OK, continuing the story of the mission trip to Africa. (Finally! No more Jet-Lag) So we flew to South Africa, and were ‘accidentally’ upgraded to Business Class for the leg from South Africa to Burundi. (I think it was out New York Angel – Danielle – giving us an unexpected treat) If you’ve never flown business class, I highly recommend it! There were only the three of us, plus 2 others, in the compartment, and we were treated like Royalty! Several pampered hours later, we landed in Bujumbura, the Capital City of Burundi. This was a very busy city, and extremely chaotic. The primary mode of transportation was bicycle – with bike Taxis ferrying passengers on the back of the bike. Seeing these lovely ladies, in their brightly-colored African dresses, sitting all demurely side-saddle on a Bicycle taxi, while the driver flung her headlong into dangerous traffic, was really something to see. I only once saw a lady lose her careful poised calm, when she was very nearly flattened by our bus. Her eyes widened in fear, and I thought – I will live a nice long life without EVER getting on the back of one of those death-cycles! So now in Bujumbura, we stayed at the missionary compound of Kigobe – a wonderful, walled paradise in the middle of the busy, dirty, noisy city. Inside the gate we saw exotic fruit trees grew all around, beautiful green fields, a hospital that provides inexpensive care to the local population, a wonderful school with a still-building-it expansion, a soccer field, a massive church in pink and white, and overseeing it all, the truly excellent Octagon – an 8-sided home that belonged to our hosts, the Johnson family. Now, when I say fruit trees – I mean Mangoes, bananas, coconut, dates, oranges, lemons, papaya, paw-paws, all kinds of cool African yum. It was like a little Garden of Eden vibe – but without the apple Jesse and Joy, along with their 3 sweet kids, introduced me to another new concept – multi-generational missionaries. Turns out that being raised a missionary kid, might just mean that you become a missionary as well. We saw this again in Bukavu with the Lindquists. (It makes me wonder if someday the Johnsons might be sending one of their sons to preach to all the atheists and Muslims here in the states) While the Kigobe complex seemed like a secluded paradise initially, it was soon obvious just how integrated into the city they all were. The hospital provides absolutely essential healthcare, at a price that locals can afford. The waiting area was filled constantly while we were there. Also the school serves the local community – providing a ‘rich people’ education at a price that local families can manage. The school has become extremely popular and successful over the past few years, and it was easy to see why. Joy has a passion for critical thinking, and it seems obvious that the students at the Discovery school are getting an extremely valuable educational opportunity. The Church was in use constantly, for studies, and smaller groups, and capacity crowd on Sunday. The Soccer field was full of local kids, trickling in all day seemingly. Over in the corner the Deaf School still stands, though they were out of session during our visit, and we only met a couple of deaf kids. (Joshua and Xierre – although I may have gotten that ‘X’ wrong) Another nearby branch on the Johnson tree was Ken Johnson – Jesse’s uncle. Ken’s 3 eldest daughters kept Aaron and me entertained one afternoon, answering our many questions about missionary life in Bujumbura – thanks Sarah, Carly, and Lizzie! Jesse’s brother Dan, and his wife Anne, also hosted us on our return leg – we had a great time of singing hymns, and discussing scripture memorization – and a sweet game of animal-picture trading with their little girl Ruthie. I think she would have kept bringing them back and forth all night, as we would take turns gathering and passing them back and forth. It turns out I CAN make it without TV after all! So Bujumbura turned from a way-station into quite an eye-opening look into life as a missionary in Burundi – from some pretty diverse perspectives! (Little kids, big kids, gear-heads, preachers, parents, farmers, teachers, you name it!) If you want to know more about the Johnsons, check out cmml.us/missionaries/m767 Ok, so our gentle introduction to Africa was over. While we were in Bujumbura, we were joined by Yves, a pastor from Chad, deaf since he was 12 (or 14) – and the single-greatest resource you could ever ask for when learning sign language! Yves, having not been born deaf, is able to speak the English or French word that he is signing – which helps a newbie-signer like me to know what I am trying to learn, without all the guesswork! He prepped me on my memory verses for the teaching I was going to do in Bukavu, as well as proving to be a patient victim of my attempts at deaf communication. Speaking of teaching, here’s a word about our actual mission: We were travelling as part of Christian Mission for the Deaf – a ministry started by Tim Foster’s father in I think 1954. (cmdeaf.org) The purpose of the trip was to provide deeper, Biblical-based instruction to the deaf Christians that are part of the CMD group of schools. The specific instruction was the book of Mark, and since I was covering Scripture Memorization instruction, I leaned on Yves to help me memorize the chosen verses in Sign Language before we got to Bukavu. While I used Tim as my translator for the class itself, did manage to get the verses down in sign at least – and over the week, was able to communicate a little, and learn a lot more! While we had a course of instruction (The book of Mark) and a plan for addressing Worship, Memorization, the Trinity, and the End Times – the real focus of our trip was to reinforce the value of knowing and depending on God’s word in the Bible – so that whatever the students might hear down the line, they would be trained to stand on the truth of the Bible, and not just take every preaching at face value. The Bible speaks of not being blown about by every wind of Doctrine (Ephesians 4:14) – and commends the Bereans for examining the claims of the Apostle Paul, by searching the scriptures. (Acts 17:11) – so in an effort to combat some of the oral-tradition perspective, and shore up the deaf churches against some recent cult campaigns, we wanted to hold up the value of Scripture to the students. What we found though, ended up being much closer to regular church than I would have thought possible. At the end of the day, these believers have the same Lord as I do, and He is committed to their sanctification and growth in the same way as He is to mine here in Texas. So the students came with their questions already ready, and took advantage of the opportunity to dig deeper into the Word – but the ‘value of scripture’ lesson was already clearly learned and in practice! Scripture memorization was a fun multi-cultural lesson – in a unique way. The students were from 4 different countries, and various regions within those countries, so the type of sign language they used was different from region to region. Some used Swahili-based signs, some French-based, some English based – and the Rwandans did their own unique thing with numbers, that I just love. (kind of a little dance with the hands to make the teen-numbers in particular – it’s like you can hear the drums as you sign) On top of all this, my version of signing the verses (the Rob Sign Language?) was not exactly standard – a mix of Yves Chadian-based ASL, plus my own in-expert expression, which Yves did not correct harshly enough So signing the memory verse for the day turned out to be an exercise in cultural variety, as well as compromise. It was great to see how signing, even with different backgrounds and language-bases, still ended up as a type of ‘bridge-the-gap’ meta-language – that allowed a Swahili-based signer to converse with a French-based signer – with only a fraction of the difficulty you would have had, if a French-speaker tried to hold a conversation with a Swahili-speaker! (A miracle of speaking in Thumbs? Maybe…!) By the way, the memory verses we learned are: (All from Mark) 2:17 (not the healthy but the sick) 8:36 (what profit to gain world, lose soul) 10:45 (not to be served but to serve) 14:38 (watch and pray) We were also going to cover 12:29-31 (greatest commandments) but did not get to it due to a change of schedule. These verses were discussed at length though, as part of answering student questions about following the 10 commandments as a Christian. Feel free to test me on signing these verses when you run into me. I don’t want to lose my memorization of them. Except I totally won’t get 12:29-31 in the first pass! Highlights of the trip for me were: 1. Seeing Renee and Kathy Lindquist rattle off Swahili with the Bukavan locals, like they were born to it! (Same for Jesse and Joy speaking Kirundi, although I got less of that than I did in Bukavu) – I used to think I could speak a foreign language or two – but now I realize my Spanish and Arabic were child’s-play compared to the level of proficiency that was on display in this trip. 2. Spending a ton of time with Ella, Renee’s adorable daughter. So sly and clever – the way she would size you up before asking if you really needed x or y. (whatever it was that you had that she had her eye on!) “What are you doing with that coke?” etc. She was really a great morale-booster – highly recommended if you need to stop trying to understand sign language for a while! 3. Joining one of the students in deaf worship. He had his laptop, playing an English praise song (with English sub-titles). He would sign the song – with the volume up at 200% so he could feel the vibrations of the music, while I sat beside him, following the signs to learn the words, and crying like a baby at the beauty of connecting with God, without words, through this man, and the laptop music. It was the most surreal thing I’ve ever been a part of in worship, and I think the nearest I’ve ever been to Christ. I hope to repeat that song someday before the throne of the Lord. 4. Serving lunches/dinners. My role in teaching memorization was a small one, so I helped with the food distribution in the afternoons. This could be challenging (you had to be conservative with people wanting seconds too soon, or else you would run out and someone would miss a meal) – but once we had the ticket-system organized, it turned into a lot of fun. 5. My Deaf nickname – “Fat White Robert” – having to introduce myself this way for a week, did wonders for my self-esteem, and skin-thickness! But it’s true that I was like 3 times the size of anyone there – and they don’t make ‘em whiter than me… - plus everyone really REALLY cracked up about it – I couldn’t help but enjoy how funny I was to these skinny kids. 6. Yves – a treasure of a Pastor – just reeking humility and goodness – you can tell he’s been following Christ for a lifetime, the instant you meet the man. He was such a valuable resource – as an African pastor, from a different part of the continent, with a distinct culture, he brought a balanced, African perspective to some of the issues that our (Tim, Aaron, & I) American perspective saw differently. And in some cases that perspective served to reinforce our Biblical perspective, and keep the nationality/culture out of the picture. (Plus, I did mention the teaching me sign language?) 7. Tim – As the only non-signer in the group, I leaned on Tim heavily as my communication life-line during the class. And I think we all benefitted from Tim’s wisdom in marrying Sheryl – as her experience and guidance on previous trips was felt at every step of the journey! It was a treat to not have to arrange all the countless travel details, school arrangements, etc. Not that it was a vacation, but certainly the Lion’s share was on Tim’s plate throughout the journey. 8. Aaron – Seeing Aaron handle a situation (in which I was just fine with being offended) with patience, grace, and love. He turned a negative situation into a positive one, and I got to see one of my memory verses, 2 Timothy 2:24-26, in action. I would love to have his quiet patience as my first reaction – instead of my usual “shoulda-coulda-woulda” recrimination afterwards …. 9. The teeny tiny bus with 19 people crammed in……. They were all the time wanting the fat, sweaty white guy to sit up front – and as I looked at the sardines in the back, I didn’t mind being so fat after all…. 10. Sharing the Gospel, at length, with our assigned “CIA guardian” Arsene (from the corrupt agency, but assigned for our protection – he was something of an advocate for us). He wanted to practice English, I wanted to explain in detail about the Righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith in Christ Jesus. A Win-Win! Plus, I got to hammer my favorite Romans 6, 3-fingered Gospel. (It’s like the Roman’s Road – but if you only ever read Romans chapter 6… Death, Burial, Resurrection – and why, why, why. ) Aaron had opened the discussion of spiritual matters, and when he got up to teach, I was able to pick up where he left off. A fun example of one planting, one watering, but God causing the growth! (Not to mention His having brought this man to our class in the first place – with knowledge of English, and an openness to Truth) 11. Praying in the dark with the missionaries, in English, Swahili, and Sign, as we surrendered the situation with the ‘CIA’ to the Lord, and prayed for Him to be glorified in the circumstance of harassment by this corrupt government agency. Our prayers were very soon answered, as our pastors were released to go home for the night, and the next day the vice Mayor attended class, being exposed to the vibrant style of worship performed by the deaf students (a kind of dancing praise with signed word – It’s mesmerizing) – resulting in this Important Man asking for forgiveness on behalf of the agency that had been holding our people, and squeezing us for bribes. (And rolling out the red carpet for a return to Bukavu, as well as an offer of employment with his office for one of our deaf members!)Unfortunately, while this was going on the ‘CIA’ had in fact rounded up our people again, and extorted some money from them at gunpoint – but that doesn’t undo the good that was done with the Mayor. There was talk of getting that bribe money back (I don’t know if that happened), but regardless, everyone was safe, and the situation was changed for the better. God is not mocked, and He will have His will done for His people! 12. The Beauty of this injured city – you can see from the setting that it was once a spectacular city! But even with all the destruction and disorder, there is still optimism – new construction all over, hopefulness for these Congalese people to get their world back in order, and move past the wars. It was sad and encouraging at the same time. 13. Hot water in a bucket – it’s amazing how much happiness can come from simple hot water – and a magic expanding washcloth from Coleman’s camping supplies! 14. The balancing acts! Every day, you would drive past a never-ending stream of people with things balanced on their heads – big things, little things, live things, dead things, you name it, it was probably on someone’s head! Or stacked up 8 feet high on the back of a Bicycle. Surely that’s enough for this trip? I didn’t talk about Olivier, our guardian angel at the hotel front desk, or about the sadness of leaving a deaf parishioner at the Rwandan border because she didn’t have the right paperwork to cross with us, or about the line of 4 different flavors of sign language translating the same verse , or about Aaron and the 8 pigs, or Tim inexorably dipping his sleeping face into the arm of the person ahead of him on the bus, while that person watched with a big grin on his face? Or about the Uvira schoolyard, filled with local children from the village, while Aaron stood among them like Richard Dreyfuss at the end of Close Encounters? Or the mad dash for the Burundi border with literally seconds to go until the border shut down for the night? Or about how finding that first deaf kid at the Kigobe deaf schoolyard was like stepping into a new world, with its own language and seeing his face light up when he went from ignored, to center of attention! Or about the mob of kids at the little village where we paused, and I would have done anything to have had a bag of candy right at that moment, or about the beauty of the lush green tea fields in Rwanda, or the endless primitive villages in Congo, or the miles of empty refugee houses along the Burundi-Rwanda road, or the amazing river crossing at the Rwanda/Bukavu border, or the instantly-available translators at the Brethren church service, or the insanely sharp and huge horns on the cattle. And I did mention the dresses – but maybe not enough – the amazing, bright, elaborate patterns, used for the dress, and jacket, and head-wrap, all same pattern, all unique – all gorgeous. Or the birds living in the ceiling at the Bujumbua airport, or the mosquito that hunted me all night long, in and out of the netting, until finally I gave up and he snacked on my blood all night. (I killed him in the light of the morning – he was slow, fat and heavy from the feast. So I got revenge – and probably Malaria) And “Base-De-Kay” – the butler I guess, for the Lindquists – 100 years old easily – walks miles each day to work, friendly and patient, and the closest I have ever seen to Alfred from Batman – just amazing. And Jesse’s fascinating accent, or the Tom Turkey that wanted very much to murder us, or Aaron’s goat-washing bucket, or buying fresh fruit in the market, or the Casabah / Bugali manufacture process, or M’Zoongo, or the HUGE birds that were like eagle-crows, or over-packing to the tune of 8 tons of Tuna fish, or sharing beef jerky with 40 people, or the fun way that students NOT paying attention was very obvious, but not very disruptive, or the sad reality for a dog in the Congo, or Ella-Goats, or the suicidal idea of using a credit card in a Congalese bank machine! It was an amazing trip all around – and probably more activity in 2 weeks than I have done in 2 years. Thanks for listening if you made it this far!
Posted on: Fri, 06 Sep 2013 04:44:53 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015