Mother's Day Week

Oren and David, after painting their faces spent Saturday morning playing with Bella.  They are especially happy that she is well and healthy again.  They are excited about the possibility that we will breed her in the future and she will have puppies!




We have enjoyed our third and final consecutive week of no travel.  We will be going to Rwanda this coming week and coming back home via Burasira to see Jodi.  I am trying to think back over the highlights and not many come to mind.  I have been in the habit of calling such weeks 'blessedly uneventful' and I continue to see them this way.

One thing we have seen happening this week that is a change was the official launching of the political campaign period.  I believe it was Monday or Tuesday.  Here in Burundi, political campaigning is tightly regulated.  Parties have not been allowed to actively campaign and promote their candidates until now.  It is interesting because it is only about 2 weeks from the communal election and 2 months from the Presidential election.  I have to admit, the first day was more than just a bit scary.  Suddenly the whole city was full of parades and carloads of screaming partisans marching up and down the streets or careening about the roads.  They were fierce and angry and moving about like mobs.  Fortunately all political campaigning cannot begin before 8am, I believe and must end by 6pm.  So while it is better at night, right at 6 the streets are filled with very drunk people making their way home in large groups.  (I don't know why but campaigning and drinking are intimately linked here.)

Seeing the large groups of shouting mobs moving about the street carrying flags of different political parties reminded me of the fact that until recently, most of these political parties were in fact, warring rebel groups, and it has only been the Arusha Peace Treaty that has brought them to agree to fight each other with votes rather than bulllets.  But because of this, I do worry about 'sore losers' and the temptation to use defeat as an excuse to take up arms again.

( I am reminded a bit of some of those great 'break dance' movies in the 80s where rivaling LA gangs would decide to settle their turf wars with break dancing and rapping rather than guns.  Yeah, that would probably happen.)

So I do pray that this election process goes smoothly and that people will restrain themselves from dragging Burundi back into war.  One thing that is clear, an election that is perceived by anyone to be fraudulent will be more likely to lead to a violent reprisal.  That is why MCC and other groups have been working very hard to train and field election observers all over the country.  We should be able to train about 200 and many members of our own team are going to be acting as international observers.  (Rebecca will be observing for the communal election coming up.)

Other than that, work has been at a bit of a low ebb.  We are well past the beginning of the year, but not yet to the time of progress reports.  We do keep in regular contact with our partners because most of the election observers we are fielding are coming out of partnerships.  It has actually been a really good opportunity to create networking opportunity between partnerships, AND has been a chance to do something that is not simply a matter of handing out money.

I have been thinking a lot about foreign aid these days, especially in terms of giving out money.  I am, as I have written in the past, more and more convinced that this kind of intervention is doomed to failure here in subsaharan Africa.  Sadly this extends even to aid to churches.  While I am not purposing that it be cut off completely, it needs, in some way to be connected to structures of accountability and entrusted to ‘servant leaders.’  As I have said before, in this country a pastor is a position of tremendous power and influence and is often perceived to envied as a post where one has great access to resources (the church’s bank account) and little responsibility (outside of preaching).  I am thinking of what a contrast it is to the perception of clergy in the US who are often doing an thankless job for a low salary, and little ‘status’ as far as how they are perceived by society at large.

But here, especially in the upper echelons of leadership, it is not uncommon for succession in a denomination to be a time of turmoil complete with death threats, assassination attempts, in the struggle to gain a coveted position of power.  This is, I think, one of the big shocks about mission work in this cross cultural context.  We come with a lot of assumptions, but one of our biggest prejudices as Christians is often the belief that ‘doing the Lord’s work’ is perceived by all to be a selfless, sacrificial vocation.  But in a country where there are few jobs, economic investment, and other opportunities, church leadership and other foreign aid related professions are sought after by many who are ambitious, self-serving, and more than occasionally, unethical.  (I am not implicating all leaders, by this, but I am observing that this problem frequently exists at the level of leadership here.)

By contrast though, what I find at the laity level, is that churches here are vibrant and spirit-filled.  What is lacking in financial resources seems to be paid back double in terms of spiritual blessings. I am always amazed by the number of choirs singing jubilantly in a single service.  (This accounts for the reason that they are often so long.)  So, to be clear, my disappointment with church leadership and the ineffectiveness of faith-based foreign aid to reach the truly vulnerable is not meant to be an indictment of the church as a whole.  In truth I believe the church here is one of the few really effective networks to mobilize the population for a better future for this country.  BUT that effort needs to come from within, not an agenda sent with a big bankroll from first world nations-even well from well-meaning, people.

Long diatribe, but I am back on track to finish the week.  Actually the weekend was definitely the highlight.  Oren’s school decided to have its spring fete early.  It usually happens close to the end of school, but I think the administration has wisely observed that many of the NGO and UN mzungus are fleeing the country with the approaching elections and they are worried that there will not be many left before the end.  (In fact, the end of school was moved up several days so that it would be before the Presidential election on June 28th.)  The fete was a lot of fun, (especially if you like to hang-out with Belgians) and every class did a little performance.  Here are some photos of Oren’s class who sang a song about a drum and Oren sat on one in front and played it. (Other photos on the blog are from the fete.)  He did look a bit nervous for some of it, but we enjoyed it a lot, especially David.

On Sunday Oren got up and made a mother’s day card for mommy.  He loves to paint and do crafts, so he took some time to do a water color of our whole family, including Bella.  We went to church, both in the morning and afternoon and ended the day by going to Ubuntu with Joy and Jesse Johnson and their 2 kids Zack and Micah.  They all enjoyed playing together and we were treated to seeing a family of hippos on the lake, Mom, Dad, and a baby splashing around just over the wall of the restaurant.  It was a great way to end the week.

This Monday is turning out to be busy as I am finishing up this blog and trying to get car documents to go to Rwanda and a visa for Congo as I will be going there the week after this one.  Please keep us in prayer.