It is hard for me to imagine the amount of snow I have heard has fallen in the Eastern US. I hear about several feet falling at my parents’ house in Baltimore and it is such a contrast to here where we bask by the side of the pool on hot afternoons at this time.
Actually we have had a slight shift in seasons again. We have just moved out of the small dry season during the month of January, back into the second rainy season. It came in with a torrential roar. We have had two intense downpours in the past two days. The one that happened today lasted about 45 minutes and timed itself perfectly to be while I was preaching in a small rural church outside Bujumbura under (a very leaky) tin roof. The noise was deafening and I was hoping that people were getting at least some of it through my Kirundi translator.
This has definitely been a ‘church filled’ Sunday as both Rebecca and I were asked to share messages at different churches. The morning service was one in Ruziba, a poor rural commune south of Bujumbura. The church is co-pastored by Enoch, our cook trainer who still comes by our house to work with Marcelline several times a week. He invited Rebecca and I to come and share a message. At first it was not clear who he meant and when Rebecca asked if it should be her (since she has the M. Div.) he explained that it was a conservative church and women were not allowed to preach or teach to men. So I took that assignment and Rebecca agreed to preach for the English language service in the afternoons at the Rainbow Center.
Enoch’s church proved to be an interesting challenge, as I felt led to share a message espousing peace theology. I used the passage in Romans 12 about not being conformed to the patterns of the world, but rather be transformed by the renewal of your mind. I used it as a takeoff point to talk about 3 ways in which the gospel is a powerful critique of culture. I focused on three themes: Power, Love, and Death. I asked for each what the world said about each one compared to what Christ taught.
For power I took the opportunity to talk about servant leadership vs. authoritarian leadership. I also talked about God’s extraordinary use of weakness rather than force to do his work of reconciling us to him.
For love, I talked about the challenge of loving one’s enemies, and not just one’s friends. (from Matthew 6) I used the illustration of the Amish response to the killing of 5 girls that happened several year ago. (How they forgave the deceased perpetrator, but then went on to raise money to support his wife and children.)
For death, I talked about Jesus’ warning that he who tries to save his life will lose it and he who loses his life will save it. I had an illustration from Burundi, of the petit seminaire in Buta where 40 students, tutsi and hutu were being educated together. The priest had been instilling in them a theology of peace and unity in Christ. In Oct. 1997 an armed hutu group came to the seminary and asked the students to separate. (This was normal practice by rebel groups, then all the members of one ethnicity would be killed.) But the seminarians refused to separate. The blood of Christ ran deeper in their veins then the blood of their ethnic identity. Because they would not separate, all 40 of them were massacred. But in the dying breath of one student, who had a beatific smile on his face: “We won, they told us to separate, but we stayed together.”
“O grave where is thy victory, O death where is thy sting.”
I admit though that I had some concern about sharing this story as the church I was preaching at was comprised of ex-combattants and child soldiers. I was worried that this might hit a bit close to home. Perhaps even some of them had been involved in this massacre. I did pray about sharing it, then trusted God that his was an appropriate illustration. (The other concern I have is that no one has been brought to justice for this crime and the armed group that was responsible is now the ruling political party in the country.)
The sermon did go very well despite the aforementioned worries and the rain which made hearing a bit difficult. David and Oren were also on their best behavior for the service that lasted 4 hours. It was followed by lunch and we finally got back to our house around 2pm.
(I would also add that while the women may not have been allowed to preach, they were by far the majority and were in no way impeded from dancing up a storm during worship time!)
That gave us about 2 hours to get ready for the second service and we did have at least 1 visitor drop by. Fortunately Rebecca was fairly well prepared. I took childcare duties this time and Rebecca led the service.
Although I was in the Sunday school with the kids for most of her sermon, I did here some and it sounded very good. She was talking on a theme of Christian character and this week’s topic was spiritual disciplines and growth. She used the faith journey of Peter to illustrate the steps and missteps of our own faith walk. I believe the sermon was very well received. She was invited back to preach twice more in this series.
So that was Sunday. We came home about 6 exhausted from all the church we had had, but felt good about the day. We skpyed my parents before we went to bed to get a look at the 25 inches of snow that had fallen in Baltimore.
Yes, I said skyped. That is my segue into the next part of this blog. WE NOW HAVE A REASONABLY GOOD INTERNET CONNECTION. Yes I gave up on DSL. I got tired of hoping and decided to go to one of the wireless services that offers a high-speed connection for about $100 per month. I had to pay in advance on Monday and I was skeptical, but by Wednesday it was fully functional! Skype has been the greatest benefit so far. Although it is also great to be able to download email in less than an hour. Or open a wesite. Our current connection is still quite slow by US standards, (about 1 megabyte per minute) but that is good enough for video skyping so we are happy! If you see us online, give us a call.
Besides that, the week has been pretty normal. We still do language lessons Monday afternoon, I teach ballet on Tuesday afternoon, the rest of the time is occupied with entering program plans, final reports, and submitting budgets to MCC. I have mentioned that it is a tight year and we have had to tell our partners that our grants will be considerably smaller this year.
I am not sure less money is all bad though. In development work any monetary assistance can so easily lead to dependency and lack of sustainability. I am hoping that this year might give us a chance to see which programs are stable with regard to their sustainability.
This week has also been plagued, sadly by illness. Our cook Marcelline has been out all week with something. Odifax’s wife and daughter have been sick too, so we really had not staff this week at our home. (Enoch did come in once to make us some lunch and dinner.)We did take the lack of a cook as an opportunity to go out for Indian Food with Zachee and Bridget Tuesday. That was a real treat that we have not done at all this year.
We also had several interesting events on Saturday. Oren went to a carnival at his school in the morning. There was a sort of costume parade as part of it. He decided he wanted to be a tree, and he and mommy worked on a costume for it.
Speaking of School. Oren has been loving his school in the past month and says he wants to go every day of the week. That is good since he has to go to extra French lessons 3 times per week in the afternoons. One thing I have found amusing is the current unit his class and in fact all the grades in the maternelle have been doing for the past month. They have been studying American Indians! I have to say, to some extent their crafts and activities seem to be based more on a Hollywood idea of Indians than any deep study of culture. But what can one expect when one is studying American Indians, in a Belgian school, taught by a French teacher, in Burundi?!
Back to Saturday… After Oren’s carnival, the missionary families we hang with, as well as Zachee, Bridget and Tim’s family made a trip upcountry to Ijenda for a picnic and to escape the heat! It was a great outing with about 8 kids hiking together and 9 adults. We had lunch on the hillside, the scenery could have been taken right out of the Sound of Music. David loved it, especially the many cows, goats and sheep grazing on the hills.We came down and got back to Bujumbura in time to go to Nathan and Lara’s house where Jal, their son was having his 6th Birthday, after a brief visit there we passed by another friend’s house whose son was having a first communion party, and ended up for dinner at Tim and Jeannette’s house, our South African missionary friends. We were truly Burundian this week with all of our visits!
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