The Return of the Bishop

I woke up Tuesday morning to the sound of a familiar visitor, and one we have not seen for about 6 months, it was the very striking Northern (?) Red Bishop that used to perch in the top of the mango tree. I was not sure what had happened to it, but given this seasonal return, I am guessing it migrates from somewhere else.  (Although I have no idea if it is exactly the same one that used to be here last year.  It certainly acts the same.)


This was a week of getting back into routines, returning to work and kids returning to school.  Actually things were quiet most of the week in Bujumbura, almost too quiet.  I could not immediately discern why driving around seemed relatively easy and orderly compared to other weeks.  I attributed this to the fact that most Burundian schools had not opened yet, even though the Ecole Belge and Montessori school (where our kids go) had.  But then someone told me that there were no taxi motos (motorcycle taxis) running in town.  I realized that was it!  Sadly the reason they are not running is that Burundi has been under the veil of a threat from Al Shabaab, the Al Qaeda related terrorist group in Somalia.  (Since Burundi has troops in the Africa Union in Somalia, they have been under threat for sometime.  But the threat was augmented over the holidays and there was an incident in Kenya of a Kampala bound bus being bombed.  I am not sure what the link between the increased security and stopping motorcycles is.  There were, during the elections this summer about 50 grenade attacks carried out by individuals riding motorcycles lobbing grenades into restaurants and clubs at night then speeding off.  But that was done by political party partisans here and does not really strike me as Al Shabaab's M.O.  


Anyway life continues to go on as normal here, and I am trying not to admit that I have enjoyed the less stressful driving environment of trying to avoid killing reckless taxi moto drivers as I make my way around in the city during the work week.


School is back in session--David started back on Tuesday, and Oren on Thursday.  Probably like many of you who went on vacation, or took some time off between Christmas and New Years, getting back means catching up on things put-off for several weeks.  A lot of plowing through emails to make sure no important communications were missed.


It is also the time annual planning begins for our partners.  It is encouraging to see that it seems we will have enough money this year to do the programming we had hoped to do.  We are definitely a 'leaner, meaner' MCC from the last two years of program cuts due to the recession which has diminished MCC funding every year since we began, but this year things have held steady, which has made planning easier.


I will say that years of cutting are not all bad, and it has given us an opportunity to consolidate and really consider what the objectives of our program are.  I am reminded of Psalm 127 which says:


Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain.
Unless the Lord protects the City, the watchmen stand guard in vain.


It is a reminder to me, that the work we do for Him in this context is not dependent solely on the amount of money we get, and He is faithful to provide what is needed.


We have taken the opportunity to work as a networker in our partnerships and create opportunities for them to learn from each other, as well as connect with other funders who are working in their areas.  I also am very pleased with the volunteers (service workers) we have been able to offer several of them to help build their capacity.


Most of the work we had to do this week was catching up with requests from headquarters and other computer work, so we spent most of the time in the office, especially when we got both kids off to school.  


I am happy to say that both David and Oren seemed excited about the prospect of returning to school after the Christmas break.  I think they like their routines as well.  I am noticing that while French continues to come slowly to Oren, he is becoming more willing to use it, and we are experimenting with adding one french bedtime story every night to our reading routine.


David, by contrast, seems to be absorbing french quite quickly at school and I was surprised that he knew the names of most every animal that he knows the name of in English, in french as well.  We discovered this by accident when we were talking to Oren about vocabulary and found when we would say the name of an animal in french, David would immediately translate it into English.  la vache--cow, le chat--cat, le cochon--pig, le mouton--sheep, le chien--dog, etc.

Speaking of le chien, I should probably give a puppy report.  At this point the 4 puppies seem to be thriving and are just beginning to open their eyes.  Bella continues to let David, Oren, Rebecca, and I have free access to them.  I am a bit surprised at how tolerant she is of David who is in the 'nest' constantly and is not always very gentle with them.  (He seems to think the tail is a sort of handle for grabbing them.)  We try to prevent him from going in unsupervised.


We had a fairly relaxing weekend after a busy week of catching up.  We spent the whole day at home on Saturday, with exercise in the morning followed by a day of playing with the kids.  It was probably not all together surprising that they would want a day of doing absolutely nothing but play with their toys and jump on the trampoline after being away from home for vacation this past week.  It was nice to dedicate a day of doing nothing but play with them.  We added puzzles to the repertoire of activities we do together, and they are getting quite good at putting together even fairly challenging 100 piece puzzles.


We had planned to go out for pizza for dinner, at Ubuntu, but a thunderstorm hit us about 5pm and we decided to stay home as the restaurant and grounds are not nearly as fun in the rain for the children.  We made a simple dinner and were truly homebodies the whole day.  (I did to a bit more housepainting as it is, for some reason a fairly therapeutic activity, and a definite creative outlet for me.  I will post a photo when I am done the hallway.)


Sunday it was good to be back in church after missing a week.  Rebecca taught Sunday school and has an interesting curriculum of teaching Isaiah 40 to preschoolers to help them know who God is. There actually are some good free resources on the web! Today she talked about the passage about flowers and grass withering, but God's word remaining the same.  She brought in some props (dried up grass and flowers to illustrate the point.)  I am always impressed by how much Oren seems to absorb.  He has a good memory and I have oft heard him quote passages of scripture to me that he has been taught.  (Most recently he quoted almost the entire passage of the Angel's visitation to Mary and all he said.)


We went to the beach in the afternoon, met our friend Kirsten with her daughters Emily and Rebecca ( a bit younger than Oren and David), then went home and had a potluck with our small group.  We had finished the book of Nehemiah and were deciding on what to read next. (We decided to read through Samuel I and II and Kings I and II.)


In retrospect it was one of our quieter weeks.  That is good, because we will have to do some travel upcountry in the next 2 weeks, to Gitega, Burasira, and Kigali.  This may require both Rebecca and I to make trips separately because of timing, but hopefully this will not be a problem.


We do keep up with current events somewhat on the internet and are watching the Sudan referendum with great interest.  I was also grieved to hear of the assasination attempt and massacre at the Gail Giffords rally in Tucson and the general vitriolic tone of political debate in our country.  There is a division in our country that looks more and more like the tribal/ethnic conflicts that have torn apart many of the African states in this region.  As I do here in Burundi, I would encourage Christians of all political persuasions and party alignments to resist, even in language, using 'grievious words' to express oneself.  Be salt and light in the world and in our country, --words have consequences.  Remember--


"A soft answer turns away wrath, but grievious words stir up anger."  Proverbs 15:1 


AND


"Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.  From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work."   Ephesians 4:15-16