The main deviation from the norm this week was my ascent up country to Gitega on Thursday where I spent the night and returned Friday. We do have 3 partners up there and it is time to sign MOUs (memorandums of understanding) for the grants that begin this fiscal year. It honestly does not make for a very exciting trip, but it is necessary.
I did not go with Rebecca and the kids because we wanted to keep Oren in school all week. He will have to miss an entire week of school soon because of an upcoming trip to Nigeria, but I will come back to this.
I did go up with Yolanda and Jean Claude. Yolanda is our SALTer seconded to Moisson Pour Christ, where Jean Claude also works. They were going up to do a peace training with University students and asked for a lift. I also wanted Yolanda to see some of the work of one of our other partners so we mada a plan to meet Friday morning for a visit to the commune of Bukira Sazi to see the work of one of our partners up there.
The trip was, as I said relatively uneventful but relationally exhausting as I spent many hours in a short space of time catching up with the work of our three Gitega partners, seeing some of their projects, working through the particulars of the memorandums of understanding, all in French of course. I stayed at the conference center of one of our partners and slept somewhat fitfully on an uncomfortable bed. I was glad to head home Friday afternoon and got home before the kids ate dinner.
Oren and David were apparently on their best behavior with Mommy over the days I was gone. Oren really does his best when he is in a very regular structured routine. So school days are very comforting to him in a way. The big change that is happening between them is that they are really beginning to play together. David is very keen on doing whatever Oren is doing, but now can actually ‘do’ some of the things Oren does. Most impressive is his ability to jump on the trampoline. I am surprised that as a 15 month old he is beginning to do this.
Last week I put a step up next to the trampoline he can get up on himself. He loves to climb on it and we have to pay close attention to him. (There is a net around the tramp so he cannot jump off of course.) But now he and Oren can jump together on the trampoline which is something he loves to do. They get each other really worked up laughing and falling over.
When David is not on the trampoline he is often in Oren’s room looking at his books. He really loves pictures in books and will often go in alone to look at them.
Saturday was spent at home as a family. I did the morning yoga stretch class then played with the kids. Rebecca and I were both asked to preach this week, her in the morning and I in the afternoon so we also switched off trying to find time to finish our sermons. In the evening we invited our friends over, the Thomas’ (Danish friends) and the Tanja and Stephan the German family as well. We had a lot of children as they all came with their kids and we had Timmy also. We had a very nice enchillada dinner together and the kids played on the trampoline and watched videos.
Oh, almost forgot, Jodi was also here. She arrived on Saturday for a short visit to Bujumbura for examine week at her school. She is picking up some supplies then heading back up country.
We all had a good visit, then Rebecca and I worked late into the night Saturday to be ready for Sunday.
Sunday was one of those rare, nearly perfect days. We went to church in the morning where Rebecca preached a very moving sermon on what it means to pray. She talked about how real personal prayer is a kind of abiding with God. Not coming as a petitioner, but as a close friend to whom God wants to make his will known. She counseled the congregation to practice ‘listening prayer’ a prayer that is primarily spent in silence, perhaps meditating on a passage of scripture, and just listening for God to speak. She reminded them that we are not beggars seeking crumbs from the Divine table but we are friends invited to sit with our Lord at his table.
It was very well received and is quite a radical conception of prayer compared to what one often hears here. But I think the point was to invite people here into an intimacy in prayer that might make God less of a ‘big man’ and more of a friend. (She did have to acknowledge the cultural differences we attach to the word friend as well. In our culture a ‘friend’ is someone with whom we share interests, and an emotional connection, while here a ‘friend’ is always someone upon whom one can rely for financial assistance when the need arises. In fact the idea that this might ‘taint’ a friendship is a very western idea. To Burundians it seems that a friendship that does not involve mutual financial support is little more than a shallow acquaintance.)
We went to the afternoon service after a brief pass by home to change. The afternoon service was surprisingly well attended and after some good worship music I preached a message on a Christian approach to conflict transformation. Despite the fact that I did not think I was that well prepared I really felt the Holy Spirit overtake me as I began and I swear I preached the Gospel of liberation like Martin Luther King! It went far better than last week’s discussion on stumbling blocks. I was happy about that since I felt a bit disappointed about it last week.
What probably made the sermon effective were the many testimonies I have picked up of profound transformation made possible through forgiveness and reconciliation in the Burundian and Rwandan context. I had many stories of murderers asking survivors for forgiveness and receiving it--And the reconciliation bringing healing to a whole community.
My premise was that conflict is a normal part of human interaction, and that rather than seeking to avoid, the Christian challenge is how to use it to bring about a transformational restoration of relationship, a deeper intimacy than what the individuals or community had before. There are many examples of this in the Bible from Joseph being restored to his brothers in Egypt to our model in Jesus who won our salvation through the violent act of crucifixion, which of course, I believe, brought about a reconciliation of us to God that could not have been accomplished any other way.
On a final note, I mentioned that we are trying to get visas to Nigeria. For better or for worse, they finally came through. (There was some hope that we would be denied and not have to go to this conference which is in Jos, Nigeria a place where there has been serious interreligious conflict—Christian and Muslim. Last week 500 Christian villagers were killed near Jos. This was retribution for similar massacres of Muslims by Christians.)
But God has made a way, we have our tickets, passports and will be leaving on Friday. We will be gone for 8 days, so the next time I write I will be in Jos. (If you don’t hear from me it could be because I do not have an internet connection.) Please pray for us as we do have some concern about the safety of travel. We do have confidence in our colleagues who are there and are telling us that we should not have any trouble.
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