Homeleave #2: More Reflection on Psalm 126

David relishing an apple, a rare treat for him, at his grandma's house.


I had considered at the end of last week whether I would try to maintain a weekly posting during our home leave.  I am realizing now, though, that many of our Burundian friends are keeping up with us here so I am going to attempt to update this semi-regularly.

I will begin with a health report.  As I mentioned, I had a fall on my second day here on my chest.  To  be precise, I slipped on a puddle in the kitchen of Rebecca's parents' house and fell into the corner of a countertop, effectively stabbing myself in the ribcage.  Although I was not able to move at all from the floor for several minutes, I did eventually get up and only went to the doctor the next day.  He did confirm that I had broken at least 1 rib and maybe 2.

This has put a bit of a damper on some of my plans for doing exercise every day.  Swimming is out.  Fortunately our parents belong to a very nice athletic club here that has a large selection of low impact aerobic apparatuses.  I can do a kind of rotating stair master for an hour a day and get a satisfactory work out.  I am hoping in the next several weeks the pain will diminish enough to allow me to swim as well.

We have spent the first week pretty much lying low.  We have done things with family but that is about it.  We helped Rebecca's mom Jean with yard work one morning, went to a cousin's softball game on another and took the kids to a swimclub with his cousins on a third day.  Other than that we have been spending time at the homes of our parents, at playgrounds, some cookouts, and other get togethers with friends.

One of the highlights was going out to Charter Hall, the retreat center on the Chesapeake Bay that belongs in part to Rebecca's family.  We went out on Sunday after church with a large group of friends.  Actually we went to Rebecca's parents' church this past Sunday (Long Green Valley Church of the Bretheren) and shared a brief mission moment there.  We then headed to Charter Hall around noon and had a typical American lunch with grilled hamburgers, fixins', potato salad, baked beans, etc.  Our kids loved it.  We swam in the bay in the afternoon and did a bit of kayaking.  I was very impressed to see Oren kayaking solo for the first time and doing a very good job of handling the boat.  He was able to manoeuver about quite well on his first attempt.

In the evening a thunderstorm came through and we sat in the dockhouse watching the rain on the water and enjoying coffee and conversation while the kids played games.  We headed home about 7pm and got home before 9.

One thing that has taken some serious 'getting-used-to' is the time of sunset.  In Burundi at all times of year it is pretty much night by 6:30 pm.  Here in Baltimore, it would not be hard to toss around a baseball at 9pm without artificial light.  Since our kids are used to going to bed with the sun, in the dark, (and usually by 8pm) they have been staying up quite late bacause it just does not feel like night to them at their bedtime.  I had truly almost forgotten how long the days are here in the summer.  We are enjoying it though.

Throughout the entire week Rebecca and I have had a bit of homework.  We will be expected to speak or even preach at several services and other gatherings during our time here, about our work in Burundi and Rwanda.  We have been trying to organize our thoughts and our photos, videos, etc. to be able to make an interesting coherent presentation with (ideally) a unified theme.  The problem is more what to cut out than what to put in.  We have sat together and worked on organizing our videos when we have had the chance.

We decided on Psalm 126 as thematic of our work over the past year, particularly with regard to the way MCC works to accompany local partners who implement our programs.  (MCC does not implement programs but follows the lead of trusted, visionary, local individuals and organizations.)

The end of the Psalm goes like this:

Those who sow with tears

    will reap with songs of joy. 

Those who go out weeping,

   carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, 

   carrying sheaves with them.

For our talk, we observe that almost everyone in Burundi and Rwanda is deeply traumatized by the wounds of war, the loss of immediate family to violence, illness, poverty.  But that there are those, who, because of this tragedy are driven by passion to make a better future for themselves and their country.

But while tragedy itself may be a necessary condition to foster this passion, it is not sufficient.  The last verse of the Psalm talks about those who "go out weeping carrying seed to sow."  There is much weeping in Burundi but only a few who go out weeping carrying seed.  That is, there are only a few who are able to see the resources they have at hand and, in their sorrow, begin to sow a better future.

As a mission organization on the ground, we are able to see who these people are and assist them.  Often an international donor who is not on the ground, anxious to 'help,' will provide assistance in a way that does not try to use the resources available in a community, but rather seek to provide all that is needed.  Be it food, seed, buildings, money, shoes, etc.  This approach almost always leads to dependence and can make a bad situation worse rather than better.

The classic example is the problem of providing seeds to farmers.  This is often seen as a better solution to food security than giving direct food aid.  The problem is, when you supply seed one year, farmers will grow it, but often expect the same input the next year.  Hence, they will eat or sell ALL of their harvest and not save any seed, but rather come back to the donor for the next year's 'seed' assistance.

The same thing even happens with much heralded 'microfinance'.  Because loans are coming from a donor organization, there can be a lot of default and poor use of the money.  An alternative that, as an example, uses the resources of the community, is a savings group where very small membership dues are collected from participants in a community.  This money is then used for microloans.  Essentially people are loaning each other the money in their own community.  Default is almost zero and the community uses its own resources to enrich itself.  Many times these groups, even in an 'impoverished' community can amass several thousand dollars that are available for credit, livestock purchase, etc.

A lunch gathering after presenting
a talk at my parents' church.

The point for us, through the psalm is that many are weeping and some, in their pain, carry seeds--their own resources, no matter how meager--and begin to sow.  These are the local NGOs MCC seeks to partner with, the one's who will return with 'songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them.'  They are the ones that will bring about the hope for a bountiful harvest in the future for their communities and countries.

We wanted to try to provide some visual support for our talks and worked together on compiling a video using the imovie program on my Mac. Before we knew it, because it is so simple to use, we had created a whole documentary that has all the emotion and unity of a PBS report.  Anyway, I am putting up a small version of it here.  I hope some of our friends in Burundi can download it there.  I am really taking advantage of being in the US to upload something over 2 megabytes.   I hope you all enjoy this wherever you are.  If we are coming to speak at your church, though, you can expect to see this again.

We head up to MCC headquarters this week on Wednesday then Poughkeepsie, NY on Thursday for a week. Maybe we will see you all soon.

Video we made to accompany our talk about our work: