At the End of Our First Week

Thanks for your patience with me. It’s Saturday, and I have had a bit more opportunity to figure out how to properly post to this BlogSpot. Here in Burundi, it has a completely different interface, and no “dashboard,” and the language is French. So—first writing this blog off-line—I will try to paste it as a New Post …not simply as a Comment on my own blog site (which is where you will find my blogs on the past week).

If new learning contributes to regeneration, I think we can report that we are now 10 years younger than when we arrived a week ago!

Last evening (Friday), we enjoyed a wonderful dinner in an outdoor veranda on Lake Tanganyika. Our dinner party consisted of the three of us, a missionary from England working for the Anglican church here as an assistant to the archbishop, and Bob and Laurie Hughes. Bob and Laurie are Free Methodists from Wenatchee, WA. They have served as VISA missionaries here since 2005 (prior to that, they were in Malawi for three years). They live here on campus. Bob is a retired school teacher, and directs the English language program at HAU. (Since all students at HAU are required to take two years of English, many courses have to be offered.) Laurie works in the library, primarily as a cataloger. She also serves as the campus “Mom,” and is particularly noted for her home-baked cookies! After dinner last evening, we went to the Hughes’ home and watched a movie together: The Ultimate Gift.

Unless we learn otherwise today, we will worship tomorrow morning at the FM church next door to the campus. It is a short walk, but on a dirt road with DEEP holes and ruts. When it rains, it gets VERY muddy. Although church begins ca. 9 am, we probably will not arrive until ca. 10:30, as sitting for 2-3 hours in a crowded room in sweltering heat and humidity is about all we can handle! Typically, in this church, at least two languages are used: French and/or Kirundi and/or Swahili. And then, they will graciously assign to each of us someone to sit alongside and translate into English! So, all of that is quite demanding too. But the services are wonderful, characterized by a sense of joy and celebration. The worship includes multiple choirs, prayers, testimonies and offerings, as well as Scripture readings, congregational singing and preaching.