Yesterday we made our journey up to Kayanza, about a two hour drive to the north from Bujumbura. It’s beautiful country that we made our way through, climbing around 4,000 feet in elevation to get to this province while passing windy roads and bicyclists holding on to the back of trucks so they can make it up the mountains. There are quite a many road fatalities here each year which is not surprising as there are literally thousands of people that line the streets and highways on foot and bikes and motorcycles to reach their destinations. Plus, the drivers here are a bit reckless as they weave back and forth in between cars, ignoring stop signs and the like. It’s no wonder the government doesn’t bother to post any kind of speed limit – there’s no way it would be obeyed or could be enforced.
But this morning we got up early to eat breakfast with our wonderful hosts Steve and his wife Ann, and followed that up with a time of fellowship down the road in the Food for the Hungry (FH) office with the other employees. It’s a daily thing they do, gathering to sing one or two hymns, spending a short time in the Word, and then closing out with prayer. The scripture we were studying turned out to be Esther 4, which the Stone focused on a month ago during the vision series, so we felt like we had a little bit to offer during the discussion time thanks to Matt’s preaching and what we covered in our respective community groups.
Following that time of fellowship we gathered up 500 small seedling trees and were on our way to a village about 30 minutes away. FH is involved in a terracing process that is on land owned by a Baptist church, so it had not yet been planted as almost every square inch of soil is here in this region. Overpopulated by the thousands, even the road sides have coffee plants or banana trees or some kind of crop growing. What this has done is just about completely destroy the ripe, fertile soil that has made this area such a grower’s paradise. There is no process of giving the land a year or two of rest, because most people have so little and they need it to produce something, otherwise they will have nothing to feed themselves or sell on the market. So FH is working on terracing a piece of land to teach these growers how to make better use of the land, as it is almost all sloped and plagued by erosion. Today we were planting seedling trees alongside the locals on the edges of these terraces in order for moisture to be better held and to prevent erosion. We were greeted as “muzungus” but received quite a many “hellos” and “how are you” as most stopped and gazed interestingly at the only white people in the valley. We wonder what they’re thinking when they see us. A large number stick their hands out wanting something, as so many others have come before and trained them to do this by their “good deeds”. Others just stop and stare, and a great majority smile and wave when we greet them.
As we planted the trees alongside our Burundian friends most of the conversations we had revolved around Barack Obama. In fact, many that we have talked to here in this country who don’t know much English mention his name. I think they expect us to know him, and when we say “Yes, Barack Obama” they smile and laugh and sometimes mention his skin color. It’s a big deal here for Africans to see the U.S. elect a black man as president, and it helps us create a connection with them. Even out in such a rural area that we were today where most don’t have electricity or have to walk a distance to get running water, they know of Obama. They don’t know of his tax plans, abortion beliefs, or socialist agenda, but that’s for another time. They know that a country that they see as ruled by the white man now has a leader that is “one of their own”, and that brings them a sense of pride and that maybe they truly aren’t forgotten out in the depths of Africa.**
We also walked a couple miles over to a site where former refugees were now given housing after returning from Tanzania. They fled Burundi during the civil war in the 90’s, running to Rwanda which is just a few skips from where we were today. Problem was, that country was in the middle of genocide as well that saw a far greater number of people killed. So they ended up in Tanzania, and just recently were run out of that land by rebel groups, finding their way back to Burundi. I can’t even begin to imagine what they’ve been through. Living in countries where people would rather see them dead than living because of the way that their nose is shaped or because they were born into poverty and have very little chance of ever escaping it. To us, “making it” is having your 2.4 kids, 1.3 pets, a beautiful wife, a nice home, and white picket fence in the suburbs. To them, “making it” is saving up enough money to buy a couple goats or maybe if they strike it rich a cow. Such a stark contrast in life, and most of it was quite surreal today. You see it in pictures and in videos, but it’s a far greater impact when your standing in the doorway of a home that is made from mud, has minimal sleeping space much less a living room or a place to eat, and there are pits for guinea pigs – which is a delicacy to them and their main source of meat. They have real needs, truly wondering where their next meal is going to come from and hoping that the small plot of land they have been given can begin to produce the crops they intend to grow. So what FH is doing for these people is teaching them how to care for their land and use it most efficiently. One of the problems we have learned with the churches here in Burundi is that there are a lot of folks coming to Christ, but nobody making disciples. They see work and church as two separate things, whereas what needs to be taught is that God is most glorified when we are good stewards of our land that He has created and that He desires to reign supreme in all facets of our live and ultimately we are most satisfied in Him when this is lived out. So that is what FH is trying to do, through the church and through the work they are doing with coffee growers and the planters we were digging alongside with today.
So now we sit back at the house, enjoying the last few moments of sunlight and incredible weather, reflecting on what we’ve learned these past eight days not allowing the experiences and things that have been revealed to us to go to waste. It’s similar to how the people here waste almost nothing. Everything they have to them is precious and is a resource, and may what they have taught us be looked at in a similar manner.
**yesterday, while on the beach with simon and doing a bit of evangelization, we stopped and talked with a group of pot smokers that sit in the same spot every Sunday morning. one of them told travis that he thought God loved those who lived in Europe and America, but not those who live in Africa. He reasoned this because people in Africa grow up with nothing, make a few Burundian francs to pay for food and housing, and then they die – usually relatively unnoticed. Travis did an excellent job explaining to this young man just how great God’s love is and that Jesus came for all and not for just a few. He had never heard of Christ’s love before, and was quite impacted by it.
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