Lessons in Extravagant Giving from the Poor

Oren and David enjoying cotton candy (for the first time) at the large, modern, Village Market Mall in Nairobi.


I noticed I crossed a landmark last week.  Apparently that was blog number 150.  I am wondering how long I can keep up the weekly discipline of writing.  In many ways, as we near the end of our third year, I do not have fresh eyes to see, I find myself tempted to harp on a favorite theme.  I would hate to find that I begin sounding like a broken record about whatever cultural pet peeves I am experiencing here.

Actually the last week was definitely a change of pace from any normal routine as we were in Nairobi the whole week for regional meetings.  We were staying at the Mennonite Guest House which is a very family friendly environment and we had made arrangements for childcare on the grounds while we had our meetings.  This was not a small detail as the meetings were very full and the agenda was fairly crucial to our planning, budgeting, and relationships in the year ahead--being able for both Rebecca and I to focus on the discussion was important.

Without going into all the details, we had some interesting exchanges on restructuring of MCC at the US/Cananda binational level.  (We even had a group conference call via Skype with several members of the MCC executive board in the US and Canada.   The fact that we were able to connect and hear each other was a minor technological miracle here in Africa.)

Since our region (Central West Africa) was meeting in Kenya, we also had some opportunity to talk about some cross regional places for cooperation.  This is partcularly important for us as reps. of Rwanad and Burundi, and the reps. in Congo, because Uganda and Tanzania, which are all considered part of the Great Lakes region of Africa are part of the East African region of MCC.  We share many common themes from advocacy issues (ex. conflict metals, refugees).  We also share some similar interest in food security programs.  Tanzania and Kenya  have some very successful conservation agriculture programs which we are hoping to learn from.

We also had some discussion and debate about how MCC should relate to African Mennonite Churches.  While there is not really an officially recognized Mennonite church in Rwanda or Burundi, there are in the other countries in our region.  The linkages are not obvious even though we are a Mennonite NGO.  The problem is that most of these churches see us primarily as a donor and often ask us to fund any number of pet projects they might have (from church building to vehichle purchase) without much consideration of what MCC's mandate is.  Our fear is that we are likely to foster dependency and create conflict if we are too directly involved with these churches.  (Many are deeply divided internally as well and who is in authority is not always obvious.)  Yet we do want to recognize that there is interest by our constituents at home to help build capacity of these churches.  How to do that though is not obvious, may be very context specific, and was a source of lively debate in our group.

We began each morning with a Holy-Week-liturgy based devotional.  Rebecca led a very moving one about the woman in Mark who annoints Jesus with the precious nard.  She described it well and talked about the challenge to us as often pragmatic, frugal Mennonites, to recognize the importance of seeing the moment for gracious extravagance.  She observed that often when we work among the poor ourselves it is possible for us to adopt an 'impoverished' mindset about what it is like to be poor.  The truth is, in our observation, poor people do not necessarily live a life of constant drudgery unpunctuated by any joy.  In fact, we find that even among our staff we find a willingness to save and borrow for a single big event, like a wedding, (or funeral), or other special event.

Her most poignant example was the day she told us she tried to call our in-house worker Odifax on his mobile phone to tell him not to come one morning.  She could not reach him so when he showed up on Monday morning she asked why he did not answer his phone.  He said:  "I don't have my phone anymore.  I was at church yesterday and after I heard the message I decided to give it as an offering."  (To help those more needy than him.)

Rebecca (and I) were stunned.  A mobile phone like the one he had would take at least a month's wages to replace.  Rebecca resisted the urge to ask something like:  What a waste! or Why in the world did you do that."  (Not unlike the whisperings of the disciples when they watched the woman pour the nard on Jesus.)  Perhaps Jesus would answer our tongue-clciking skepticizm with the admonishment:  "Why are you bothering him?  This man has done a beautiful thing for me!"

Other devotionals included a dramatic reading of the meeting of Jesus and the woman at the well told from the point of view of two samaritan rabbis.  And on Maundi Thursday the kids did a dramatization of the woman who annointed Jesus' feet.  We ended that day by sharing communion together.

The kids spent the days we were meeting making jewelry (beads on strings) play-dough, swinging on the giant swing, and watching the occasional movie.  They had a good time together as the older kids (Val, Sarita, and Greg) helped entertain David and Oren.

The time was not all work and no play.  There were some opportunities to go out and do some fun things.  In fact, while we were at meetings on Wednesday, Oren went out to a giraffe park and was able to feed some giraffes by hand.

The last night of meetings (Thursday) we went together to an excellent Indian restaurant.  We all love Indian food and we had a special time together sharing a 'last supper' with some of our colleagues.  Ginny (and daughter Sarita) as well as Levy, will be completing their assignments as reps. of Burkina Faso and Chad.  They will not be together with us for another regional meeting.  (New reps for Burkina Faso have been found but we are still looking for someone to work in Chad.--anyone interested? :-)  They each received a very nice table cloth with a custom design of the MCC logo and their country name on it.

Since the meetings ended on Thursday, we had the option of returning to Burundi in Friday.  We elected to stay the extra day to do some fun things with the kids.  We decided to go to a mall called Village Market which is indistinguishable from a large mall in the US.  This may not sound like a lot of fun for those of you at home, but it is huge for us here.  Among the attractions was a large water-park with about  slides, tubing, swimming pools and other liquid attractions.  This was the first time Oren or David had ever experienced anything like this and they had a fabulous time.  (As did the other kids in our group.)  Even Rebecca and I took several turns going down the large slides into the splash pools.

We left for Burundi early Saturday morning.  (It is nice to be able to get back home in an hour and a half flight) and we were back by noon.  Felix picked us up from the airport.  Josh Miller, our volunteer for this month, was at our house having returned from work upcountry on Thursday.  Since he had not seen much of the city, we took him to the beach and had dinner there.  It was a beautful evening and we all enjoyed watching the sun set behind the mountains in Congo over the lake.

It was good to be back at our church for Easter Sunday.  In Burundi much of the celebration of Easter tends to happen between Good Friday and Sunday morning with many worshippers participating in all-night vigils.  Still, we had a very nice service and Rebecca taught Sunday school.  Her class has swelled to more than 25 children who all sit on the floor of the small bare room (no chairs of tables).  She is very creative, but acknowledges that the at this point the room is almost too small to accomodate everyone sitting.  She is hoping to be able to divide the class at some point in the near future.

I will end by wishing you a blessed Easter and let you all know that we are now well into our planning for homeleave.  We will be in the US. from June 6 through mid August and have plans to be in Baltimore MD, NY (several places), KC MO, Nashville TN, North Carolina (forgot the City), Seattle WA, and Vancouver, Canada.  Hopefully we will catch up with some of you then.