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.