Reading the Signs of the Times

"Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that it is near, right at the door. I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened"     --Mark 13:28-30

This week my daily devotional readings have been focused on the time of judgement, and reading the 'sign of the times.'  Jesus often tells his disciples to not have their 'head in the sand' about the unfolding history around them, and not to caught off-guard by a time of tribulation when it is coming.  The timing of these passages seems divinely coincidental as we have had more than a few conversations about reading the signs of the times here in Burundi and Rwanda.

Many of you may know from previous entries that we are in an election year here; in fact both Burundi and Rwanda are going to be having elections this year.  There is, even at this early point, a real feeling of anxiety starting to express itself amidst the population here (Presidential elections are in June).  I have personally talked to many friends here in Burundi about the election and its outcome.  (This is the first fully democratic election since the 1993 crisis and 14 year civil war that ensued.)  Opposition groups (including former rebel armies cum political parties) are currently held together in a tenuous peace, but there is a lot of question about whether an election will fragment the country again.

This was a major topic of conversation this evening as we went out for pizza with Zachee and Bridget.  We were at Ubuntu again, thanks to their half-off pizza from 5 to 7 pm, where Oren and Timmy could run around on the grounds, David could follow the beautiful crowned cranes that stroll freely around, and we could enjoy some catch up time with our dear friends.  This evening we were also able to enjoy a particularly spectacular sunset over the lake.  Perhaps this will become a tradition on Sundays after the afternoon service at the Rainbow Center.  (The photos on the site are all from the evening at Ubuntu.  The mountains are in Congo across Lake Tanganyika)

The setting was beautiful but the conversation was tense as we are seeing unmistakable signs of destablilization that threaten to pull our region into violence during the election.  The latest concern are a series of grenade attacks in downtown Kigali (including the places where we shop when we are there.)  Bridget was advising us to be sure we have an emergency contingency plan in place for Ruth and Krystan if things deteriorate further.  This is difficult for us because they are our service workers but we are not even in the same country with them.

This is also difficult because while we have many concerns about Burundi, our sense was that Rwanda was relatively stable, so these grenade attacks have caught us a bit off guard.  We are going to go up to Kigali this Wednesday to talk to our partners at Friends Peace House and work on an emergency plan for Ruth and Krystan.

Among the topics of conversation was who on earth stands to gain by trying to destabilize the countries in this region.  Sadly the answer is, as is often the case, that diaspora elements (radicalized nationals living outside the country) have access to money, and feel they have much to gain and relatively little to lose by funding and arming groups to create chaos in these countries.  This is true in Congo, Rwanda and Burundi.  Even more sadly, it is hard to get the international community to pursue these threats vigorously.

Paul had to crash, so Rebecca is writing a bit from this point on:

One of the major problems of democracy in Africa is related to the problem of scarcity. Whoever wins the election gets access to the pie. If you win office, you get to "eat." In fact, in many cases, if you win, you get the whole pie. It's a very different situation in North America. As flawed as our political proces is, it would be unimaginable to have one political party refuse to step down because it lost an election, no matter how contentious.

Public office in the US is generally understood as 'stewardship' over such things as the national treasury, federal preserves, etc.  In most African countries winning the election is seen as receiving 'ownership' of the nation's wealth.  The treasury belongs to the winner and his constituents.  (It is their turn to 'eat' is actually the expression used here to describe a transfer of power.) This is why in most African states transfer of power is accompanied by a great deal of violence and instability.

So, if you win, you get all or most of the pie. And there really is only one pie here. (Ther is no really lucrative private sector to seek ones fortune in here.)  So there's little incentive to let someone else take your pie. And if you don't happen to own the pie, you have a lot of reason to fight for it. Yes, when you use violence, you knock the edges off of the crust, maybe you lose a bit of the filling, but some pie is better than no pie, right? At least that's the logic that seems to underlie the motivations of certain groups we have heard of that are armed and ready to respond to unfavorable election results with violence.

This metaphor of fighting over a small piece of pie is evident even in more mundane circumstances of everyday life. In most situations (at the bank, paying utility bills, at the visa office, at the grocery store) you need to be willing to use your elbows or you'll wait forever for service. People do know about standing in line. But there is a sense of urgency about everything that somehow causes people to fight to get ahead. People crowd around and butt in front of each other. People will literally stand behind you and shove their bill and their money over your shoulder and into the cashier's window to pay ahead of you. For us North Americans this is bizarre and irritating. But we have faith that the pie is big enough for everyone. We believe that if we wait in line, we have a right to get service. Here, people's behavior, as annoying as it is, is really the most rational response to the real situation. Here, the pie is NOT big enough. If you're in line when the bank closes and you haven't done your business, tough, come back tomorrow. If you're waiting for food handouts, the quantity is limited. You have to get what you can get while you can get it. There isn't enough for everyone. I think this mindset is very deeply ingrained here in a context of deep scarcity and it governs people's behavior in realms from paying bills to driving downtown to pursuing political power.

So the real question is, could there be a sense of the greater public good that would restrain political parties from practicing fraud or violence in the pursuit of power? We have often felt that Rwanda is making very good progress. It is a secure country, with a stern police force, priding itself on becoming a stable environment for business investment. Government policies are often surprisingly progressive, even more forward-thinking than those in the west (the famous example is that plastic bags are outlawed for environmental protection). Economic progress is marked. And yet, for the second time in a month, grenades were thrown in the street in downtown Kigali.

How do we read those signs? Who stands to gain from this? How serious could it get? What are the repercussions for the region if things become unstable in Rwanda? Or in Burundi? And what can we be doing about it? Are there ways that our local partners could continue to urge their constiuencies to keep cool heads and make good decisions? People all over the region continue to carry the trauma of past violence with them. There is an understandable instinct to trust no one and fight for survival. Could those trauma instincts somehow be overcome so that the people seeking power cannot manipulate the population into participating in the destruction of the whatever little pie we have here in Rwanda and Burundi?

Maybe Paul will have more to add, but I would really ask for prayer for our region of Africa. It is incredibly unfortunate that Burundi, Rwanda and Congo are all due for elections in this next year. Instability in one country inevitably sets the others off-balance. Power is up for grabs all over the place here. Please pray for Christians here to remember their first calling. Pray for us as leaders of our organization to support our local partners well. And pray for us to have wisdom in reading the signs of the times for the well-being of our team of volunteers here.

So, time for a little contrast! On Tuesday morning, I prayed together as usual with a group of mothers from Oren's school. We pray for our kids and their teachers and for the school in general. I asked for prayer for me and Oren because we had been fighting a lot recently -- he has been going through a phase of disobediance and defiance. In the afternoon, I took the kids with me to get David's yellow fever shot finally. Oren agreed to go help cheer David up. But I failed to find the place, sadly, on that afternoon.

On a side note, I did eventually find it on Friday and got my vaccine from a dirty little fridge in a dirty little room in a back building of an unmarked nurse's training facility. I watched carefully and only let them give me the vaccine when I saw the nurse open a brand new, self-contained vaccination pack with a fresh needle. This is the only place to get this vaccine in Burundi. The good side was that it only cost $2.50, better than $150 stateside. David is destined for the needle tomorrow...

In any case, to console Oren for the loss of getting to see David cry from a shot, we went to the Cercle Hippique -- the horse place. And the kids and I had a wonderful afternoon! We played a bit on some tires. We went in and greeted the horses, and quickly, Oren decided that his favorite one was an old mare named Laura, but whom he named Gaga Chocolate Starhead. She was incredibly gentle in her stall, letting the kids touch her and stroke her and just delight in her as she poked her head over the gate. Most of the rest of the horses were let out of their stalls to run around the grounds but she was kept in because she's been retired from riding. One of the grooms gave Oren some grass to feed her and he was really excited about that. He took another ride on a different horse, and was able to take three or four circuits of a big paddock. Then we climbed around on different steps, played with Gaga some more. David squealed at every horse he saw. He found an old black cat and got right down on his belly to look at it in the eyes. I think he wanted to know what it was like for the cat. He is really an animal lover! After a while, we got some sodas and sat on the spectator steps, watching three Belgian girls have their riding lesson. It was exciting to watch them canter around the paddock. Finally, we headed home around 6 pm, with Oren talking about how he might take Gaga home with him sometime. And we hadn't had a single fight the entire afternoon!! As our final reward, we saw a hippo in the water as we drove past the lake.

Paul is back to finish off the entry:

Just to finish off, the rest of the week was busy.  One of our big projects this past week has been trying to secure a Nigerian visa so we can go to an MCC conference at the end of March.  We have encountered a bit of an impasse, to wit: "You can't get there from here" at least according to the Nigerian embassy.  Certainly that is true in terms of flights in that we have to fly in the opposite direction to Ethiopia to get a flight to Nigeria, but also in terms of visas.  But now, the Nigerian embassy here has told us that they cannot issue visas to ex-patriates living in Burundi.  They only give visas to Burundian nationals here.  We asked if they would make an exception and they said we could bring a letter from our embassy.

When Rebecca went to the US embassy to get a letter requesting a visa.  The US consular officer was shocked and offended that the Nigerian embassy here at that policy for US citizens.  They said they would raise this matter with the embassy on a diplomatic level but would not give us a letter personally as that would set a precedent that they do not wish to follow.  Long story short: We are out of luck.  We really do not have time to send our passports away, and we need them here anyway to travel to Rwanda this week.

We are now trying to pursue other connections with the Nigerian embassy, such as friends who attend our church, etc.  Please pray for a miracle in this matter as we have already spent several thousand dollars on plane tickets.

I am going to close by telling readers that in the weeks and months ahead I feel a need to exercise restraint in putting political content into this blog.  I am careful not to name names or divulge particular information we are privy to on the ground here.  This will be necessary in the weeks and months leading up to the election.  This blog is meant to be a description of life as a missionary family and I need to try to keep it on that level.  If you want to know more about the unfolding electoral drama here, I will add links in the future to other news sources that are watching this region.

Also, please keep us and our team in prayer.  I am realizing that in a crisis, I am not in a position where I can just flee with my family.  We have a team here of 3 families as well as several individuals whose well-being we are responsible for.  This may lead to some hard decisions in the future and divine courage.  Specific prayers for our Kigali trip this week would be welcome as well.  We will go as a family, but will probably not take our kids on shopping trips in the downtown mall after hearing about these recent rashes of grenade attacks.

Bonus photo,  Here I am teaching the yoga/stretch class on our porch in Saturday morning.  Oren decided to join in and help me teach.  (Yolanda was the only one there this week.) He did the whole class, and then continued to teach me a bunch of his own exercises afterwards that he made up on the spot.  I was surprised how creative he was!  For those of you who read this from the dance world, it was like trying to learn a movement sequence from Merce Cunningham or Dan Wagoner.  He effortlessly connected a really clever series of non-sequetorial movement together and gave me detailed instruction of how to go from one thing to the next.