Nuns and More

So it has been a few weeks since I last updated. A lot has happened…

My team and I have finished our French classes. We don’t have very much opportunity to practice outside of class (since most people either don’t speak much French themselves, or speak English almost as well as they speak French), but it is cool to be able to have basic conversations in French.

So for the next week we will continue to practice French, volunteer at the Mother Teresa Mission in Bujumbura, and say goodbye to all the amazing people we have met as we prepare to leave for the Congo.

The Nun’s of Mother Teresa’s Mission in Bujumbura are an amazing group of women. They have given their life to service, swearing a lifelong vow. They serve everyday at one of the two missions’ they have in the city. One is an orphanage; they have over a hundred abandoned babies as well as 40 or so elderly that have been either been abandoned to beg because their families were to poor to provide for them, or they lost their family in the genocides.

The other mission is medical; they serve the local poor and homeless that are sick and unable to pay for medical care. For the poor of Bujumbura, Burundi a broken leg can be a life sentence to begging. They are unable to access medical care, and the person with broken leg becomes dead-weight to the family. They are abandoned to the streets because an untreated broken leg means they will never work again. The mission provides basic health care like setting the bone and putting a cast on it, rescuing the recipient destitution greater than they are already exposed to.

I do not mean to portray families in Burundi as callous and unfeeling, discarding those who are useless to them. They are far from it. This is a portrait of the poverty; they are so poor that those unable to work to provide are just another mouth that won’t be able to be fed. It is a fact of life that they will not be able to provide for them.

We have been fortunate enough to volunteer with Mother Teresa’s Mission. Another of their ministries is providing food for over 150 destitute families. Every two weeks, they give them a portion of rice, beans and sugar. For Christmas, the Nuns give the rice, beans and sugar, plus soap, cooking oil and some treats. We helped to pack the food for the families.

Team Burundi/Congo with the food we packaged for the families. It was hot and sweaty in the room.

I cannot express the respect I have for these women (but I will try). The Nuns have devoted their entire life to service. They will never live a life of their own; to marry and make a family or pursue a career. They have forsaken many basic comforts that I take for granted. They receive no reward.  And they have done this for the benefit of others, to be the miracle to a sick person, to be the mother to countless orphans, to provide nourishment to the starving. I have much to learn about sacrifice and service from the Nuns of Mother Teresa’s Mission.

I know I said lots has happened, and then I only wrote about two things, but this is a long post already. More to come!

A Trip to Morambia

Wednesday, my team went on a little trip outside of the capital city of Bujumbura to the district of Morambia. We went with a volunteer, Jake, from a local organization called “Harvest For Christ.” The ministry in Morambia is for the Batwa people, that the reader may know as pygmy people. In Burundhi, one of the 5 poorest countries in the world, the Batwa are the most marginalized people. The Batwa are the poorest of the poor.

HFC’s ministry is, basically, to help the Batwa become a self-sufficient people. The HFC worker in Marambia, Vaneust, has been there for about 2 years. HFC has 4 hectares of property, on which they have built a school and conference centre, and are currently building a clinic. They have given the Batwa plots of land, on which HFC is working to build small houses for them. The Batwa are farming the majority of the property, with some of the property set aside as communal land.

The Batwa have been a nomadic people, but with urbanization and land being bought and developed, they have lost their way of life. They had no land before HFC provided this plot for them, and the children in grades 1 and 2 are the first Batwa ever to be educated. The children are learning all the basics, math, history etc., plus 4 languages: English, French, Swahili, and Qirundhi. The older Batwa are learning to farm, how to plant and rotate crops, as well as how to build a house, forming and laying bricks, building the roof.

To put into context how poor the Batwa are, the houses that they currently have are about 4 feet high, and 4 feet across and the roof and walls are made of banana leaves. The lunch the children receive at school is often the only meal they receive for the day. Most of them have never received pay for work in their life; if they get work it is only in exchange for food.

The school is a community school, and as such it serves the local Hutus and Tutsis as well. This has been amazing progress for the community, because it is the first time the Batwa have been able to interact with the other people in the community. Before this, the Batwa were looked down upon, almost as animals. This school has brought the community together.

Please pray for this project. There is another tribe of Batwa not to far away that have nothing, and HFC is hoping to reproduce this project, buying more land. Pray for the Harvest for Christ workers, and that they will be able to find more people to help with the work.

I was hoping to add some pictures but the connection is reeeeally slow. Hopefully next time!

For those who may read this and are unaware of what it is I am doing. Since September 11, I have volunteered with MBMission, doing a program called Trek. For information on MBMission please view their website at www.mbmission.org. The Trek program is a 10 month program consisting of a training phase, assignment phase, and debrief.

I have already been through the training phase of the program, which was 2 months of training in Abbotsford with 20 other people. It was an amazing time of spiritual growth, studying the Bible, spending time in prayer, and being taught by many speakers on various topics. I will probably not post anything about the training phase on my blog, but if you have any questions about it, email me or call me for a coffee when I get back!

I am now in the assignment phase of Trek. The 21 people that were in training together were split into 4 teams and sent to different countries. My team, consisting of myself, Mark, Deanna, Monica, and Marina, is going to Burundhi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We are currently in Burundhi, where we will be staying for a month and a half, until January 3.

From left to right, Innocent (our french teacher), Monica, Deanna, Mark, Marina, John

In these countries we will be coming alongside the local church and helping where we can. Already in Burundhi we have seen some amazing things that the local church is doing in their community. Burundhi and Congo are among the 5 poorest nations in the world; unemployment is high and what jobs are available generally do not pay well.

My team is staying in “The Rainbow Center” and the people that work here have an incredible ministry. It is an orphanage/adoption agency, but by the grace of God all the children have been adopted out. They also financially support many of the families that they have adopted children into, and other families that would not otherwise be able to feed their children. The center doubles as a daycare, which raises money for the families they support. They have adopted out a couple hundred children and support a few hundred families.

I will relate to you a fairly common situation they have had at the center. A young woman comes to the Rainbow Center, which is known as an orphanage, and says she has found an abandoned baby. Through questions, they realize that the young woman is actually the mother. The young woman has not brought the child to them because she does not want him, but because she has no way of feeding the baby. So the center supports the family, keeping them together and meeting their needs in an otherwise hopeless situation. I cannot express how encouraging it is to meet these people and hear the amazing stories.