Homies in da Hizzie

Our family chillin' at the pool, photo taken by Don McNeil.


I should mention right from the start, that I am writing this blog on a new Macbook.  It is really great and it comes with a good (mysterious) anecdote.  By way of background, you might be aware that my old Macbook died about 4 weeks ago.  Unfortunately my back up drive, for no apparent reason, ceased to function as well the week before this happened.

I was a bit sad at the prospect that these 2 events would mean I had lost some difficult to replace documents.  Particularly grad school and dance company archives that I had kept.  But also there were about 3000 pix of Oren and David on there as well, not to mention Ipod music, calendars, contacts, etc.

The new macbook was purchased on line, then brought out by Don and Rosaura (more on them soon.)  When I got it I put the necessary software on, and just as a chance plugged in the back up drive that had not worked earlier…nothing.  I tried a dozen more times plugging it in and taking it out but to no avail. 

I was sad about this, but that evening, as I put Oren to bed I actually prayed that God would give me one shot at opening the drive.  I went to bed but slept fitfully.  I woke up at 4am and could not go back to sleep so I got up to fiddle with the new computer.  I decided to try once more to plug in the hard drive.  I did, and to my shock it spun up and the icon appeared on the desktop.  I opened it trembling.  All the files opened.  I rapidly started downloading everything I could.  All the aforementioned files, grad school, MCC stuff, and all 3000 photos as well as some various and sundry things.

When I finished I unplugged it.  The drive has not worked since that time.  I got my one shot and was able to rescue those irreplaceable documents. 

I am not one to claim that God is behind everything that happens to go right for me in some random circumstance.  (It could be the devil ;-) but I was really blessed by this answer to prayer.  I am also not claiming to be called to a hard drive healing ministry so please do not ask me to pray for or lay hands on your hard drives. 

As far as the calendar and contacts, as well as music, I found that I had all of these things stored on my ipod, so I was able to back load it onto the computer.  I really feel lucky to have lost relatively little in my computer saga.

So as I mentioned above, the reason why a new mac appeared in Burundi is because it was carried in by Don and Rosaura.  Don and Rosaura are friends from Poughkeepsie New York.  We went to the same church (Poughkeepsie United Methodist Church) together there and were in a small group with us as well.  Rosaura also works at Vassar.  She is the campus coordinator of the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship there. 

They arrived on a rainy Sunday evening.  We went as a family to pick them up and when we got to the airport, the plane was already there but no D and R.  We waited quite a while then began to drive out of the airport wondering what connection they missed when my cell phone rung and it was Rosaura.  She told us they were in the airport filling out missing baggage forms in customs.  We went back and found them at the airport. 

I would have been more upset about baggage that had not arrived had this not happened at least 3 times before when people have come here from the US via Brussels Airlines and it was always found.  We were able to confirm that it was indeed in Belgium, the only problem being that flights only come twice per week so we had to wait 3 days to get the bags. 

We were able to lend them some of our clothes though for the next 3 days until their baggage arrived.

It was really exciting to see them and Oren immediately took responsibility for entertaining Gabriella who is 2 years younger than him. 

Although the main reason Don and Rosaura came here was to visit us and give some moral support, we made some arrangements to put them to work as well.  Since Rosaura works as coordinator of a campus ministry, we made an arrangement for her to meet and speak to some different campus chapters of the Union Group Biblique de Burundi (counterpart of Intervarsity here.)  Zenon, who is one of our partners is the General Secretary of the UGBB here.  He was happy to make an opportunity for her to speak and actually set up about 8 opportunities for her to speak in the first 2 weeks they are here.

Rosaura is also an environmental engineer by training so she did teachings about the Biblical basis for Environmental Stewardship. The topic was quite interesting if novel to the students on campus.  Although Burundi is a country that has been devastating its environment in the past 2 decades due to war and overpopulation, there is not a lot of discussion, knowledge, or activism around environmental issues here. 

I am still doing my best not to cringe when I watch even the most educated Burundians routinely throw trash, bottles, etc. out the window of their car while driving.  (It is so taboo for us in the US.)  Other evidence of environmental degradation here that students talked to her about when prodded to think about it was destruction of wildlife (no big game that used to be plentiful here live in Burundi as they were all killed and eaten by rebel groups during the war.—except hippos.), massive deforestation, and pollution in Lake Tanganyika.  I thought the topic was very timely and appropriate and was well received by the students. 

Don did a lot of help with childcare as we took Rosaura around to the different groups, but this week he will be helping do some training on doing Bible studies with another one of our partners who works with students: Moisson Pour Christ (Harvest for Christ.)

One of the really interesting things to me about having visitors see us from home, is to see how they react to the way we live here.  There is so much we get used to and consider normal like no electricity at night, no running water in the middle of the day, no trash pick up, driving on terrible roads, seeing serious traffic accidents daily, even being gawked at as the only white people most places we go and being asked constantly for money and hearing “mzungu” shouted everywhere we go.  Don and Rosaura have never even been to Africa before so this is all quite a big shock to them.

It has also been interesting sharing with them other more subtle cultural differences.  It can be a challenge to teach cross-culturally because of assumptions we make.  As an example, Rosaura wanted to talk about God’s creativity and gave an image of her daughter Gabriella coloring with crayons and magic markers.  The translator had great difficulty translating this and  I had to tell Rosaura later that it is doubtful that many of these students had ever colored or even seen crayons in their childhood as they would not have been able to afford them at home, and primary school here is a matter of sitting in chairs and doing rote repetition and memory, orally and written.  Coloring or any creative activity are not part of primary education here at all.  In fact, most Burundian children would probably not play with any ‘toys’ like blocks, legos, or other constructing materials either at school or home.

So we have had some really thoughtful conversations together many of these things and life in an impoverished country has been quite eye opening for them.

Time with them has not been all work and no play though.  We have taken them to several of the more touristy places in Bujumbura including the beach by Club du Lac Tanganyika, and Entente Sportif, the pool where we like to swim.  (The photos on this week’s blog are mainly from Don’s camera at Entente Sportif on Saturday).  We have had a lot of fun together and Gabriella has really enjoyed playing with Oren and David here, particularly jumping on the trampoline.

The weekend was relaxing Saturday and Don even did yoga with us in the morning.  Sunday, they had the experience of a long morning worship service in 2 languages at PTI then I preached in the afternoon at the English service.  (I fleshed out my thoughts on a Theology of the Future that I described in last week’s blog.)  After church Thomas and Naja, our Danish missionary friends invited us over for dinner and we had a very nice evening together. 

Other news from Burundi: Election news continues to be concerning.  Out of protest of the bizarre election results, all the opposition parties have decided to boycott the upcoming Presidential election, leaving the ruling party candidate the only contender.  The election commission has decided to have the election anyway.  We have been waiting for other reactions but things have been calm up until Saturday when we heard there were about 5 simultaneous grenade attacks at different restaurants in town Saturday night.  No one has taken responsibility but it is undoubtedly related to the elections.

The US embassy has advised caution about going out to public places, but we have not been told that this seems to be any indication of a largescale deterioration of security here.  It is being treated at this point as more of a disruption than the beginning of a war.

Sadly grenades here are ubiquitous.  It seems like most everyone has a few leftover grenades from the war and we often hear about people even settling domestic disputes by throwing a grenade at someone else’s house.  This is another fall out from a country that had been at war for so many years and another reason why our conflict resolution training is of such value here.  It is essential that we get people out of the mindset that killing someone is a reasonable way to settle differences.

But please keep us in prayer that we might be able to stay out of harm’s way.  We do not feel in any way targeted by the violence I mentioned above, but we don’t want to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I think I stop there except to say that Rebecca and I extend our greeting to all of our friends at our home church (PUMC) who helped make this visit by Don and Rosaura possible. 

Next week we will be traveling with D and R to Rwanda!