to catch a 2am flight back to Bujumbura, arriving about noon tomorrow (Wednesday).

Arriving after having little sleep last week was not ideal, as I mentioned in my last post. The flights were smooth enough and the kids were even reasonably well behaved given the late departure. Oren did score some strategic points in immigration when he laid down on the floor in front of the immigration official's booth. They felt so bad for him that they let Rebecca, David and him go on through to the departure lounge while I finished all of the paperwork and security checks. We arrived in Nairobi about 5:30 am and had a 3 hour layover before departing for Lusaka. In Nairobi we were joined by about a dozen other people from different parts of the continent as well as the US and Canada, who were on their way to the same meeting. Nairobi is a hub airport in Africa and many intracontinental flights are routed through there.

nice pool, no water

We got to Lusaka at about 11am and were met by MCC Reps from Zambia at the airport who loaded us into vans and pickups to take us to The Great East Hotel, where we were to have all of our meetings. I did take a peak at it online and we were excited to see that it had a pool, airconditioned rooms, and internet access. The reality was a bit below the expectation. The pool was empty and being retiled. The proprietor assured us it would be finished by 'tomorrow' and now on the last day here, I can confirm that indeed 'tomorrow' in Zambia means the same thing it does in Burundi. (--Sometime in the indefinite future beyond a week.)

Nonetheless the airconditioning did work and there were a few pieces of only slightly hazardous playground equipment on the grounds for kids and a large yard area for playing. Our interest in children's activities was sparked by the fact that much of our days would be spent in meetings and having engaging things for kids to do on-site was important so that we could keep focused on the work. (Child care was planned for as well.)

It probably took a few days for the magnitude and importance of this gathering to sink in. I think it only finally hit home for me on Sunday morning when we visited a local Anabaptist (Brethren in Christ) congregation and were asked to introduce ourselves. Eric, the Zambia representative introduced us by country, we had MCC reps from: Chad, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Sudan, Congo (DRC), Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Zambia, Mozambique, South Africa (Lisutu and Swaziland). From North America we had program directors from MCC US and Canada, as well as about a half dozen other people with various other leadership responsibilities. As I listened to each couple or individual introduce themselves I was honestly a bit overwhelmed to realize that we were the MCC leadership team from all of Africa meeting and now worshiping together. On the first day we did a little exercise totalling up the amount of Africa experience this represented and it was over 450 years collectively.

greeting line after church

I think we overwhelmed the small BIC church we were attending as well as we made up about the half the congregation that day. The service was nice and not too long (2.5hours). We had been told we might be asked to present a song and many of us were prepared having rehearsed two hymns the night before that were a striking contrast to the more rhythmic offerings up to that point, but rendered in truly angelic 4 part harmony. (Mennonites are amazing singers if you did not know.) 

Sunday was not the first day of our time together and I will back up to Tuesday again when we arrived to the hotel and unfilled swimming pool. We did get settled in and the kids immediately found a few old and new friends. From our region the couple from Burkina Faso, Chad and Isa, have a boy Oren's age and a little girl as well. (Conner and Olivia). The exciting news though was the arrival of a new rep for Nigeria, AND a new rep family for Chad! The Austins—Jonathan and Angela and their 4 kids Caleb, Johnny, Hannah, and Lilly, has just arrived on the continent and had come to the All Africa meeting on the way to their assignment. Caleb is Oren's age and the rest are younger, but all the kids really enjoyed playing together throughout the 6 days of meetings.

Africa is divided into 3 regions by MCC, the South, East and Central West. We are in the latter with the countries of Chad and Burkina Faso, as well as DRC and Nigeria. Actually all the families with children are in our region which is nice for our kids because it makes these meetings feel a bit like a family reunion.

We began our first plenary session on Tuesday night after dinner, then met each day as a large group on Wednesday through Saturday in the mornings. In the afternoons we had breakout sessions and smaller sub-regional meetings. Each day had a theme, the Wednesday was on MCC structure and the changes that have happened in the last year, Thursday was on food security and disaster management, and Friday we talked about relating to the local Anabaptist church in our context. (That varies a lot between regions as not all of us have an Anabaptist church in our countries.)

The meetings were informative and gave old and new reps an opportunity to talk with people at the 'home office' about policy and implementation, both practical, logistical questions as well as philosophical ones. (Questions like: Is MCC in its ecclesial mission “The Church” or an arm of “The Church”.) I think we all came away with a renewed sense of shared vision.

There were some special events, on Wednesday night we all went out to an Indian restaurant, on Thursday afternoon we took the kids and others interested to a zoo/swimming pool. The zoo was interesting, it featured lions and other savannah wildlife. One lion was gnawing on the leg of a zebra that I guess had been fed to her. Generally, like in Bujumbura, one can get quite close to the animals and must use good judgment to avoid getting bitten or kicked by ostriches, baboons, camels, zebras, etc.

very crowded pool

The pool was once again not to be. We arrived at the pool connected to a giant water slide to discover it packed with rough-housing kids to the point where we feared for the safety of our own entering the water. There was a nice playground though that the kids enjoyed playing in, and best of all there was a cotton candy stand, a treat that is all but non-existent in Burundi.

Sunday was a day of rest that began with church and ended with a trip to a mall and then an evening at the home of the MCC reps who have a lovely home and garden. I should say a bit about my impression of Lusaka here as our trip to the mall was one of the few times that we traveled outside the compound of the hotel.

I would say in brief that it has perhaps the feel of a large Mexican city, like Tijuana. The modern malls are gigantic and have everything one would expect to find at a mall in the US, including food courts with Subway, Wimpy's, KFC, and other franchises. There are shops like Kinkos, Staples, Walmart, and other first world businesses. There is obviously a Zambian middle class as well as many whites from South Africa and Zimbabwe who have emmigrated here. But there are also areas of the town with traditional markets and poverty. (Hence my comparison to Mexico.) The climate has been pretty hot for most of our time here although we did have a couple of cool days. Generally the enormous size of the city and the availability of all the comforts of modern urban life make it seem a very far cry from Bujumbura. It seems hard to believe this is Africa as well.

The last two days of meetings (this Monday and Tuesday) we divided into regional groups and spent time talking about particulars of our region. Again, it was good to see a full contingent of reps in our region after serious concerns that we would not be able to fill the Nigeria and Chad positions.

Generally the discussions were interesting and we had time to talk with Congo reps about collaboration between our country programs and small ways we might work for peace between Rwandese and Congolese who are currently on the opposite sides of the emerging conflict in Eastern Congo. (Rwanda and Uganda have been accused of aiding and abetting the rebel group-M-23 that is wreacking havoc in Eastern Congo.) There is considerable tension between the two countries right now.

Ruth Clemens, the MCC US International Program Director was with us in our meetings and it was good to have her strategize with us. Since she is also part of our Mennonite Church in Baltimore (North Baltimore Mennonite Church) it was good to see her and here news from home as well.

I see it is about 10pm. Our flight leaves in about 2 hours and I want to get a shower and an hour of sleep before the taxi arrives so I will stop here. The kids and Rebecca are in bed already.

We will be arriving back in Bujumbura just in time to begin our MCC team retreat. All of our service workers and SALTers will be at our house when we arrive and we will be heading to Kigoma Tanzania by car on Thursday morning. Pray that we will receive divine rest in the few hours that we will actually be able to close our eyes.

Squeezing In a Birthday

Rebecca hanging ladybug balloons in preparation for David's Birthday.

I feel like I am racing against time to get this blog up before we leave on a plane to Zambia. It would be ideal to have this posted before we go. The problem is that the flight is at 2:30 in the morning and our taxi arrives at midnight. Rebecca and the kids have just fallen asleep at 9:30pm which leaves me a couple hours to write. But do I want to do this or sleep?

The reason for the Zambia trip is an all Africa MCC regional meeting which is going on all this week. It should be interesting although the travel could not be less ideal. In order to minimize the number of school days missed, we have opted to take night flights. Unfortunately these leave at exceptionally late hours and could not be less ideal for travel with young children. The good news is that the kids will only miss 4 days of school. The following week is fall break but we have a team retreat scheduled for Tanzania (right after we get back). The return to a normal routine is really nowhere on the horizon for me. After these two weeks I will need to go up to Rwanda to place our new service worker Matt who will be arriving in a few days.

It seems this is pretty much typical of our work here. Not that it is insanely busy all the time, but rather that there are periods of a great deal of hustling and bustling with short lulls in between.

This past week was spent entirely in Bujumbura, a small blessing, but it has not been slow at all. I feel like we have been in meetings or hosting people almost everyday. Among our visitors were Peter and Linda Taylor, some friends of ours here who are getting married. We made arrangements on Monday evening to host an engagement party at our house. Jodi Mikalachki, our former service worker at Hope School, who is now working with an English language initiative through the US embassy, was with us on Tuesday evening. We do not get to see her often eventhough she is in town.

Wednesday was a busy afternoon with me teaching several dance classes for the normal Wednesday teacher as well as taking Oren to soccer. The good thing is that Oren's soccer practice is in the field right outside the dance studio. Rebecca and David usually come over and hang out with the other mom's and kids watching either the dance class or the soccer practice. This routine is repeated on Friday as well only I teach adults in the evening on Friday too.

Tuesday's and Thursday's Oren does karate, so we do spend a significant amount of time going to his activities. I usually take him to the karate class at the French school. David goes with me while Rebecca takes the afternoon shift at work on those days.

Oren's homemade Roadrunner 

Friday I think it all came to a head when several folks came down from Gitega who were participating in the GLPI conference. When I got home from teaching in the evening I found we had 3 guests, Michael Sharp, Violette (the trauma healing facilitator for that week) and an MCC DRC partner. Fortunately most of them left later in the evening, but both Rebecca and I were really beginning to feel the strain of excessive hospitality.

Probably the thing putting the most pressure on us this past week, was trying to plan for David's 4^th Birthday party. His actual Birthday is the 29^th of Oct. but we realized it would be impossible to have a kids party on that date with all of our travel. We decided to schedule it for Saturday and invited several of his friends and their families. Invitees included the Miller's (Joel and Jeanette), Tim and Jeanette with Isabel, the Ivaska's and their daughters, Thomas and Naja's family, several German friends with kids in Oren and David's classes, and a few others. It was actually a very big group, and consistent with tradition, David and Oren wanted a costume party AND a piniata. That is all well and good, but with absolutely no evenings free it was not clear how all of these preparations would be accomplished.

I was able to get a start on the piniata on Wednesday evening and paper mache'd a balloon. I was not exactly sure what I was going to make, but David was going to be a ladybug for his costume so I thought that might be a good theme. (Actually David wanted to be a 'bug scientist, but we were not sure how to dress him up as that.) Oren wanted to be a road runner.

On Thursday we were able to start painting the balloon and by Friday evening it was ready to be stuffed with candy and hung. (Thanks Krystan for leaving paints at the Kigali house to paint the ladybug with!) We worked on the kids costumes with them when we had some spare moments and by Saturday morning they were pretty much complete.

ladybug piniata

We had a leisurely morning on Saturday after yoga, hanging around at Nina and Bela's house for several hours after we were done. It will be sad to see their family leave at the end of November, but she will be finishing her assignment with GIZ and returning to Germany.

The house was a bit of a mess but we somehow managed to get it arranged by the time the first guests arrived. We cleared about half the living room of furniture so we would have some indoor space for games in case it rained. Miraculously it did not the entire time of the party. I say this because if there is one thing I can say about the rainy season this year, it is that it is one of the wettest I have seen in my 4 years here. It seems to be raining almost constantly. It is great for our gardens, but extremely inconvenient, especially when it happens during morning rush hour. This can extend our 5 minute drive to school by up to 45 minutes because of the number of accidents on the road.

When most of the guests had arrived we started the costume party with a costume contest. There were quite a variety of costumes, several of the little girls were princesses and balerina's (one pioneer woman) while the boys were football and soccer players. Oren and David were probably the only 2 animals represented. They did a nice costume parade and the winners got prizes.

We played musical chairs next, several times in fact. It is interesting to see how popular the old standards are at a Birthday party. We also brought out the parachute and played with that as well.

The piniata was a big hit after David opened his presents which was followed by Birthday cake. (We copped out and had one made.) David very much enjoyed being the Birthday boy as he has been to quite a few Birthday's in the last year and has asked several times when his is.

Among his favorite presents were a number of bath toys, probably because he is always SO dirty, and Elias and Aviaja gave him a bug collectors container with a magnifying glass built into the top. It is excellent for magnifying bugs and David LOVES it.

When guests left in the evening it felt like the first time we were alone in the house as a family for a week. It was not completely unscheduled time though, as I had volunteered to teach Oren's Sunday school class the next morning. Despite somewhat last minute preparation, it went very well as I had a moment of genius on telling the story of Jacob and Esau from the point of view of Isaac. I dressed up in a blanket with a headband like a shepherd and hung a black platic bag from my ears to look like a beard and dark glasses (because I was blind.) I sat and told the kids the story as if I was Isaac recounting being tricked by Jacob, but I did like a kind of cooky, grouchy old man, (who probably looked somewhere between a bedouin and a terrorist). The kids found it very funny, but were also extremely engaged in the story.

adult's corner

We talked about times they had been tricked by someone or had tricked someone. There were many amusing stories about brothers tricking each other, (especially to get access to a gameboy). The lesson went very well and I actually really enjoyed teaching it.

After church we went home and spent some time with Michael Sharp before our Bible study. Several other GLPI participants who had come down to Bujumbura for the weekend rendez-vous-d at our house before heading back up to Gitega.

The timing was again tight so there was really no time between their departure and the arrival of our Bible Study group. It was great to them (just Tim and Jeanette and the Ivaskas this week), despite the lack of 'down time'.

Sunday evening we began to pack and plan for our departure tonight (Monday). We did send the kids to school today so they would not miss too much. Sadly, despite considerable effort, we were not able to take a morning swim ourselves. The reason for this was that they have officially closed our pool “Entente Sportif” for several months while they do a major renovation. I hope it will be more permanent than the one they did about a year and a half ago. (The broken tiles replaced on the bottom of the pool came back up after 3 months.)

We tried several other places but for various reasons were not able to swim. We are hoping to find another pool where we can continue this very important part of our weekly routine. It is an important part of keeping us from getting too stressed out from the kinds of things that weeks like this past one can require of us.

We are still struggling with fuel shortages, although I have been able to continue to exploit my taxi-driver connection to get gas for a small service fee. (He also picks up and delivers the car so it has definitely been worth it.) I am hoping the crises ends soon though.

There have been other stressors this week, we have had a number of tech items fail including a computer, ipod and hardrive. I won't go into too much detail because I don't want to be a complainer, but suffice it to say that a couple weeks away from Burundi are not entirely unwelcome, even if much of the time will be spent in meetings.

Hopefully I will be able to post again at the end of this week from Zambia.   

Welcoming Melody and Celebrating Abundance

David playing with the Noel on the porch.

If I had to characterize the sense I have about the beginning of our 5^th year in a word, it would probably be 'abundance'. It may seem surprising to say in a place where scarcity is something we are experiencing in the petrol and sugar market. But in our work and life here there is really a sense in which we have received a rich blessing of friends, colleagues, and 'workers in the vineyard' with us.

This is evident in several different areas of our lives. I will try to make a list here of the ways in which we have experienced this (not necessarily in order of importance):

1. We have several new American families here that have become good friends. The Ivaska's (JJ and Courtenay) and the Millers (Joel and Jeanette) with their kids have been a pleasant reminder of the some of the cultural uniquenesses of Americans that we sometimes miss. Sam Miller, Joel and Jeanette's 7 year old is in Oren's class and a very good friend. I have never seen anyone crack Oren up so much. He thinks Sam is absolutely hilarious and I think they have even gotten into some trouble at school by sharing jokes during class time. I admit as an adult I have trouble appreciating the rather broad allusions of 7 year old humor. ( I asked Oren what was making him giggle uncontrollably all the way home in the car one day and he said that Sam had whispered “Qu'est-ce-que tu bottom?” to him in class. --I am guessing it sounded to Sam a lot like the French expression Qu'est-ce-que tu pense? )
2. Our small group is growing larger: With the arrival of anglophone newcomers to our church this year we are finding our small group has been growing quite a bit. We may even have to split in two if it gets any bigger, but it is really good to see people committed to meet together weekly and support each other through prayer, study and fellowship.
3. My dance classes are really awesome this year. I have now committed Friday afternoons (3-7) to teaching dance. This is my 4^th year of doing this at the Belgian School and this year with many new children joining the first level and more than 10 returnees in the second level, I have an awesome group who are really ready to learn something this year. Another surprise is to find 10 adults, some with considerable past experience, who are willing to come out and do my 6-7pm adult class. I am actually excited about this extra-curricular activity. Saturday morning yoga is also now a fairly stable group of about a dozen.
4. Our team is growing a lot this year and we will be 14 (including David and Oren) at our retreat at the beginning of November. For those of you who have been following this blog for a while, I am sure it must seem like some dramatic series that suddenly added a confusingly large number of new cast members. We added another this week, and still another is coming in about 10 days.
5. Our fruit trees are also extremely productive this year and we are beginning to harvest enormous quantities (buckets) of avocados and mangoes. They should be fully ripe in a couple weeks, but the early ones have been coming every day for the past 2 weeks.

This year feels, in the arc of our lives here, like a season of harvest of seeds we have been sowing for the past 4 years. I admit there were times when we thought that many of these fields would never produce and we have been content to be satisfied with what the dry ground here would produce, but I see now that the bigger problem was our lack of patience to let the seeds of our community building reach the point of germination. It has been a very blessed season thus far this year and I feel that we go out into the fields of our communities like the husbandman who has taken care to plant his land with a variety of crops, mended the fences, pulled the weeds, watered, fertilized and having waited patiently for the harvest, can now go out and walk through the high amber waves of wheat, maize, and barley, as the time of fruitfulness has finally come.

Having said that, I should mention at least one significant area of attrition this month, and that has been in finding petroleum. We are in the midst of a gas shortage caused by a dispute between fuel station owners and the government about what the price should be. Gas prices are controlled by the government, but from what I understand, there has been an increase in gas prices coming into the country while prices in country have not changed. This means that gas station owners get even less of a very small margin of profit. They are expecting prices to go up soon so they are 'sitting' on the gas in anticipation. Almost every station is closed and where one does find a station open there is a line of cars that may take one a full day to arrive at the pump. And even then, there is no guarantee of success. People have been scrambling to find ways to get gas in their cars.

I came up with at least one 'African solution' which was to have a friend of mine who is a taxi driver take my car out and use his 'connections' to get it filled up. (My Fortuner is big and getting it filled is next to impossible.) My friend was able to do it with a $10 commission (split between himself and the gas station attendant.) It was well worth it to me.

By contrast, after a trip upcountry later in the week, I went and tried to fill the tank myself. I saw a gas station where only 7 people were lined up by the time I got there. I thought I had it made, but without connections, the progress of the legitimate line was so slow that I did not even get to the front for nearly 3 hours. I am hoping this problem ends soon, but for now, we are trying to less driving, although the necessity for weekly trips upcountry to orient new team members has not diminished.

Going back through the chronology of the week, I feel, among my the many hats I don as Country Rep of MCC, the chauffer's cap was the most well worn this week. It began on Monday when I took our SALTer Terri-Lynn and her dad Doug up to the Hope School. He planned to spend the week there to see what she did, and also brought some supplies to fix the swing set at the nursery school. The school was not the only stop on the tour as I also passed through Gitega to drop off our short-term service worker Saffy who had come along for the ride.

I did not want to spend the night up at the school as I feel I have been away a lot so I took them up and came back the same day with a very short turn-around on arrival. I also gave one of our partners a ride down on the way home. It was not a bad trip except our ipod unexpectedly died just before I left. I happily avoided several rain storms that occurred in different places along the route until I got back to Bujumbura where I got pounded by a big cloudburst.

Tuesday was a nice day with everyone home and on Wednesday I taught ballet for the other teacher while Rebecca took our service worker Jennifer to the airport for a short visit back to the US.

Thursday we welcomed Melody Musser our new service worker who will be based in Gitega to work with our partner organization MiParec. Rebecca and I picked her up afer lunch from the airport and did some work in orienting her in the evening. That was also the day when I spent several hours buying gas.

On Friday morning I took her up to Gitega. The urgency for getting her up there was due to the fact that the Great Lakes Peacebuilding Institute is going on this month and she will be working with the partner who presents it. We want her to experience as much of it as possible. Our trip up was not easy, in fact, the police had blocked the main road that goes from the town of Bugarama to Gitega. When I asked what we should do they pointed in the opposite direction, toward the Kayanza road and said there was another way. I had never done it, but I did eventually find a dirt road heading off toward Gitega about 16 kilometers down the other road. It was quite long and steep in many places, but we did eventually get to Gitega only half an hour later than we had hoped.

We went over to MiParec, where the Institute is being held and watched the last hour of Gopar's presentation of a critical methodology for evaluating peacebuilding programs. We had lunch with the partner and Melody, then I took her over to Yolanda's flat where she and Michael Sharp (who came with us) began to make her feel welcome. I am happy that there are other service workers up there so she will not feel quite so alone in her new assignment.

On the way home I brought Teri-Lynn, her dad, and Saffy back to Bujumbura. I got home in time to teach my adult ballet class.

Saturday after yoga we went to the beach with Teri-Lynn and her dad to give him a bit of a taste of the touristy side of Burundi. We had a nice afternoon. In the evening our family went over to Joel and Jeanette Millers house at Hope Africa University. They made pizzas for us and Oren and David really enjoyed playing with their kids. Sam cracked Oren up the whole evening and we could hear peals of hysterical laughter emanating from the hallway that connects the bedrooms to the living room much of the time we were there.

I have not mentioned that with all the aforelisted activity, Rebecca was also preparing a sermon all last week. It was based on the passage at the end of the sermon on the mount (Matthew 7: 15-27) On Sunday she did a stellar job of talking about the different images of obedience that comes from a life of following Jesus. The first is the unconscious natural obedience that is produced like a tree giving fruit, the second is the obedience that comes from knowledge (knowing and being known) and finally the deliberate obedience of doing, like the wise builder who hews out a firm foundation in the rock.

She had some excellent anecdotes that went along with the sermon. In talking about a good tree bearing good fruit she told about her experience in Botswana of working with an NGO that was trying to propagate indigenous trees (marulla). In order to find good trees they had contests in primary schools to have children bring the best, tastiest fruits they knew of. From the winners of these contests they were able to find the best trees for future propagation. (Truly a living metaphor of a tree being known by its fruit.)

She ended with a story of what this obedience looked like in the famous story of the Anabaptist Dirk Willems, who in the 15^th century faced execution in the Netherlands for the heresy of believing that baptism should happen after a deliberate decision to follow Christ and not at birth. After being condemned to death he managed to escape from prison. While fleeing across a frozen river he was pursued by a prison guard. Dirk was outpacing him when he heard a crash and scream and realized the officer had fallen through the ice and was drowning in the freezing water. Dirk made the decision then to turn back and rescue the man. When he did so, he was immediately recaptured, taken back to prison and burned at the stake for the crime of heresy. Dirk knew that the decision to turn back and help his enemy would cost him his life, but he did it anyway.

Rebeca used this story to illustrate what these 3 types of obedience look like in the life of a man who truly imitated the sacrificial love of his enemy that we see in Christ.

Truly he could not have made that choice if he did not feel himself deeply grounded in the assurance of the love of Christ. His act was both unconsciously and deliberately obedient.

We had a very moving discussion about the sermon in our small group that evening. Among our more poignant observations was the fact that there is a great temptation as a builder to work a lot more on the superstructure than the foundation because no one really sees the foundation. People are easily impressed by the superstructure and having a tall multistory building in one's life may give the appearance that one had a great foundation. (Look at televangelists of mega-churches) Yet when one of these individuals falls (like a Jim Bakker) the entire empire comes down with a colossal crash. On the other hand, someone with a deep foundation may not have a very impressive house, a solid structure may never be as tall as a house built on the sand. But as the Bible says, when the storm comes it will withstand it.

We took Teri-Lynn's dad back to the airport today and we are looking forward to an entire week with no travel upcountry whatsoever. The first full week home since our arrival.

Sorry for the dirth of pictures, I will try to do better next week.  I forgot my camera when I was traveling.