Youth on a mission part 4; Gone, Back, and Gone Again

Well despite my best efforts, I encountered a sufficient number of obstacles to prevent this blog from going up Sunday night. The last straw was the power failure at 6pm that made all computing and internet availability impossible. I mentioned that we have no power between midnight and 7am everyday, but this is the first time it has gone off at pm. Since it is already dark then it is very difficult to do a lot without a flashlight or candle. Buying a large plug-in battery or two has moved up to the top of my to-do list.

The power failure is one of a large number of difficulties which, taken separately, would not be a huge problem, but coming en masse, as they have, has really overwhelmed us at this point. I know that all of this will pass, as I recount them here I do not want anyone to think we are beaten, but we are really on the ropes at this time. (I like the boxing image because I can picture a boxing match where an opponent continually lands punch after punch, seemingly from nowhere, that you feel completely unable to anticipate or defend against.)

Sadly, the most devastating attacks remain in the realm of our childrens health. We cannot seem to keep either of them disease free for more than two days at a time. David is currently covered head to toe with a rash of red spots that may be roseola or measles, and Oren in running a fever of 102.6) Oren just started getting sick this afternoon.

The timing is particularly bad as our family is scheduled to go upcountry today (Monday) for 4 days to lead a retreat with our partners. Both Rebecca and I have extensive responsibilities on it and we are even bringing a babysitter. With both boys so sick it is likely that I will be going up without the rest of the family to do all of Rebecca’s presentations and my own. That would be extremely hard on both of us, Rebecca without me to help with the kids, and me without her to lead worship and do several presentations, both spiritual, worship leading, and also instructional, all by myself.

Cancelling is a temptation, but with 27 people coming from all over two countries, it would be very difficult to stop the momentum at this point. Prayers for whatever we end up doing would be greatly appreciated.

By way of health problems I will say that Oren is of greater concern at this point because he has had the most number of inexplicable and unusual symptoms. We, on the advice of a doctor have ceased to give him his antimalarials as he has had some strange behavior that is likely related to the psychological side affects that one is supposed to be on the lookout for when taking larium. He has been notably depressed and sometimes wakes from sleep in a bizarre semi-conscious state, very dizzy and babbling nonsense. The problem with taking him off the antimalarials is that it now exposes him to the risk of getting malaria, which is a serious concern around here. We do have the treatment on hand, but we really do not want to expose him to another risk factor.

I said in last weeks blog that this series of challenges related to our children’s health is taking on the dimensions of a spiritual attack and Rebecca and I had to confess that we are at this point overwhelmed. It has turned us back to a reliance on God’s plan as we have completely exhausted our own physical and emotional resources.


I wanted to get as much of the bad news out of the way as possible, as that is weighing heaviest on my mind, before reporting on the more encouraging things in the past week. Fortunately the week was not without its rewards.
This was the last week of the three week mission trip of Bridget, Alecia, and Justin, our three youth from our home church. It was not quite as full as the first two, but they did continue to share testimonies at college campuses in Bujumbura and offer computer training to students who were interested. The testimonies and computer training were very well received by the students, and it was good to make such a solid connection with our partner Zenon, who is general secretary of the Union Groupe Biblique (Intervarsity) here.

On their last night we had supper with Onesphore and his family, then on Friday during the day Jean Claude and Zenon dropped by to say goodbye. Marcelline also said a tearful goodbye. Zenon had bought them all a gift as well. It was an outfit for each one of them (see photo below.) They looked great in them and were excited about wearing them at church in Poughkeepsie on Sunday when they got back.

I took them to the airport on Friday about 6pm. We all went, said goodbye and watched them go through the security gate into customs, then we went home. The house felt empty and we were very glad for their visit and encouraged by them, but we were also aware of the amount of work piled up for the retreat. We went home and put the kids to bed and began getting to work on the retreat.

At about 11pm we got a call on my cell. It was Alecia at the airport saying the flight had been cancelled! They had waited for an hour on the plane while they tried to fix a problem with the airconditioning to no avail. They cancelled the flight and were going to put everyone in hotels. I told Alecia I would pick them up and did so. We got back home about midnight, just after the power went out which meant we could not email to tell their families they would be late. (Fortunately we were able to make a long distance call on my cell to Bridget’s mom to tell her.)

We spent a good part of Saturday at the Brussels airlines office trying to get them on the next flight. There was a plane on Saturday that was supposed to go to Kigali but rerouted to pick up about 50 people from Bujumbura. It was meant to be only people from business class but we pleaded our friends case as pathetically as we could. Long story short, they were on the plane that night and at this writing are back in New York.

Sunday we spent as much time as possible after church on the retreat but we very stymied by the power failure at 6pm that prevented us from printing any of our materials. The children’s illnesses also prevented us from getting much work done.

Epilogue

It is now Monday morning, the power never came on, we have nothing printed, tons to do and are leaving to lead the retreat in 2 hours and both kids are quite sick. Rebecca is at the doctor and I am at the office trying to change money and print documents. It is now a fiasco completely beyond our control, we will really need the power of the Holy Spirit to get us through the next 4 days upcountry.

Prayers Please!

Conflict Mediation, Beach Evangelism, and the Guilty Dog

Here is a picture of Bella taken shortly after an entire loaf of banana bread disappeared off the table and was never seen again on Saturday morning while everyone was out of the dining room .

As the minutes tick steadily toward 11pm on Sunday night, I realize that I am under the gun to get this blog entry up. This is not only because I want to meet my weekly deadline, but because the power in our neighborhood (like most of Bujumbura) goes off between midnight and about 7am. So at midnight, everything I do is on battery power.

There is a lot to say as it was a full week, and we are still hosting our three students from New York who have been doing quite a bit this week.

One thing I hope I can avoid is making this blog a recanting of the litany of illnesses that are visited upon Oren and David. Most of the time I think the various viruses they pass back and forth are more the product of Oren being in nursery school than of us being in Burundi. But this week has been a bit exceptional because Oren has had mumps! This is particularly dismaying as he has been vaccinated against them. We told his teacher about this, and she told us that about 6 kids in his class have been out with mumps this past month. I wish I could say that the illness was over right now, and he did return to school on Wednesday, but this weekend he appears to be having some complications and we are not sure what is going on. Prayers on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

It is true that if there is one area of anxiety I have and cannot surrender to God’s care, it is our children’s health. I don’t fear much about living here except the unavailability of good urgent health care. We just don’t have a lot of options if things go seriously wrong acutely.

David is also on antibiotics this week with pretty bad bronchitis. One thing I do hope is that we do not send our guests back to the US with any of these illnesses. So far they have remained relatively healthy.

This week was fairly busy for Rebecca and I as we are preparing for a retreat for our partners next week. We have been working on creating a unified program, and it seems like ‘transformational development” is to be the theme. For my part I plan to do 2 messages during the retreat. One will be from the passage in Ezekiel about the valley of dry bones. (I have used that before) And the second one will be about Jesus healing the blind man at the pool of Siloam (in the book of John). I think both of these speak to the nature of poverty and the obstacles to development. I hope to elaborate on this next week when I have actually written it all down. I am trying to decide right now if I should do it in French or English. French would be better, but much more work to prepare.

While we were doing that, we dropped Alicia, Justin and Bridget off at a nursery school run by a church, where they taught some English to 3 and 4 year olds. Every time I picked them up for lunch I found them smothered in delighted children who seemed to see them as playground equipment to be climbed on. The students did enjoy the work there anyway and felt they did have something of value to contribute.

On several afternoons between Monday and Wednesday, they taught some computer courses. None of them have any formal computer training, but the level of understanding of how a computer works is so low that even a session on how to turn it on and off is greatly appreciated.

On Thursday and Friday we connected the students with our partner Moisson Pour Christ (Harvest for Christ). It is an evangelical group that runs some trainings on campuses in peace and reconciliation. The students attended one of these trainings and spent the entire day Thursday and Friday learning about conflict resolution and mediation tools. I think they are, at this point, fully qualified to do conflict mediation. Maybe they will have the chance to use it on their campus. I was able to sit in on some of the workshop, and it was quite interesting. The premise was that conflict itself is not bad, it is a natural, normal, and neutral part of human interaction. BUT, how it is managed can make the difference between a transformative positive result, and a tragic negative result.

Many of the discussions centered around ethnic group conflict on campuses in Burundi, and I learned later that Onesphore (Moisson leader) had deliberately targeted as invitees, students who led groups of opposing political parties (which are divided along ethnic lines.) It was pretty gutsy, I think, to invite these leaders of antagonistic groups to learn about conflict mediation and non-violent approaches to conflict management together. But it really seemed to work. At the end, one of the most vocal and negative individuals said he had been seriously transformed and was committed to work peacefully with his counterparts in opposing parties.

Our students were also able to contribute some perspective from the US context as well. Especially with regard to race.

On Friday night I was happy to get back to capoeira after a pretty long period of absences due to the fact that we have been out of town on several Fridays in a row. Cassien (Director of Help Channel) and his wife Beatrice came over for dinner as well to meet our guests.

On Saturday our students spoke to another campus group then led a Bible study in the evening. Rebecca and I took turns going to these events and staying home with the kids. I was able once again to see how well received our students have been and am committed to creating other similar mission opportunities for youth from the US to visit here in the future.

Sunday morning was not at all typical. Simon had talked to us several weeks ago about the beach evangelism ministry that Moisson Pour Christ runs at 6:30 am Sunday morning. It involves about 45 mins of calesthenics on the shore of Lake Tanganyika, in which onlookers are invited to join, followed by sharing the gospel with those who join on a one-on-one basis after the exercise. Context is important here. Sunday’s and particularly early mornings, are historically a time for doing sports: running, soccer, basketball, calesthenics, etc. On any given Sunday morning, along the shores of Lake Tanganyika, there are literally thousands of people stretching, running, exercising, alone or with groups. It is pretty wild.

It took some courage to get up and go, but Justin, Alicia, and Bridget were up for it. I agreed to go with them while Rebecca stayed back with the kids. It was really quite an exhilarating experience, I must say, and I hope to do it again in the future. We had hoped that our presence would draw more curious onlookers to our group, and to some extent it did, but mzungus are not nearly such a curiosity in Bujumbura, even when they are doing calesthenics.

I was wide awake, for church at 9am needless to say. In the afternoon we invited Jean Claude to come over to the house with his fiancé Francine for a visit. Jean Claude was the person who had gone to Burasira with us to translate for our work with the Batwa. Like so many Burundians, his story is one deeply marred by trauma (including the violent death of both parents) but a living testimony to the transforming power of God’s love. He is both and inspiration and a great cultural liason for the students.

Since he has been in the US and speaks great English he was very willing to answer many awkward cultural questions the students had, especially about hutus and tutsis. He was happy to answer them and ask some awkward cultural questions about them as well.

Youth on a Mission part 2: Crocodile Tails, Puppets for Pygmies, and an Audience with the President

I would have loved to get this entry up on Saturday evening so our friends at the Poughkeepsie United Methodist Church could have had it for Sunday morning. We have three of their youth visiting for three weeks, and we just finished off week one.

For those of you who thought I was kidding about Simon taking our friends out on Monday to pull crocodile tales, well he was true to his word, here are a few pictures from their first excursion in Burundi.

Often, the challenge of a short term mission trip is trying to find an effective way to make an impact in such a limited amount of time. Rebecca and I had a plan to connect our guests (Justin, Alecia and Bridget) to UGBB, our partner who does work on University campuses with students (Intervarsity). We met Zenon, the general secretary of the group, on Monday morning and did some strategizing with them. Zenon suggested that they should come to three of four campuses during the week to speak on a theme of missions, with personal testimonies, and scripture lesson, for about an hour to each group. He also suggested that they offer some computer training classes as well. I was surprised that Alecia, Justin, and Bridget did not bat an eye at the request. The first meeting was to be at noon on Tuesday (the next day), followed by another at 6pm. The three students went home that afternoon and the next morning and planned out a lecture in which they shared the time, about 20 minutes each. I took them to the first meeting at noon on Tuesday.

I was a bit apprehensive, and was hoping they could live up to the expectation. We met the students, a group of about 30, on the campus. After some introductions (which I was able to do mostly in Kirundi) they began speaking with the benefit of a translator. Justin began, and within 3 sentences, it was evident that the translator was not up to the task of making sense of Justin’s slang. (He did not have any translation for: ‘I was way out of my comfort zone’.) I was starting to interject some clarifications, and went up to assist, when before I knew it, I was drafted to be the interpreter for the meeting. I have had one opportunity to translate from French to English, but this was the first time from English to French. In a way it was easier, because I understood what the speaker was trying to say, and had more freedom to find a way to express it in French.

The entire lecture went extremely well, despite the translation problems, and the three had moving testimonies, drawing on their past experiences on mission trips to Mexico (led by Rebecca), China, and Uganda. The Burundian students were fascinated and asked excellent questions afterwards, including challenging ones like, what are the risks of doing short term missions and evangelism without any follow-up. They had very good answers to all the questions, and Alecia even shared about an experience of befriending a muslim girl in China, who came to follow Jesus a year later, but contacted Alecia to let her know of the role she had played in that process.

That evening they shared again at a second campus and the following day at a third. (They had good translators for these meetings) In every instance they were very well received and appreciated. They will plan to follow up with some of the students in these groups in the third week they are here.

On Thursday after school we packed our stuff and headed up to Bura Sera and the Hope School to see Jodi. We had a very full car as we were taking up the 3 students, Oren and David, as well as Rebecca and I. We also had many supplies for Jodi, as well as school supplies for the school including a full puppet theater strapped to the roof rack. We also had a laptop computer to take to our partners in Gitega on the way up. We started about noon and got to Gitega about 2 pm. We met with our partner UCPD and they were delighted to receive the laptop. (This was a gift the students brought with them from New York.) We also picked up another passenger, Jean Claude, who went with us to be our translator (Kirundi to English) while we were in Bura Sera.

Jean Claude is in his mid-twenties and finishing a degree. He speaks great English as well as French and Kirundi. Being in the peer group of our students also made him a valuable cultural asset on the trip. Often translation is much more than just language. He also gave them a lot of insight into life as a 20 something Burundian in the 21st century.

We all arrived at the seminary in Bura Sera (where Jodi’s house is) about 4pm. It was a very rough drive, especially with so much on the roof rack which almost fell off more than once! Oren was thrilled to be there and went right to her backyard to dig up some carrots that he had seen the last time he was there. We talked to Jodi about the plan for the two days we were there. They were to work with the 6th grade the next morning, but the afternoon there was a change in plan. The president of Burundi was going to be in the neighboring commune for the ground-breaking of a health clinic, and our partner wanted us to be there. (There was a plan to join in with the work crew, and ‘ambush’ him, and tell him about the Hope School for the Batwa and get him to stop by.)

I was a bit skeptical about the whole idea of trying to orchestrate an audience with the president and my concerns were born out. But we were also aware that our presence at such an event could have a very positive affect on the community, and give some credence to our partner in the community.

The next day, the students worked with the 6th grade and demonstrated the puppet theater. They did the story of the Good Samaritan. The appearance of three mzungus from New York in the class to teach English, sing songs and do a puppet show was probably the most exciting thing that had happened all year to most of the students in that class. They were enamored by the whole event. The 6th graders even sang, danced, and taught some Kirundi to the visitors.

We were told to go to the site where the President would be around 10 am. I was quite certain that he would be late, so we did not hurry, and got there around 10:45. The site was a clinic under construction. It was a community work project that everyone was invited to participate in, and the president himself was going to work himself. We all lent a hand, carrying bricks, mud, and mixing cement as we awaited his arrival… By 11:30 there was quite a buzz about where he might me, and we heard many false rumors about his imminent arrival. By noon, most people had stopped working and were just waiting. By 3pm, we were doing everything in our power to keep Oren from having a meltdown. The president finally showed up for about 10 minutes at 4pm. After 5 hours, Oren was fried and sobbing. The one good thing is that Jodi did manage to work herself up toward the president and told him about the Hope School. He asked how many Batwa students there were, and how many were girls. He also promised to come by and see it someday. The rest of us did not get the chance to meet him, but did see him from a fairly close vantage point.

The whole experience was really quite anticlimactic. It was a long day of waiting for a short unimpressive visit. What was hardest though, was that in those intervening hours, being the only mzungus in a crowd of 800, (many of them children) meant that we were the main attraction for about 4 hours. It was very exhausting to be stared at and followed by crowds of 300 to 400 children at a time. If we ever sat still they would gather around us and press closer and closer until we were almost suffocated by them. This was especially hard on Oren who was a particularly rare curiosity. He did his best, but I did not blame him for having more than one meldown. I also did think of the many times I have been late myself to a ‘visite sur terrain’ and kept others waiting. This was kind of a karmic payback for that, I suppose.

That night we had a lovely dinner with the priests at the seminary who were enchanted by the students, especially Alecia, who had just spent the past 4 months in Italy! Several of them were happy to speak Italian to her.

The next day (Saturday) our students did another session with the 6th grade, then had lunch with the seventh grade before heading back down to Bujumbura at about 2pm. They did a second puppet show for the sixth grade, about Samuel anointing David King. It really seemed to resonate with the Batwa children that Samuel overlooked all of Jesse’s stronger, larger sons in favor of the diminutive David. The lesson verse was: Men look at the outside appearances, but God looks at the heart.”

We got back to Bujumbura by about 5pm, exhausted, but also exhilarated by the success of the whole trip. The children were so thrilled by the whole experience of meeting our students, that Rebecca and I are committed to trying to arrange other similar types of mission trips up there in the future. We were also happy to leave them with the puppet theater, many new crayons, scissors, paste, construction paper, as well as a small amount of money for more supplies. Despite the disappointment of the President’s visit, it was an amazing trip.

Sunday morning we went to church and were blessed to hear Simon preaching. The occasion was a bit sad, because it his last Sunday in Burundi for about 3 years. He gave an inspired sermon on the adventure of our faith journey and the challenge of being willing to follow God obediently, earnestly, and dangerously. Following Jesus is risky and we need to be willing to take risks to follow him. He preached from Genesis 12 about Abram’s faithfulness to follow God and leave his homeland. Simon had many illustrations from his own life, and being in Burundi through a decade of civil war, he faced death for his faith many times. He was a real inspiration to our students and I was glad they got to meet him while they were here.

Sunday was also Father’s Day (French) and I was able to open a nice card from Oren that he made at school. Our 3 students also offered us a ‘date night’ where they would babysit the kids while we went out. We took them up and got Ethiopian food. It was the first time we have been out as a couple since I don’t know how long.

Unfortunately, when we got home we found Oren was quite sick with a fever. He also said his cheeks hurt. Upon looking at him and a quick consultation with the book “Where There is No Doctor” it is almost certainly mumps! We will let you know how he recuperates, and the further adventures of our students next week.

Chiilin' with our homies from New York!

Oren hanging with Justin and Alicia by the pool at Club du Lac Tanganyika.


This has been a long anticipated week, and perhaps many who read this blog are waiting for this entry to confirm that indeed our three home-church youth have arrived. Justin and Alicia Thompson-Gee (the children of our pastor at the Poughkeepsie United Methodist Church) and Bridget Marrine arrived safely. All three youth were a big part of the youth group when Rebecca was youth pastor there and have since gone on to college. I like to think that their ongoing committment to mission work is partly a result of Rebecca's influence on their lives in their early teens. i will come back with more details of what will be a three week soujourn with us, but let me start back at the beginning of the week as they arrived only Friday night.

I can't say the week began well, for me. I mentioned getting sick last weekend, and that turned out to be a pretty nasty flu-like virus that I passed on to the rest of the family over the rest of the week. Oren and David were sick on Wednesday through Friday, and Oren was not able to go to school on Thursday or Friday. Rebecca also had fever Thursday and Friday.

There is a saying that goes something like "I used to complain that I didn't have any shoes until I met a man without any feet." And if we had any cause to feel sorry for ourselves, we need only consider the health of our cook, Marcelline, who has been out since Monday with a combination of typhoid and malaria. (Which is very common here in tandem.) She is out for 10 days in the hospital. Rebeecca went to see her on Tuesday and she looked pretty unwell. We are planning to go back and visit her later today with our friends. Visiting the sick is an extremely important ritual in Burundi. So much so, that there is actually a seperate verb in the kirundi language used to describe visiting a sick person that is distinct from any other kind of visiting. There is honor associated with it, and I have no doubt that 4 or 5 mzungus coming to visit Marcelline this afternoon will be greatly appreciated. (Even strangers.)

Illness has not been the only cause for anxiety though, and I am not trying to play for sympathy here ;-) We said goodbye to some very special friends this week. On Tuesday, we drove with Zachee and Tim to the airport before school. They were on their way to Canada for three months. It was honestly a bit surreal. We had dinner with them the night before along with Brandon, one of our service workers. The next morning we met him at the airport to take his car back to our house for security. They were meeting Bridget in Nairobi, then proceeding to Canada for 3 MONTHS! His departure is problaby the single bigeest rite of passage that will happen to us this year. We are truly being cut loose here, as he has been our program assistant, accountant, protocol officer, cultural attache, gopher, and most of all friend! It is honestly, unimaginable to think of doing our job here without him. We would not have been able to do so as recently as 3 months ago. I hope we are ready now.

We have already had a bit of a workout as Rebecca and I have taken turns running around to do many of the administrative things involving paying bills for gas, electricity, rent, phone, car registration, garbage collection, insurance, etc. (All of these are done with cash in offices in different parts of the city.) That was quite a cultural adjustment for me, who in New York, paid all my bills automatically through internet banking.

Timmy was another major loss as he and Oren have become fast friends have been spending many hours together jumping on the trampoline. (Now he prefers to jump with someone all the time and I am getting really worn out keeping him entertained.) He is really going to miss Timmy for these 3 months.

If Timmy were the only friend who had left town, we might be OK. But in fact, on Wednesday, Lizzie (Simon's wife) left for the UK with their kids, Zack and Grace. Zack was Oren's other best friend. Simon (who will join them in a few weeks) and Lizzie are going back to the UK for the birth of their third child, but then will be going to South Carolina for 3 years to do fundraising work for their mission. The departure of both Timmy and Zack, and this on the heels of the departure of the Carr's has really left us a bit high and dry as far as close friends for Oren, and for us. We are going to have to really work hard to replace them while they are away. It did make the arrival of our three friends from the US seem like divine timing. Granted, they may think they are a bit old to be Oren's best friends, but Oren does not seem to be bothered by the age gap. They were swimming in the kids pool at Club du Lac on Saturday, jumping on the trampoline today, and were even treated to a viewing of Oren's favorite movie (Bolt) this afternoon.

I should say something about the actual arrival of our friends. Their flight came in on Friday evening, directly from Brussels. The Belgian Airlines flight arrives from there twice a week. I arrived on time to meet them and the plane was on time as well. I waited with a large group of other expectant locals and expats for our guests to emerge from immigration and customs. It is impossible to see what is happening behind the doors until they are almost done. People started coming through quickly and I was getting excited. But after about an hour, I saw that I was pretty much the only person still standing around waiting at the door. I was positive they were on the flight, so I was a bit worried that something was going wrong in the immigration process. (Were they going to be deported?) 15 minutes later they emerged, to my relief, and was told that there were no problems, just a long visa application process.

I took them home and we were only stopped once by a heavily armed army officer, but only because they were trying to pull a taxi bus out of a ditch. Oren and David had stayed up in anticipation of their arrival, but fell asleep shortly afterward. That was a good thing since it gave them a chance to disgorge the massive amount of goodies they had brought from the US for us with them. This included Cheerios, several pounds of chocolate chips, some large bags of jelly beans (Oren's favorites) as well as some precious Fuji apples. Here is a picture of them (taken on their arrival with my bad camera). As you can see, they brought many essential supplies for our mission work here, smuggled in their suitcases!

They also had many things for our partners, including Sunday school materials, and a laptop computer. All of these will be greatly appreciated when they are delivered into the hands of those waiting for them.

Saurday and Sunday, after their arrival proved to be challenging as well because of automotive adventures. What is ironic about it all, is that we are currently in possesion of two vehicles, our own, as well as Zachee's. Oddly, though, on Saturday morning, after everyone was up and had eaten we tried to go out to the beach, only to find that both vehicles had dead batteries! We were able to push start Zachee's corolla, and get it to a gas station for gas and oil, then drive it back to jump start the jeep. We then took the jeep to the beach and enjoyed the afternoon there. Simon also dropped by for a visit, and was very keen on taking our visitors out for some beach evangelism at 6am Sunday morning, then a trip to the Musee Vivant--our local zoo--to climb into the crocodile cages for some photo ops. We'll see! ( I will be dedicating a blog entry to Simon (Guillebaud) in the next few months when his film series comes out, but for those of you who want to know more about him, his book "For What it's Worth: A Call to Radical Discipleship" is well worth reading.)

On Sunday morning, as we prepared to go to church, we discovered the exact same problem. Both batteries were dead again, despite being charged back up for a long time. We did manage to push start Zachee's car again and drive it to church. We did not have the same luck leaving as the car refused to go at all after church on the way home. While I am tempted to see all of this as the devil's handiwork, the truth was, the dead battery at church proved to be a blessing in disguise. Because of it, many of our Burundian friends at church reached out to us immediately. We got a ride home, and then I even got a ride to a store to get a new battery for the jeep and assistance putting it in. By 1pm we were back to having a reliable car again.

At a time when we have been feeling particularly helpless and isolated without our 'go to guy', Zachee it was good to see that we are not, in fact, alone. We have been building a community slowly but surely, and there are many local Good Samaritans that are very happy to extend themselves when we are in need, and to go the extra mile to be sure that we are well taken care of.

I admit to feeling a bit fragile these days. With so many close friends and associates leaving and the illness that has beset us and our staff, we have been feeling a bit lonely and under attack. To have friends from our home community come and visit us at this time is a great encouragement. In fact, this evening, as we spent some time together in prayer I talked about the ministry that they will be bringing here to this place in the next several weeks. I think it is hard, especially on a short term trip, to feel like one is making a difference, unless they are doing something concrete--like building a playground, or school. But much of the work Rebecca and I do is relational, and it is in fact often just our presence, interest, and encouragement that is the greatest blessing. I even told the youth that it is possible that the most profound thing they may do here may be the encourgement they are to us.

That said, we have lined up a fairly busy and diverse program for them beginning tomorrow morning with the leader of the Burundian Union Groupe Biblique (Intervarsity Burundi). They will be spending some time with students before going up to meet our partners who run the Batwa school this weekend. We will keep you updated on their experiences next week.

Visite Sur Terrain

This is somewhat of a significant entry, blogwise, #52. That means I have been doing this weekly for a year now. (Actually I started at the beginning of May, but then went to a weekly schedule in June.)

If there are any entries that came very close to not happening in the course of a week, this would be the closest. I am actually suffering from a bad cold at the moment, and Rebecca and I just stayed up until about 11pm doing our monthly money count and report. (One of the least enjoyable parts of the job.) We are required to account for every penny we spend, and it is easy to forget small shopping trips, etc. when everything is done in cash.

We have given up at this point and will pick up again tomorrow.

This was another full week, and these full weeks are beginning to add up. As I mentioned last time, we were hosting two MCC peace program officials (Gopar and Amy). Hosting involves taking them around to meeting all our partners who are doing peace programs for them to give us feedback. They have also been staying at our house. (It is good to have a roomy house for them to stay in here.)

Since I am cutting to the quick here, I would say that one of the most interesting days was our trip up to Gitega to visit some of our partners up country. Rebecca and I decided to divide and conquer. (She stayed home with the kids while I took Gopar and Amy upcountry.) We left Wednesday morning and came back on Thursday.

It was a fairly complicated departure involving several steps to drop Oren to school, Rebecca to work, pick up our security guard who was coming with us, and pick up Amy, Gopar, and Claude (who works with one of our partners, and was our translator), before getting gas and heading up country. (I had a bit of a scare as the first gas station I went to was out of diesel, and there are frequent city-wide shortages.) Despite the stops, we did get on the road only about an hour behind schedule.

When we got to Gitega, we picked up some members of UCPD, and headed to a small commune about an hour away called Bukira Sazi. It is a place where UCPD, our partner, is running some peace and community development projects.

A ‘visite sur terrain’ (field visit) is always interesting, but not for the reasons one might expect. As much as we would like it to be an opportunity to see the community members at work, or doing workshops, putting lessons in practice, etc. It is rarely like that. The arrival of reps from an NGO is like a national holiday. We are anything but flies on the wall. Even being a bit late meant that most of the members of the community were probably hanging out at the meeting place waiting for our arrival, having put all other activities of the day on hold..

I am a reminded of the principle in quantum mechanics about the problem of identifying the location of a particle (electron). In order to detect it, one must bombard it with particles, and in doing so, you change its momentum path and location. In other words, you cannot observe a system without fundamentally changing it. That is certainly true in doing a field visit.

Our particular visit involved two stops, one to meet some members of a peace and reconciliation group, the second to meet a women’s collective. Claude was our translator from Kirundi into English, although when we were asked to say something to the community I was able to speak about a paragraph in Kirundi myself.

The visit with the women’s collective was the more interesting of the two. We had to drive very remote hill (terrible roads) and came upon what appeared to be a local market in session. There were about 300 women and 200 children in their best outfits milling around on the hillside. When we got closer, they all came toward us, and we realized this was the group we were meeting. (We had pictured an intimate time of testimonials with 4 or 5 women in a hut demonstrating some of their income generating projects.) When we got out of the car they made an immense circle around us began singing and dancing. We talked to them as a group for a short time, then we did get to see two alternative technology projects. One was a fuel efficient stove that was designed to cut down on charcoal use, the other was a method of growing vegetables in large plastic bags as land is very scarce.

By the time we finished seeing those things it began to pour rain. We headed back to the cars and returned to Gitega. We had a meal with the UCPD partners and listened to their ideas for the future, then headed to over to the MIPAREC guesthouse to spend the night. MIPAREC is another, much larger partner that has lodging facilities, a conference center, etc. It is run by Levi Ndikumana, who is never dull to be around. He talked to Gopar and Amy about, among other things, the difference between Tutsis and Hutus. He told us there was really no morphological difference, and that he himself had at different times been captured by both groups who had planned to kill him for being a member of the other. He is the founder of MIPAREC and invited Gopar to teach at an upcoming seminar. (Here is a picture of the two of them, Gopar has glasses.)

We left Gitega Friday morning and raced back to Bujumbura to try to get back before many of the offices close at noon (for the weekend.) I was aware that Zachee is leaving for 3 months on Monday and we wanted to get some things done with the local bureaucracy. We were a bit late and Rebecca and I spent a frantic hour trying to get something done before we had to get Oren at noon.

The rest of the day is a blur as is Saturday. I do know that I put Gopar and Amy on a plane on Saturday morning then worked to clear the remaining stuff out of our old house. (We were turning it back to the landlord on Sunday.) By Saturday night I was sick and woke up sick on Sunday. We did manage to give the landlord the keys and are just about clear. (It has not been an easy process to leave the old place.)

We are happy in the new place and here is a nice picture of Oren climbing the mango tree in our front yard. I am reminded of my own youth in Bangladesh (East Pakistan at the time.) and climbing a mango tree in our back yard there. I am sometimes aware that I seem to write this blog through Oren’s eyes, or at least my own eyes as a child growing up in a third world country. I find myself feeling very close to him in a way that is hard to explain--like I know what he is experiencing both from the inside and outside. He is beginning to find the adventure of being here. He loves to climb (I found him on top of the landcruiser today), run, walk on walls, travel with us when we do ‘les visites sur terrain’ (he was disappointed he did not get to go), try new things. But I am also aware of his melancholia, his longing to be back in Baltimore or New York. I can’t help but wonder about the man this child is preparing to become. It is going to be especially hard this week with two of his friends, Zack, and Timmy, leaving town for a long time next week.

I do know, however, he will be thrilled to see three of his friends from New York in Bujumbura this week. Justin, Bridget, and Alecia, three former youth of the PUMC youth group on the way here for a three week sojourn. Will keep you posted.

Women dancing for our Visite Sur Terrain

Three Strikes Out of the Comfort Zone

Here are some pictures in our new house. It is great for hosting guests, although it has some unusual appointments, like the bidet in the bathroom and the palatial master bedroom. I love the front porch!


This Saturday morning is beginning like many others. I am up early with Oren (and David as well.) We are huddled around the computer, they are watching a movie (Bolt) while I begin to write this week’s blog. One variation on the routine is that we are at the ANLM guesthouse in Kigali, and not in Bujumbura. This is my third trip here in a month, and I won’t deny that I am getting tired of the 5 hour drive. At this point I am on a first-name basis with all of the border guards.

The occasion for our return this week is to install our new service workers, Ruth Plett and Krystan Palikowski into their home in Kigali. We will also be picking up some MCC peace reps, Amy and Gopar, who will be visiting our partners in Burundi. Finally, we are getting Oren’s cast removed…

We arrived Wednesday evening and plan to return on Monday. (By the time you read this blog we may be back in Bujumbura as we are having internet trouble in Kigali.)

The three days prior to our arrival are worth reviewing because I was, on three occasions, taken out of what I would call my ‘comfort zone’ by a considerable margin.

The first incident happened last Sunday. Rebecca and I went to church at PTI (the place we attend.) The morning routine was normal, and we arrived just in time to join in the first 15 minutes of singing--only 5 minutes late. Then one of the ‘elders’, Jean de Dieu, pulled me aside and told me that Emmanuel Ndikumana, the pastor was sick and had asked Simon to preach. (Simon is a missionary I have mentioned in the past. He is the father of Oren’s friend Zack) Simon was to be preaching in French, and since one of the translators was sick, Jean de Dieu asked if I would be willing to do the translation of the sermon?

My immediate reaction was fear. I could not have felt less prepared. I even left my reading glasses at home that morning so I could not read the Bible passage he would be preaching from. Despite some serious reservations about my capacity to do it well, I agreed. I felt like this was an opportunity God was giving to me, to begin to develop this capacity. I was also aware of being tested by Him. I know God is aware of a sort of spiritual shell I have felt I have retreated into in recent weeks, especially with the disintegration of our small group here.

What is hard about translating, I have found, is not understanding what is being said, but rather, remembering how a person ended a sentence. Often you are so concentrated on remembering the beginning that you realize only too late that you missed the end. Fortunately Simon does speak English and could translate what I missed. He is also a very good preacher and got the message about the urgency of our call to be Christ’s ambassadors across quite effectively.

I have to say, despite my fears, it was the most alive I have felt in worship for quite a while, and I was honored to be asked and to find a way to share more in worship. I would, nonetheless, not grade myself above B- on the effort. But in time I may improve.


The second incident of being out of my comfort zone occurred on the following Tuesday. This is a difficult topic to write about, but I feel it is important to include because it is a sad part of life here as an expatriate, and worth some reflection.

Rebecca and I had to dismiss one of our house staff.

It is interesting, in all my life, I have never been in a position where I was obliged to fire anyone. The very idea of doing so is deeply unpleasant. The problem was stealing money, and I have been told it is often a problem one has with staff. I admit that I naively believed that this problem would not be visited upon us because we pay our workers better than most anyone I know. I believed that the problem of theft was due to the lack of a fair wage.

We started noticing money disappearing from our wallets and other places in the house beginning about a month ago whenever he was working.

Because this worker speaks primarily Kirundi, we asked Zachee to help us translate. (I felt bad for Zachee having to be involved, but grateful for his gentle diplomacy.) The conversation was fairly short and awkward. He denied the charge despite the overwhelming evidence. I did not insist on a confession, and resisted the urge to ask the question why, or what changed that made him begin to do this. What was hardest for me is that I am really sympathetic to the temptation our workers must feel. There is such a disparity between our lifestyles. I imagine that there is also the perception that we would never miss a few hundred dollars.

Despite his dishonesty, I did give our worker his last month of pay. I do not feel any indignation, just sadness, as he was a nice guy. I do pray that he will make better choices in the future. As far as justice, I don’t know what that means in this context. There is the small injustice of being robbed which in my heart palls in the face of the greater injustice of structures that put my family and his in such dire economic juxtaposition. I think of the parable of the man who is forgiven a large debt by the king, then shakes down his own worker for a small debt he is owed. I have no doubt that when the scales are righted, I am will not have much of a case for any complaint against him.


The third incident that put me out of my comfort zone happened once we arrived in Kigali. We left Wednesday after Oren’s school and got to Kigali about 6 pm. We were blessed to be able to give Bridget, Zachee’s wife a ride up with us as she had a conference to attend up there as well. She is such a resource of information and insight to work with our partners as she has so many years of experience.

On Thursday our family ran some errands in the morning, including making an appointment to get Oren’s cast removed at 6:30 pm. Then at about 2 we headed upcountry to Byumba to pick up Ruth and Krystan from their ‘live-in’. We rode up with Eugene, whose house they were staying at. We got there about 4pm. I knew that there would be quite a bit of relational interaction between us, them, and Eugene’s family, and I was a bit concerned that we might not be able to leave an hour and a half before we were due in Kigali for Oren’s appointment. My concerns were justified as Eugene did invite us to sit and have a meal. Many people who had met Ruth and Krystan were invited to join us, and there were a series of speeches and gifts given. We were invited to give speeches as well, and were not able to leave until about 7pm.

I don’t want to underplay the importance of this ceremony or the emotional depth of it. Eugene was deeply touched that we had asked him to take care of them. And he was humbled by how gracious Ruth and Krystan were. They apparently left a very good impression on everyone they met there, and ate the local cuisine--cassava paste and fermented sorghum juice—without any complaints. (Krystan did spend 3 days with diarrhea and vomiting from the latter, but was a very good sport about it nonetheless.)

Besides missing Oren’s appointment to get his cast removed, the bigger problem of leaving at 7pm was that it was pitch black and I had to drive us back to Kigali from upcountry. I really do not like to drive long distances at night around here as it is dangerous. It is hard to see people and the roads are narrow. We also had no guide. Despite my anxiety about it, we got back fine a bit after 8 and had pizza for dinner in Kigali.

On Friday we did get Oren’s cast off! We also spent that day as well as Saturday setting up Ruth and Krystan’s house. MCC had some stuff in storage that was brought over, then we went out and bought a stove, fridge, living room set, and dining room set. We also discovered an interesting thing about Kigali which I wish I would have known about before—Kigali has very inconsistent running water and sometimes goes a month at a time without any. It was then I started to notice that most every house had a huge water reservoir on a tower on the property. We are now talking to someone about building one for the place Ruth and Krystan are staying.

The trick is getting a tank that is sufficient to store water in the shortage time, but not so big that it crushes the tower by its sheer weight. This is not such an easy task as people will build anything you ask for, but there is never any consideration of engineering principles when construction is going up, unless you happen to be an engineer or know one. (I have seen more than one crushed steel tower in the neighborhood.)

Hiring house staff also needs to happen, and fortunately the Thomas’ (a missionary family I wrote about before) are right next door and can help them.


It is now Sunday night and we are wrapping up our time here, getting ready to go back to Bujumbura. We do have 2 passengers coming back with us. They are MCC peace program coordinators, Amy and Gopar. They will be visiting some of our partners’ projects in Burundi next week. I am personally looking forward to getting back to Burundi

I am also realizing how much travel this job entails. I will be upcountry several days next week with Amy and Gopar. Please continue to pray for our morale, the job has felt hard the past 2 weeks and will continue to be so in the near future.

There are some things I am thankful for worth mentioning:
-I am getting better at Kirundi and can have conversations now! I was able to do some negotiating for Ruth and Krystan while we were getting them some household items.
-Oren is really doing better, and continues to love his school.
-We are blessed to be in our new house and are looking forward to living in it.
-Friends have been reaching out to us when they see us floundering
-David is doing very well and smiles more than any baby I know.
-Rebecca is a great wife who keeps track of much that I miss.

Moving Day and the ethics of ‘Fantas’

Oren and David at the playground at Oren's school


I have been feeling the pressure frequently on the weekend to write a shorter blog entry because we have been busy the past several weeks on Saturday and Sunday. Today, however, I am going to have to make good on that threat as we have a big project ahead of us to complete in two days—MOVING!

For those of you who missed the allusions to it in the past few weeks, we are moving at of the house we are currently renting to a new one. While the project will definitely be worth the effort, it has been and will be a lot of work.

The sad side of all of this is that we are moving into the house previously occupied by our Scottish friends the Carr family. They have been great friends to us and the core of our small group here. Yesterday (Friday) I took them to the airport. It was quite a feat as the 5 of them had arrived with a shipping container, but were taking back what they could in their luggage. Although I have not heard from them yet, we do know that they did get on the plane bound for Heathrow.

Going back a few days… This was a busy week, but not atypical. Oren has been sick on and off, but did manage to go to school every day this week. (I gave him a dose of ibuprofen each morning before he left.)

Among the things we have been doing this week, is learning how to do Zachee’s job! You might remember that I mentioned he and his family are going to Cananda for 3 months and we will need to do the things he normally does for us. Besides book keeping, he also is charged with the often unpleasant task of interfacing with the Burundian bureaucracy to keep our team’s visas updated, our vehicles legal, our organization properly registered, etc. This is a thankless task (eventhough we are profoundly grateful for it.) The challenge of this kind of work is first and foremost that francophone countries in Africa are the progeny of a massively inefficient colonial legacy. Secondly, tasks that are now done entirely electronically, like filing and searching, etc. in the US are done completely by hand here. Finally, corruption is ubiquitous here. It is almost impossible to get even a signature on a form without providing a ‘fanta’. (Fanta is the word for bribe.)

We had a discussion about bribes and corruption in small group--especially about the morality of paying a ‘service charge’ for something as a missionary. One of our members said that she had understood a bribe to be a payment for something you are not entitled to, while a ‘tip’ is giving a fee for something that you are legally entitled to. Myself, I would be inclined to agree, except in truth, a tip is given as a ‘gratuitous gesture’, that is provided AFTER the service is rendered, not as a guarantee that it will be done.


So my foray in to Zachee’s world began at the immigration office in town where I went to renew our families visas. (Something we do every 3 months) The job requires 3 trips for different stages of the process. We had progressed to stage 2 and I needed to drop off our passports for stamping. Standing in line is the long part of the process. Filling out forms takes far less time.

For phase 2 of the process I arrived on Friday in the early afternoon (3pm) to begin the waiting process to drop off the passports. I was feeling really lucky because there was only one person ahead of me and what I had to do was really quite simple. There was no one behind the reception desk, but a man came finally, after 15 minutes, and helped the person in front of me, then left again. I stood waiting for another 45 minutes watching the numerous clerks, and other bureaucrats behind desks, looking bored, chatting, sleeping and generally ignoring those of us on the other side of the windows waiting for service. At 4 pm, Zachee came in to try to pick up Jodi’s passport. He told me that generally no one works on Friday after 11am, eventhough the office is open. We stood around for another 25 minutes, and then were told the office is closing and we needed to leave.

While we were standing I asked Zachee if someone would serve me if I offered a ‘fanta’. He said, yes. He asked me if there was corruption in the US and I explained that it was built into the systerm. I told him:

“If I want my passport processed overnight I pay $160, if I want it in 3 days I pay $90, and if I don’t mind waiting a month, I can pay $40.”

I am not sure what the difference is, except the money is distributed more equitably within the organization. Rich people still get the fastest service though. The other problem I suppose, with corruption is that poor people may not be served at all. Whether I pay a first class ticket or economy class on a plane, we are all going to arrive (or not arrive) together. In a corrupt system though, services are only rendered to the rich.

I guess I have my sense of integrity to comfort me as I fume over the fact that I stood at the front of a line in the passport office to get my visa renewed for an hour and a half without being acknowledged, and eventually told to leave as it was closing time. I also have a better understanding of the challenges Zachee faces almost weekly as our program officer. He will be sorely missed when he leaves in June.

I will need to be back in the immigration office bright and early Monday morning as Rebecca and I are going to Rwanda on Wednesday and need to have our visas renewed before we leave. Prayers would be appreciated if we are going to do this without resorting to ‘fantas’.

The week was not all bad though. Val Carr dropped what I would have to call an atomic bomb of fantastic news on us. During my language lesson on Wednesday she called and said:

“We have a problem. The orphanage we were going to give the our trampoline to decided they did not want to deal with the risk of having it there. Would you like us to leave it at the house for you?”

“Uhhhh OK.”

Honestly, they left a lot of stuff that belonged to their kids including a playstation, TV, legos, matchbox cars, etc. I think Rebecca will have to go through it all before Oren realizes what is there as he will probably not be given most of it.

We did go over last night to put the safety net back on the tramp. (It had been taken down.) Zachee came over with Tim. They had not seen the house yet. Timmy was ecstatic to see the tramp and Zachee could not believe we had managed to find such a great house. He said “Oh, Tim will want to live here!” (Timmy has already suggested that Oren should be his little brother. I am actually hoping that having this larger house and stuff for kids will help Oren make some new friends, (especially French speakers). This is definitely a place to share with others. Hopefully we can continue the Carr’s tradition of having people over for folk dancing as well. We are also hoping to run an English speaking Sunday School for kids on Saturday morning. We will work on all that as soon as we are settled in.

Oren is still having a tough time, with the whole idea of being here, and having a new baby brother. He is still quite possessive of me and needy in a not entirely pleasant way. He does seem to do much better with friends, than with me alone. On ‘daddy day’ this past Thursday I walked David and him over to school in our jogging stroller with David in the front pack-- Rebecca had taken the car to work. (As an aside I will say that a mzungu man pushing a large 3 wheeled stroller with a child in it and a baby in a front pack would be mildly interesting in the US, but is the equivalent in Burundi to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. I cannot tell you how strange that was. Everyone would stop working when I passed, traffic stopped, or almost drove off the road rubbernecking. It did take a real effort to have a sense of humor about what a freak I was, especially with most of the people laughing hysterically at the sight. I was certainly not a “light under a bushel” that day.)

The reason we were going to school was for ‘activity afternoon’. Mdme. Cecile has a Thursday obstacle course and other activities for kids. Oren really likes it and I have some pictures in this blog of the things they do.

OK, I have to start packing now.