Preparing for Kakuma

Today is my next to last day to prepare for a trip to Kenya.  I will leave on Tuesday morning on a journey from Seattle to Dallas to London to Nairobi to Lodwar and then by car to Kakuma, a place in northwest Kenya where one of the world's largest refugee camps is located.  It will be just over two full days of travel from start to finish, including one night in the Nairobi airport hopefully finding a comfortable place to sleep for a few hours before a final early morning flight.

Currently there are nearly 50,000 refugees from South Sudan's conflict in the camp, in addition to over 100,000 others from Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, the DR Congo, Burundi and Rwanda.  It's a big place.

I have been to Kakuma once before, in 2008, where I spent three days with my good friend, Martin Masumbuko.  Martin had worked there from 1992-2001.  When he returned with me seven years later, there were hardly any Sudanese remaining in the camp.  They had either gone home to South Sudan following the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement with the North, or they had moved to the US, as several thousand of the Lost Boys and Girls of Sudan had done in 2001.  He had helped to arrange that.

Now, many of them are back.  Since the outbreak of violence in the world's newest nation on December 15, 2013, South Sudanese have streamed across the border for safety. 

In January this year, Bishop Abraham Yel Nhial, the South Sudanese former Lost Boy and now bishop of the Diocese of Aweil, made a pastoral visit to Kakuma, a place he had lived as a refugee himself.  He saw the need for training for the pastors who are in the camp to help their people develop a culture of peace and reconciliation in their divided country.  He put out a call for help.

I wrote to Bishop Abraham, telling him of my limited experience in the camp, and that I also had made a trip to South Sudan the same year.  He knew also of my studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, much of my time there being focused on Sudan's civil war.  He invited me to come to Kakuma and lead a conference with South Sudanese church leaders.   After a lot of prayer and consultation here, I told him I would, with the help of God, come to Kakuma to help.

That's what I'll be up to this coming week.  From May 15-21 we'll be holding daily sessions, looking at issues of conflict, forgiveness, reconciliation, the healing of trauma, and how to be peace makers and peace builders -- all through the lens of holy scripture and our commitment to the Christian life.  I have also arranged for my dear friend, Fr. Philbert Kalisa, to join us and to share the work of REACH Rwanda in the healing of his own country.  We will have participants from several of South Sudan's tribal groups, including the two at the heart of the current conflict.

Please pray for the people of South Sudan and for the participants in our peace and reconciliation conference.  I'll try to post here in this blog from time to time, depending on internet access in the camp.

And finally, I'd like to thank the following for their support of this endeavor:
The people of Trinity Parish, Seattle, WA
The Rt. Rev. Greg Rickel, Bishop of the Diocese of Olympia
The Rev. Mark Tusken, St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Geneva, IL

Day 8

This morning was spent packing and getting ready for departure for several of us. Eight of the sixteen are now on a plane somewhere over Africa headed for Brussels and will then be arriving home sometime tomorrow.

Philbert, Hilary Greer, and I left Kigali by car on an eight hour drive to Bujumbura, Burundi. We stopped for lunch in Butare, near the border with Burundi. Butare is Rwanda's intellectual capital, with the national university there and several other colleges.

Crossing the border took about half an hour. And then we began the winding path through the Burundi countryside on a two lane highway. It is a strange experience for us to travel at the high rate of speed they do on these highways -- especially because there are people walking everywhere, sometimes little children even standing or walking along the edge of the narrow road as we whiz past them with maybe only a foot between the car and a child at speeds of sometimes over 100 kph. It is amazing to me that no one was killed today. We passed other vehicles including long semi-tractor trailers on curvy roads. It's just the way it is here, and was important to entrust ourselves into the hands of a very skillful driver.

We arrived in Bujumbura around dusk after a long and really beautiful drive through the mountainous landscape of what is by many UN measurements the world's poorest country. Deep poverty is obvious everywhere -- but so is beauty and strength and courage and joy. I watched men on bicycles hauling loads piled high on their bicycles up mountainous roads, sometimes grabbing on the back of a tractor trailer to pull them along. We even saw one young man clinging face forward about half-way up the back door of a trailer for miles and miles and miles. We watched colorfully clad women with strength and grace (and the most perfect posture you've ever seen) balancing huge bundles on their heads as they walked for miles down these highways.

After a decidedly more urban crawl through the chaotic landscape of Bujumbura, we checked into our hotel -- the Hotel Club du Lac on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. After settling in the room that Philbert and I are sharing, we went down to a large outdoor pool and patio area where our dinner was being served. I immediately saw the faces of friends I have made over the past four years of being a part of Amahoro. Friends from Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda, Canada and other countries in Africa and around the world. I immediately felt the joy.

After a sumptuous buffet dinner at this very upscale hotel (Burundi's finest, I was told) we had an opening session of the gathering, at which Brian McLaren spoke. The topic this year is "The Bible: Library for African Transformation." Brian gave, as usual, a masterful talk on ways the Bible is used and misused, and focused on conflicts over how the Bible has been used around issues such as slavery, science, and poverty.

I'll be here until Thursday. Looking forward to seeing Jodi Mikalachki, our friend from Massachusetts who lives and works here in Burundi. She will be coming to Bujumbura within the next day or two from the countryside in the north.

It is such a privilege to be here.

Rwanda Journal -- Day 7

Sunday was a very special day for our group. We went to church in Ngenda, where Philbert is the pastor. We were received with such warmth -- and shyness at first -- and extreme hospitality. We arrived toward the end of the children's service where probably about 200 children were present, and then we were part of the later service where both children youth and adults filled the church. And the church was filled with music and dancing, as has been the case wherever we have been in Rwanda. There must be something about the dancing that helps explain the remarkable resilience of these people.

Christ Church Andover, watch out! We're all thinking there needs to be a lot more dancing in our worship back home! (Zero plus anything equals a lot more.) And yes, we have pictures of Frances Jennings Dodson, and Don DeLollis, and Jon Vacik, and Michael Marcinelli, and Elizabeth Walther-Grant, and everyone in our group dancing their hearts out -- yes, in church. There. I said it.

Some in our group expressed surprise that there was no communion. I explained some of the history of the church in Africa and the fact that a very protestant missionary society of the Church of England had first brought Christianity to this part of Africa, which means that they fall far to the protestant side of Anglicanism. They celebrate Holy Communion once a month in most parishes in Rwanda.

Philbert told me the next morning that the members of the church had called a meeting after we all left, to talk about how they had done in hosting their first big group of wazungu ("white people"). They had never seen such a big group before -- only ever one or two at a time in their church. It was a day they will always remember, he told me.

We spent the evening back at the Center for Unity and Peace, where we enjoyed a more relaxed day than we have had until now. Before our evening meal we spent about two hours together as a group, along with Philbert and three members of the REACH staff, reflecting on the week, and talking about ways we can stay engaged with this ministry. It's clear from the experience we have had that members of this group will (God willing) be coming back to Rwanda -- and hopefully with others who want to share this profound and moving experience. We closed the evening with the Holy Eucharist, which we had not shared together as a group until now.

Tomorrow will be the final day for some of the group, and will include visits to homes for HIV care through an organization called CHABBAH, and then into town for one last opportunity for shopping and seeing the city of Kigali. Philbert and I, along with Hilary Greer, a priest from Connecticut who has just arrived, will be driving to Bujumbura, Burundi, for the Amahoro Gathering. Others will continue for a few more days for a gorilla trek and visits to other places throughout the country.

It will be hard to say goodbye to this place and the experience we have just had.

Rwanda Journal -- Days 4, 5, and 6

Well, this is what happens when you get behind -- it's just too hard to retrace it all. We've been off in the Eastern Province for the past two days, and I didn't take my laptop because of limited space. So now I am left to try to remember and report the thousand things that have happened in our pilgrimage here.

And it has been a pilgrimage. By that I mean that we have walked on holy ground, ground made holy by the suffering of the people, and by the hope that continues to transform this land from the deep darkness of genocide toward the light of peace and reconciliation. And that is what is happening through the ministry of REACH.

Early Thursday morning we left Kigali for Kirehe. Our first destination was to the site of a house being built for a woman who is a genocide survivor.

I don't know a lot about her story except that her husband and children were all killed in 1994, and she has been destitute since then, getting by as she is able, living with other people, and living at the subsistence level. She has been a participant in a REACH Unity Group, and chose to take part in the restorative justice program.

Restorative justice is a term used in the peace-building community to refer to justice that is achieved not through revenge or retribution, but through the desire for the restoration of

relationship. What that means in the context of REACH's ministry is that ex-genocide prisoners who are coming out of prison after serving their sentences and being trained by REACH to re-enter their communities -- often the very communities where they killed their neighbors, to help them be able to live alongside the survivors of the genocide. One way the offenders can demonstrate the

genuineness of their repentance is to do community service, and REACH helps facilitate that with projects to let them build homes for the victims of their crimes. And through this process, many people are asking for and receiving forgiveness from the survivors. We worked alongside about 15 ex-prisoners to lay the foundation for a house for the survivor I mentioned above. There were about a hundred people there including us, and we hauled rocks, got our hands in the

mud used for mortar, and formed conga lines to pass the rocks and mud into the trenches that had been prepared.

There was something mildly haunting about working alongside men who had murdered hundreds of people with their own hands -- and in the most brutal ways imaginable. And yet,

there we were, with both offenders and survivors who had been reconciled to one another, and were now living in community together and helping to build a house together. Restorative justice, indeed.

From there we met with another Unity Group in Kirehe, where we heard yet more stories of survivors and offenders, and of the reconciliation they had found with one another. It was sometimes hard to tell as they were telling us their stories and they were being translated for us just how genuine the repentance and forgiveness really were. The memories and the pain still go very deep. But then, you see the two people embrace one another and tell stories of how they are helping one another, and it begins to feel like there really is something to this.

We checked into our rooms where we would be for two nights at the Seeds of Peace conference center, which is owned by the Diocese of Gahini in the Episcopal Church of Rwanda. After dinner, our reflection time was once again filled with thoughtful reflections on the day's events. I wish I could remember them all. This group of sixteen people really are remarkable, and they are getting so much out of this experience.

On Friday, we went first to a waterfall on the Akagera River, right at the border with Tanzania, and we walked across a bridge into Tanzania to see it from the other side. During the genocide, this river was flowing with bodies. We learned that the bodies of Lydia's two children had been thrown into the river just near the border. Many miles downstream in Uganda there is a burial ground for all the bodies that had traveled down the river, and into Lake Victoria, and had washed up on the shores in Uganda. Perhaps Lydia's children are buried there.

From there we traveled to the Akagera National Park, a game preserve, where we saw lots and lots of wildlife: zebras, giraffes, Cape buffaloes, antelopes of many varieties, baboons, monkeys, and many other animals. The bird life is also very diverse. We saw birds of paradise, yellow weavers, Marabou storks, black-billed cranes, and lots and lots of others. I wished by daughter and son-in-law had been here to tell me what all the birds I was seeing were.

We next made a visit in Rwinkwavu to the Partners in Health hospital. We had made arrangements through Ali Lutz, our PIH friend from Cange, Haiti, to visit one of their hospitals

in Rwanda, and we were hosted by a wonderful group of four staffers, two Americans and two Rwandese. In addition, we met PIH founder Paul Farmer's wife, Didi, who lives and works here in Rwinkwavu. She was delightful. They served us a lovely lunch, and gave us an orientation to

PIH's work in Rwanda, which was followed by a tour of the compound, including the gardens where they grow food and teach agronomy.

From there we traveled to Kayonza, where we were entertained by a fabulous youth choir, some dancers, and saw a skit about the genocide played by a group of young people, all of whom were born after the genocide. It was disturbing on the one hand, but hopeful to know that Rwandese youth are learning the lessons of their troubled history, and hopefully will not repeat that history again. Philbert's parents and sister live in this community and were present for this event. It was a privilege to meet them and thank them for what their son and brother has come to mean to all of us!

Today, Saturday the 19th, we had a relatively leisurely morning, then met with Bishop Alex of the Diocese of Gahini where we were staying. He was very hospitable toward us, and spoke at length about the history of the church in this area, including East Africa's apparently famous

Gahini Revival that began right here in 1935 and was influential in the growth of the church throughout East Africa. He has big ideas, and he's apparently someone who has achieved many of them. We were, however, skeptical when he announced to us that he has a plan to eradicate illegal drugs from Rwanda within six months. I told him that once he has done so, I hope he will share his secret with us in the US. He also invited us to drive up the hill to see the grounds of the Diocese of Gahini, which we did. It is a fairly impressive complex

of buildings and the cathedral on over a hundred acres.

We then drove to Rwamagana, where we

had the most amazing experience. Prior to our arrival, the latest installment of 120 goats bought by Christ Church Andover had been distributed to their proud new owners in this community. And we arrived to find them all lined up alongside the street on the outskirts of the downtown area in celebratory dress -- people of all ages, children, youth, middle age and older people -- all proudly standing with their bleating four-footed creatures. It was a moment I will never forget. We mingled with them for some time, taking pictures and videos, and talking with gestures and the few words in Kinyarwanda that we have learned.

"Murakoze chani" was about the best we could do to thank them for welcoming us in this amazing display of gratitude. We gathered people and goats as best we could to offer a blessing of the animals. And then we went down the street to a local Pentecostal church -- a sort of open air structure with a roof of corrugated iron. Here we were once again feted with song and dance, and a presentation of gifts to the REACH Director, Philbert Kalisa, and to Thomas Brown of Epiphany Winchester and myself. It was joyful and humbling to be received in this way.

Then back to Kigali this evening -- it felt like coming home, here to the Center for Unity and Peace, where we reclaimed our rooms and rested for a while before gathering at

the bar for some refreshments, and then going to the large hall where we partied the rest of the evening away. There were lots of guests for the celebration -- both Rwandese and American - about 50 people in total. A few folks have come for the Amahoro gathering that will begin in Burundi on Monday. It was quite a surprise to find my birthday (today) being celebrated, along with three others in our group who have May birthdays. We blew out the candles on two large (and delicious) cakes. Throughout the evening we were entertained by a group of Twa dancers and singers. It was quite a cultural immersion experience. And toward the end of the evening they had us all out on the floor dancing with them in their traditional dances. As I write, I can still hear the sounds of music at the other end of the building. Apparently some are still partying!

What an incredible experience this has been -- and it's not over. Gifts were presented from the REACH staff to Thomas Brown and me, representing our two parishes. We were humbled yet one more time for their display of hospitality and gratitude. Michael Marcinelli spoke on behalf of our entire group to offer our thanks for the experience we have been having. He was absolutely eloquent as he described what this experience has meant to him and to us. And he described how challenging it will be to adequately share it with others back home. But we will do our best.

Rwanda Journal – Day Three

Today we were witnesses to the depths of horror, and the heights of joy. I can’t say much tonight, because it is late after a long and emotional day, and tomorrow we have to get up for an early departure. But here is the thumbnail version.

We began the day with the drive to Nyamata, which is about an hour to the southeast from Kigali. Nyamata is the site of one of the genocide’s most infamous incidents, where over ten thousand Tutsis sought refuge at a church, thinking they would be safe there -- and indeed, this particular church did have a history of being a safe haven in one of the earlier precursors to the 1994 genocide. It didn’t turn out that way this time. The Interahamwe militias came to the church and massacred the people not only on the grounds outside the church, but also those inside – over ten thousand in all. They used automatic weapons and grenades to kill as many as they could, then walked through the church with machetes to finish off anyone who had not died. After the genocide the church was turned into a memorial site. Today we walked through the church, where the pews are piled high with the blood soaked clothing of the people who were found here. Their remains are interred in mass graves on the site. You can walk through them and see rows and rows of skulls and bones, the evidence of death-dealing machete wounds everywhere. We heard stories I won’t even dare to write about here. Shocking is too soft a word.

REACH has worked in the town of Nymata for quite a few years, where they have developed Unity Groups. These Unity Groups were a response to the isolation and loneliness of women in the community after the genocide, and the absolute breakdown of any sense of community. Some of the women had lost their husbands and children. Others were “widowed” when their husbands went to prison as offenders in the genocide. Everyone’s life was shattered. And everyone found it difficult to speak to anyone else, knowing that their neighbors were often on the other side of the genocidal equation. Into this hopeless-seeming situation came REACH, and the beginnings of a way forward. Women were invited to come to a meeting where they could tell their stories. They found some who shared their own deep grief, and they learned to sympathize with those who had been on the other side, but whose lives had also been shattered by the genocide. Women who could not even look at each other or speak to each other gradually became… yes, friends. I’m thinking now especially of Immakulee and Berenside, two of the women who gave their personal testimonies today. Perhaps more of their stories later.

We visited Unity Groups in two different towns – Ngenda, which is a very rural area near the border with Burundi, and Nyamata. At Nyamata, we met the only person to have survived the massacre in the church at Nyamata. She is still living there, and is a member of the REACH Unity Group. Heartbreaking tales were told. But the remarkable thing was the absolute joy they shared with us at what had happened to their lives because of REACH. They have made friends. They are no longer lonely. They realize that everyone there has suffered greatly. And the fact that we would come all the way from America to see them brought them more joy than we could imagine. They danced and sang. They gave testimonies to the healing they have experienced in their lives.

It helped to put some of the divisions and conflicts in our own lives back home in perspective, at least for me. And most of all it renewed my hope in the possibility of forgiveness and reconciliation even in the worst situations you can imagine.

And for the folks at Christ Church in Andover, both of these groups of women have received goats from our Goats for Rwanda project -- and we got to see some of the goats and their offspring. Joy indeed.

Rwanda Journal – Day Two (May 15, 2012)

“I don’t think I had ever been in the same room with a murderer before.” These were the words of one of our group tonight during our reflection on the day’s experiences. They were a reference to this morning’s session with two people, Lydia and Silidio – she a survivor of the genocide, and he an “offender.” Offender is the word most often used here, but it feels like such a euphemism. He did more than offend. He murdered. Lots of people.

But Lydia and Silidio each told their stories – stories of growing up in the years before the genocide, the harrowing experience of those incomprehensible 100 days in 1994, and their shattered lives since that time. She told of the brutal deaths of her husband and two young children. And of being raped. And of contracting HIV. He talked about going out and killing, "because my government told me to do it," as he said at one point. But he also took responsibility for the horrendous crimes he had committed. He had murdered people with his own hands. Lots of people. He talked about fleeing into Tanzania after the genocide was stopped, then later being sent back into Rwanda. He knew if he came back he would die, but decided it was better to die in Rwanda, than to die in a strange country.

These two people were on opposite sides of a genocide where Hutus set out to systematically and brutally eliminate all the Tutsis. One million people were hacked and clubbed to death in one hundred days. That’s ten thousand every day. Twenty every minute – for one hundred days – while the world stood by and did nothing.

These two people also told their stories – difficult stories – of forgiveness and reconciliation, of offering forgiveness and of receiving it, victim and perpetrator. We were privileged to be witnesses not only to their stories, but to the transformational work that REACH is doing with people just like them all over the country. They are both now leaders in REACH’s restorative justice program. Lydia works with other survivors as they seek and find healing for the trauma in their lives. Silidio has supervised the building of 41 homes for the survivors – all done by volunteers, including himself.

Our time this evening was filled with moving reflections from every single one of our group, not only about Lydia and Silidio, but also about our visit to the Kigali Genocide Memorial, and our admiration of the incredible people here on the staff of REACH who do this work day in and day out, year in and year out. It is an experience that defies words.

Rwanda Journal – Day One (May 14, 2012)

Rwandan hospitality at its finest!

We arrived this evening in Kigali to be met at the airport by Fr. Philbert Kalisa four staff people from REACH – Fr. Fidele, Alphonsine (the office manager), and Theo (the business manager).  They brought our group of sixteen missionary-pilgrims to the Center for Unity and Peace (CUP), which will be our home for the next week.  And a center for unity and peace it is! 

After getting us all situated in our rooms (all private en suite accommodations), we went to the restaurant here on the premises for a buffet dinner that had been lovingly prepared for us.   We also toasted one of our group, Hilary Treat, whose birthday it is today!  Having traveled for nearly 24 hours. From Boston, to Newark, to Brussels, to Kigali, we are tired.  Some had a night cap at the bar, and others went straight to bed.

 It is good to be back in a place that now feels like one of my homes, to take in the evening view of the lights of Kigali on the hillside below and to feel the cool evening breeze in this lovely spot on the outskirts of the city.  And it’s wonderful to be sharing it with fifteen other people this time!

We will have a busy week ahead of us, and I hope to be sharing much more of it here.  But now it’s time to rest.  This won’t get posted until tomorrow morning when Philbert has the wireless internet set up for us and gives us the password. 

And just to show how “at home” I am becoming in this city now, I have to tell a story from our arrival at the airport.  We were in line to go through the immigration desk after getting off the plane and walking across the tarmac into the terminal.  Our group was gathering in the two or three lines of people when I heard a voice a few feet away saying, “Is that Jeff Gill?”  I recognized the voice, and I turned to look and there was Lauren Servin, a young American woman I had met, not in Rwanda, but in Sudan in 2008.  She had just flown in from Juba, South Sudan, where she is now working.  I had not seen her since the three days I spent in Sudan in 2008 when I visited the newly opened secondary school for girls in Yei.  Lauren was then working for NESEI, and has since completed a Master’s degree at NYU before returning to work in the new country of South Sudan.  I remember Lauren for her hard-working, gentle but strong command of the chaotic environment of Yei, as she drove us around those three days.  I was impressed that a young woman in her then early twenties had come to a place like this, was learning both the local language and the local Arabic, and managing to help open a school in a place where there had never been a school for girls.  We had fun catching up in our brief airport visit this evening.   Lauren tells me that things are terrible in South Sudan – something I have sensed from the news reports we get, but did not want to hear from people actually working there.  We discovered another mutual friend in Abraham Ding Akoi, who is now the Finance Minister of the new South Sudan.  She has come to Rwanda for a conference and commented on how wonderful it was to be in a country for a few days where things actually work!

I’m grateful for people like Lauren who believe enough in the impossible to be in a place like South Sudan to help make it happen.  And Philbert, who against all odds returned to Rwanda after the genocide sixteen years ago to develop a ministry like REACH.  We’ll be learning all about how to make the impossible happen this week.  Stay tuned!

Ready, set, go!

Sixteen people will leave Boston Logan tomorrow afternoon for Rwanda.  We're going to participate in the work of REACH, along with our friend, the Rev. Philbert Kalisa and the staff and members of the organization.

We'll visit communities throughout Rwanda where REACH is doing the work of reconciliation, bringing people together across the lines of the artificially constructed ethnic divisions left behind by the colonialists.  These divisions led to one of the world's worst nightmares in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.  Rwandans now face the monumental task of building a new society and a culture of unity, forgiveness and reconciliation.

We're going to play some small part in supporting them in this work.  We'll visit Unity Groups that include both Hutu and Tutsi people.  We'll meet survivors of the genocide, as well as perpetrators, and we'll hear their painful stories.  We'll witness the restorative justice program where ex-prisoners from the genocide are building homes for the victims of their crimes.  I think we'll be spending part of a day helping them build someone's home.

Check this space in the coming days.  We hope to be able to share some of our experience -- and perhaps some pictures, too!  And please keep us in your prayers.

Sharing the journey

Last week I pushed the "buy now" button for 13 tickets to Rwanda.  In May 2012 our group of eight Christ Church members along with five from Parish of the Epiphany in Winchester will set off together for a shared experience among people living the good news of reconciliation and forgiveness.

We will hear stories of genocide -- and of redemption and reconciliation.  We will visit projects sponsored by REACH Rwanda that bring people together across the lines of Rwanda's ethnic divisions and across the lines of victim and perpetrator.  We will see the difference that our investments in Rwanda's people can make -- whether in providing goats for extremely poor families, or start-up funds for a small business to be run by one of REACH's Unity Groups, or funds for a house to be built by recently released prisoners for their victims.

I know how deeply moved I have been by these experiences, and I am eager now to share them with others, who will then tell the story again and again.

We also plan to go to the neighboring country of Burundi, where we will meet Jodi Mikalachki and see first-hand the world of On the Ground in Burundi.  Some of us will continue on to the 2012 Amahoro Gathering in Bujumbura, Burundi, while others will return to Rwanda for some yet to be determined experiences (perhaps a gorilla trek or a safari in a neighboring country).

Meanwhile, we are having fun again this year raising money for Rwanda through our Goats for Rwanda project.  Last Sunday, two young goats appeared in the center aisle at announcement time, bringing home to everyone at Christ Church what a difference we can make with a gift of a goat to a Rwandan family.  Over thirty people signed up during coffee hour to buy a goat!  That will help to transform the lives of thirty families in Rwanda.

And we know that being there to witness their lives and experiences will help to transform our lives as well.  Can't wait to share the experience.

Beginning to think of Africa again


I have not blogged since our trip to Haiti in January. My only travel since then has been within the US -- three trips to Oregon to see our kids and our new grandson, a trip to Louisiana for continuing education, and a couple of trips to Indiana to see my parents.

Otherwise, I've been busy right here on the job at Christ Church in Andover.  The building project and organ installation are nearing completion.  We will have our first Sunday back in the church this week -- Advent I -- with two morning services and an evening service of Advent Lessons and Carols.

But I am now planning my next trip to Africa, which is to take place in May 2012. I will be leading a group from our parish to Rwanda, together with members of Parish of the Epiphany in Winchester, and their rector, Thomas Brown. Very happy to be returning to a place that has left an indelible imprint on my life and ministry, and happy to be sharing that experience with others.

 More later!

Haiti Journal -- Day Six

Monday, January 24 -- Up at 4 am, on the bus by 5 to go to Port au Prince. The 2 bour drive was filled with a combination of breathtaking beauty of mountains beyond mountains on the one hand -- and hair-raising adventure as our driver barreled through people and vehicle-strewn streets and narrow alleys at speeds that would be criminal back home. George loved it! Said "I want to come back and live in this place!! I love the way they drive!!" We managed not to kill anyone -- as far as we know. Morning traffic in Port au Prince was heavy -- stop and go at times, but we arrived at the airport with time to spare, making our way through the gauntlet of hawkers and baggage helpers outside into the terminal, immigration, and an on-time departure at 10 am.

The difficult part now is to decide what we do with all we have seen and experienced.

Haiti Journal -- Day Five

Sunday, January 23, 2011 -- Got up at 6 am, had breakfast, and went to church at Bon Sauveur. Fortunately, Fr. Lafontant had a box of collars since I had forgotten mine. We began in his office/vesting room where he and Fr. Michelin were preparing for the mass. He had hymns playing on a tape player as they sang along. He showed me pictures on his wall of the church when he began here in 1970. It looked very much like some of the places we have visited -- a very rudimentary building of brick with a thatched roof (I think). To see that picture, and then to look around and see what is here now is quite impressive. Pere (as everyone here knows him) is a builder. And he has done it with the help of a lot of people.

There is a portrait in his office of Tom White, the Boston businessman and philanthropist who helped Dr. Paul Farmer start his work here. Tom died about ten days ago and Pere Lafontant went to his funeral in Boston. He told me he was invited to participate in the mass in a Roman Catholic church, which he seemed very pleased about.

Pere invited me out onto the steps where the children (about 20-30 of them) were lined up in their red cassocks with cotta to start the procession. He asked me to pray before we began. The procession was slow -- solemn, and to some almost mournful music from an electronic organ. The service was primarily in French from the BCP, with hymns mostly in Creole. All the lessons were in both French and English. I read the Gospel in English and preached in English as Marie Flore translated. David Waters told me afterward what a great job she did fitting English's complex vocabulary and idioms into the narrower vocabulary of Creole.

After lunch we went on a visit to Zanmi Agrikol with Ferris, an agronomist who helps run the farm. ZA rents about 60 acres from a wealthy Haitian who live in the US and works as a doctor in Boston. There is an irrigation system pumping water from the Artibonite River. They grow beans, have papaya and mango trees, and grow a variety of other crops. There are some animals, but it is not a large-scale animal farm. there are chickens that produce all the eggs for ZL -- free range. They try not to use pesticides or fungicides, but do use them when they have to. The farm was impressive and Ferris was quite knowledgable. David Waters was our trusted translator and knows quite a bit himself.

Following our return to ZL we had a couple of hours to relax, visit with people, and begin packing for our return. At around 6:30 we all made our way up to Jackie's house for drinks and a bite of supper -- the customary white bread with cheese we've become accustomed to on our outings here. Jackie presented each of us with a bag of Haitian coffee. Doug raised a toast in her honor and in thanks for her gracious hospitality. We moved to her outdoor garden patio and had an hour or more of conversation amongst ourselves. The group included both Davids -- Waters and also the Harvard Medical student doing an internship in surgery here. Nice guy, African American from San Francisco. Both parents are docs. He was a Harvard undergraduate before medical school. His father was an immigrant from Guyana, and he (David) is thinking he might cme back to this part of the world after he finishes school -- most likely to Haiti.

Jackie told stories (like getting her Steinway to Haiti) -- as did Clarkson (about growing up as Jackie's son!). We closed the evening by picking up a bit, and gathering in her living room for a closing prayer and blessing.

It has been good to be here.

Haiti Journal -- Day Four

January 22, 2011 -- I woke up late today -- about 7 am. It's Saturday, and there are no rehearsals taking place outside my window. After our pancake breakfast we took an excursion with David Waters, a young engineer working here with Partners in Health for the past six months. We went down the pumping station that provides water up here. We walked a mile down the road, then down the hillside 600 vertical feet below to the lake.

What a gorgeous view -- and fortunately there are stairs going most of the way down. The station is very impressive -- built by Episcopalians from the Diocese of Upper South Carolina -- civil engineers like Pierce Williams, Clarkson's dad, 25 years ago. It was quite an engineering and construction feat. Very impressive system of turbines that pump 72,000 gallons a day up a 600 foot hill to the village of Cange and Zanmi Lasante.

David is a super young guy from Maryland, recent college grad who loves putting his engineering degree to work doing good in the world. He's also a very reflective guy, and made a wonderful addition to our group last night during our reflections.

We were back at Zanmi Lasante by 10:30, did some shopping at the art center, then set out on our next field trip with Marie Flore to a few of the 18 missions of ZL. The first was a place along National Highway 3 (a part of it that is nicely paved -- unlike Cange). In spite of the good road it has only the most rudimentary school/church building, much like the place we visited yesterday. And this place doesn't have water. They have to walk a mile away to get water. The second place we visited was a similar community, but one that has developed a partnership with a church in North Carolina over the past 10 years. They now have a beautiful school and a church building nearly complete. We're eager to find out how this community in NC built this kind of support in their parish to fund such a project!

We then drove through another town (Doman) then back-tracked to yet another, where ZL in partnership with Digical (the largest telephone provider in Haiti) has built a beautiful school. They're still looking for funds to build a church to follow.

We were back to Cange by 1:30, had some lunch, then an afternoon of rest, journaling, soccer game for some (with one of the indestructible soccer balls Clarkson brought), walks, talks, and more rest. I ventured up to the top of the hill where the cross is and met a group of four Americans -- two doctors from Asheville, NC, and two youngr guys from Oregon and somewhere else. The two younger ones are volunteering with an NGO doing water projects to get clean water to schools. Had a good conversation with the two doctors, one of them now on his first trip to Haiti, and the other one has been coming once or twice a year for 25 years.

Dinner was a special spread with typical Haitian food -- stewed mean on bone, a white rice with a brown (like mole) sauce, and fried plantains. Drinks included beer this evening which all of the guys indulged in. Following dinner we had entertainment by the band we have heard rehearsing so often outside our windows. Fr. Lafontant and Marie Flore joined us, as well as some of the other staff.

We closed the evening with a brief time for reflection on the day's experiences, once again in awe of all that we were seeing and hearing.

Haiti Journal -- Day Three

January 21, 2011 – After breakfast we went to Jackie’s studio. On the way I noticed a large gathering in the church, and walked up the steps to see a full church where a funeral was beginning. The singing was beautiful. Clergy and servers were lined up across the front in good Anglican fashion. I didn’t go in, because I was clearly not dressed for the occasion. Hard to believe that people who live in these conditions have such lovely dress clothes – dresses and hats, suits, neatly pressed and starched white shirts.

At the artisan center I began a conversation with Jackie about Haitian funerals. She said she refuses to go to them because they are so filled with dramatic excesses of emotion – crying, screaming, fainting, jerking. She told us that Fr. Lafontant is trying to tame things down a bit – stops people when it begins and says, “We all will die someday. It’s a natural part of being human…” She said the emotions begin when the open coffin is brought into the church, which had not yet happened when I stopped in the church.

Jackie gave us our morning assignment, which was to go into the village outside the compound to pick up trash. We all felt a bit odd about this, but you don’t argue with Jackie. So, off we went with two big white bags she had had a young woman in her class sew for us (under some duress), two pickers, and a box of surgical gloves for us all to wear. She walked us to the head of the lane through the village and turned us loose.

We attracted no small amount of attention – mostly curiosity, some noticeable resentment, and at least one young man who was so happy to see us that he joined us, bringing a couple of plastic bags from his house. He wanted us to be sure and see that his house was neat, and trash-free around the outside. He was clearly the local evangelist for cleaning up the neighborhood. We figured that whatever other reactions there might be to our presence (intrusion? Invasion of privacy? Cultural imperialism?) perhaps it might at least spark a good conversation among neighbors about caring for their environment.

We filled several bags of both trash and plastic recyclables (Jackie assured us they really DO recycle plastic here). George ran the full ones back to the compound to empty and bring them back to be filled again. We worked for about an hour, then started back to the compound. Halfway there we heard a marching band coming toward us up the dirt path. It was leading the funeral procession from the church to the burial site. As they approached us, we stood off the side of the road respectfully as they came by. The members of the band were dressed immaculately and playing the instruments that Clarkson and Lisa Williams had provided some years ago – trumpets, clarinets, flutes, baritone horns and tubas, drums and saxophones. Behind them came the mourners engaged in all the excesses of emotion described by Jackie earlier. Some people carrying others who were weeping uncontrollably, others jerking and falling to the ground, some being tended to by others. Some were carried onto nearby porches to calm them down – all while the procession continued with most of the people maintaining a dignified and respectful posture appropriate (my cultural bias) to a funeral procession. Six or eight men carried the gleaming white casket as they approached the burial site, which was apparently just about at the point where we had stopped picking up trash. We told ourselves that our invasion of their neighborhood to pick up trash had been our way of honoring the deceased by clearing the path of debris to make way for the funeral procession.

As we approached the artisan center, I saw Marie Flore and began a conversation with her. She was visibly upset that we had been sent out to pick up trash. “We have people to do that!” She wanted me to know that this was not a normal part of a group’s visit to Cange, and that she was having a hard time letting Jackie be in charge of our group visit, as this is clearly one of her responsibilities normally when groups come. I assured her that we had not minded, and that we understood Jackie’s desire to “take charge” with our group, given her unique relationship with us.

Marie negotiated with Jackie to get us for the afternoon to go to a fairly remote village on the other side of the lake. The last half hour was like driving on a sometimes vertical, rock-strewn riverbed. Cars seldom travel this road, and in fact, Marie had never been here in a car, since she usually crosses the lake by boat, then walks the last 45 minutes to the village. She had not been able to schedule a boat for our group. Once we got there we were ushered into a stick-built enclosure roughly 20x60 feet with a grass/palm frond roof. This is the school for 260 children who come from the area to go to school. We were introduced to a wonderful man who came to the village in 1978 to start the school. He spoke to us about the students and the challenges they have here in the school. We could see the two well-used blackboards propped up along the sides of the enclosure. There was no evidence of textbooks or any of the normal things one sees in a classroom, and the desks were simple wooden benches on which the children sat to learn. In spite of all this, the teacher told us they had had good success in students passing the national primary school exam – 18 out of 20 who took the test this year. Those who go on to secondary school do so in Cange where they board with local families.

We were shown the field just adjacent to the school where they hope to build a new school – if they can find partners to help them. Fr. Lafontant’s strategy is always to build a school first in a community, then a church – and perhaps a clinic to follow.

There were lots of children around and we had fun taking pictures, then showing them to them. The videos were even better. Marie had brought our lunch of cheese sandwiches (standard fare for lunches on the road – a single slice of cheese between two slices of white bread), and then the community served us each a large green coconut for its milk. I had never drunk directly from a fresh coconut before. Tasty and fun!

After being in the village for about an hour, we began the long trip back to Cange – over the same roads once again.

Following supper, our evening reflection time was especially good and rich. We had had lots of material for reflection during the day. I started us off with Richard Rohr’s daily meditation from yesterday (from the Center for Contemplation and Action), beginning with a quote from Carl Jung about the problems of life being fundamentally insolvable – “they can never be solved, but only outgrown.” Rohr’s theme this week in his daily meditations is about moving from judgment to contemplation to action, which also gave us much to consider in our own judgments of the Haitians (or anyone for that matter) and even of ourselves, particularly around questions about “why am I here?” -- questions that can haunt you in a place like Haiti. What ARE we doing here? And does our being here make any difference whatsoever? And isn’t there something wrong about coming here simply to experience some kind of transformation of ourselves? Our conversation was one of those times when you wish you had a recording that you could go back to and hear once again everything that was said. Every single person in the group had something profound and meaningful to say – no definitive answers to our questions, but deeply reflective offerings of thought and feeling. It was definitely a sacred time we shared. Doug led our closing prayers for the evening, and we went our separate way, some to bed, some to further conversation.

George and I had a chance to connect – just the two of us, for a brief moment before he left for the night. We had a big bear hug like we like to have, and he told me how happy he was that he had come on this trip. I took that as a good sign that he was getting something important out of the experience.

Clarkson informed me that Marie Flore would like a copy of my sermon before Sunday since she was going to be my translator, so I stayed up late into the night writing it. It came easily after my time with the text this week (the calling of the disciples in Matthew 4) – and our experience here this week.

Haiti Journal -- Day Two

January 20, 2011 – I woke up around 4 am and never really went back to sleep. Not long afterward the Zanmi Lasante community began to come to life. Roosters crowed, voices began calling, musical instruments began rehearsing, and the whole place was humming by about 6 am. I showered and went down by 7:30, but no one from our group was around yet, even though breakfast was to be served at 7:30. Turns out that we’re only 4 miles from the border with the Dominican Republic, which is a different time zone an hour ahead of us, and my phone must have picked up that signal. I might actually have been awake since 3 am!

So before breakfast I took a walk. There was singing in the church, which drew me in. A young man named Woody took an interest in me and welcomed me in to hear the rehearsal of a men’s choir. Beautiful harmonies. They’ll be singing in church on Sunday morning, he tells me. Took some video of the rehearsal. Afterward, he wanted to play the accordion for me. He also wanted my phone number and email, which I declined to give. This was the first of many appeals from Woody over the coming days. We all got to know him well!

After a very nice breakfast, Jackie took us on a walking tour of the ZL compound. Amazing place. People are lined up for the ophthalmology clinic, the emergency room, and the multi-drug-resistant TB clinic – one of Paul Farmer’s signature contributions to medicine in the developing world. Lots of sick people coming here from all over – even as far as Port-au-Prince, and perhaps farther. We almost had to step over people at times. The pediatrics ward was sad to see – mothers with their sick little children; there was even a neo-natal clinic. I say sad, but it would be so much more sad if this place were not here.

Jackie also took us to see Paul Farmer’s house, just a five minute walk from the compound. It is a simple little bungalow surrounded by a lovely garden and bamboo grove, with a great view from the back from where you can see “mountains beyond mountains.” Most of us (perhaps all of us in the group) had read Tracy Kidder’s book, Mountains Beyond Mountains, before coming here. It is, of course, the story of Paul Farmer and Partners in Health – highly recommended reading for anyone who doesn’t know the story.

I learned while here that this phrase, “mountains beyond mountains,” speaks to a deep kind of resignation in the Haitian spirit – the idea that beyond this mountain (or obstacle or challenge of any kind) there will always be another. It makes the Haitian people very accepting of life’s challenges, on the one hand, but also resigned and even fatalistic on the other. Jackie has known Paul since he began his work here over twenty years ago, and also got to know Tracy Kidder during the time he was writing the book. She told me that he originally was going to title it something like “Inasmuch as you have done it to the least of these…” but the marketing people came up with Mountains Beyond Mountains, which turns out to have been a good title for the book.

From there, we went to the College Bon Sauveur, the school on the compound where about 1000 students go to school every day. Primary grades meet in the morning, and secondary in the afternoon. We were there in the morning. Some of the classes sang for us (including a particularly special rendition in English of “the more we get together the happier we’ll be” – with accent on the “pi” of hap-PI-er). The children are beautiful, all dressed immaculately in their uniforms. The facilities are very nice, and the student/teacher ration is quite low (a little over 30/1 – not bad in a developing country). The teaching seemed to be the rote learning style I’ve seen so often in African schools – lots of repeating after teachers in unison, with the children sitting at benches all in rows.

By about 10:30 Jackie started giving us our work assignments. Three of us (Doug, Linda and I) were sent to the library to organize the French literature section – all the books alphabetically by author last name. We had lots of philosophical discussion about whether “de Montfreid” was to be under the d’s or the m’s. No librarians in the group. We worked hard for a couple of hours, but were very happy to be called for lunch.

After lunch some of us took a little rest (not Jackie – it’s tough keeping up with this lady!). And then it was back at it in the library. George joined us since their work assignment hadn’t really gotten off the ground – someone hadn’t shown up to pick them up. We finished by about 3 pm. We headed back to the art center to check in just in time to begin an English lesson with the hospital administrator for PIH. Jackie proceeded to empty a huge box of various medical supplies and OTC remedies brought by Dave Lewis, and we each took turns reading the directions off the labels to him, then Jackie would have him repeat them back to us. The rote learning method apparently works for adult language learning also. This went on for some time, our student being much more patient than any of the rest of us. After about an hour, three more young men arrived for their lesson. We took turns reading from a children’s picture book of Haitian history, Pouissant and the slave rebellion of 1804. We learned a lot, but we were tired. Didn’t dare get up or try to leave, however. We had another long discussion of current events in Haiti while they all practiced their English, and some history of the Duvaliers and whether Baby Doc had left the country today or not as expected (he had not).

Finally, we had a lovely supper around 6 pm, then a time for an evening group reflection on the events of the past two days. We closed with prayers for the end of the day and headed for bed. Long day. Will sleep well.

Haiti Journal -- Day One

I was not able to blog from Haiti, but I did keep a journal, which I'm now posting here as I am able.

January 19, 2011 – Got up at 2 am to get our shuttle to Logan airport for a 5:30 am flight to Haiti via Miami. We made the trip with no problems, leaving Andover in a foot of slushy snow, icy roads and sidewalks. Landed in Port-au-Prince in 85 degree weather. What a switch!

We were met by a Partners in Health (PIH or ZL for Zanmi Lasante here) driver and the indomitable Jackie Williams, mother of Clarkson – a member of our group. Jackie is a legend in her own lifetime – a feisty, steel magnolia from South Carolina. She’s in her late seventies, and a real force! Kind and gentle, but in perpetual motion making things happen. More about her later.

We made our way through a gauntlet of hawkers and luggage handlers to get to our waiting vehicles – bags in one, people in the other. We learned we would not be stopping at the cathedral and convent of the Sisters of St. Margaret because of demonstrations in the streets related to the return of Baby Doc Duvalier two days before. So, we went directly to Zanmi Bene – an orphanage set up by Partners in Health following the earthquake last year. On the way, we passed several blue-tarp IDP camps where people are still living over a year after the earthquake.


Zanmi Bene has 48 children from 9 months to 22 years, most of them developmentally delayed. After the earthquake a wealthy Port-au-Prince couple sold their compound in the city to PIH for “a good price” (Jackie says probably 300-500K US) and PIH opened the orphanage. Several of the 2-5 year olds found us and attached themselves to us. Sweet, adorable children, many of whom lost their families in the earthquake. We ate a lunch of cheese sandwiches at the orphanage while some of the children clung to us. I detected some nervousness in our group about hygiene, particularly as little hands offered to share with us what they were eating. Given the cholera epidemic in the country, the concerns were real, but we were told that there had been no instances of cholera here at the orphanage, and everything we saw indicated meticulous attention to cleanliness.

We continued our journey to Cange, leaving the city and making our way up National Road 3 to the Central Plateau department, climbing for quite some time up the switchbacks on a well-paved road – greatly improved since Paul Farmer’s early days (read Mountains Beyond Mountains, by Tracy Kidder for a description of how it used to be).

The countryside reminded me somewhat of Burundi, but even more deforested. The houses here, however, seem marginally more substantial – and there are more cars, fewer bicycles, and not as many people walking along the roads. Hardly a tree anywhere here, it seems. Some of the area between PaP and the Plateau seemed desert-like with an abundance of Saguaro cacti and acacia trees – otherwise only scrub underbrush.

We came to Mirebalais, a fairly large town, still waiting on the newly paved road to arrive. It is the site of a famous slave rebellion in 1804 that overthrew the French colonialists and established the first free democratic nation born of a slave revolt. Between Mirebalais and Cange is the dam that displaced thousands of people in 1959, forcing them to move up the hillsides where there was no water. Jackie and her late husband, Pierce, were part of a team of Greenville, SC, Episcopalians who came at the invitation of Fr. Fritz Lafontant to create a water pumping system to bring water to village in this, the poorest section of Haiti.

We met Pere Lafontant upon arrival, as well as his daughter, Marie Flore. Lovely people. They were both in Boston last week for the funeral of Tom While, PIH’s first major donor and a man who has generously funded the work of PIH here ever since. Together with Jackie we toured Sant Art (the Art Center – in a building named for her) and were then shown to our rooms. Mine is an ample room with a double bed, armoir, table – and even a mosquito net above my bed. Across the hall are Kathy Grant and Linda Borland sharing a room. George, David Lewis, and Clarkson Williams are sharing a dormitory-style room somewhere nearby in another building. Doug and Shane have a room together – and I don’t know where Heather is. After a 45 minute rest, supper was ready for us at 6 pm – rice, a beef stew, fried plantains, and tomatoes. Dessert was a lovely cake with a clear rum raisin sauce. Mmmmm.

At dinner we met some of the PIH staffers. Ali Lutz is the PIH Haiti programs coordinator, who, we learned, lives in Jamaica Plain, MA, when she is not here. I also later learned – after she had left for PaP – that she is a candidate for ordination to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church and that we share many mutual friends in the Boston area. Small world. A couple of young doctors (one still a medical student) also joined us at our table. Sabrina is an impressive young woman, Harvard Medical School graduate doing a residency in anesthesiology here. She graduated from Boston University in 2006. I assumed she was African-American, until she told us that she grew up in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and went to high school there. Now she has come back to her home country as a doctor. Another young man, Dave, who sat with us (and he really was an African-American) is currently in medical school at Harvard, and is doing an internship in surgery here. He was a 2006 graduate of Harvard College. Another Dave is a recent graduate of the University of Maryland in engineering. He’s here working to keep the water system running, making sure that 72,000 gallons of water gets pumped 600 feet up the hill from the reservoir every day. It’s what makes everything else here possible.

There were others whose names I did not get. Impressive young people, most of them with some Boston connection. After a long day it is time to turn in. I was impressed with Jackie’s energy, and said to her something about how hard she had worked today. “This isn’t work,” she said. “Work is what you do when you’d rather be doing something else.”

Haiti

Tomorrow morning, we leave for Haiti. There are nine of us going from Christ Church. We'll be staying in the village of Cange in the Central Plateau for five days. After arriving in Port au Prince tomorrow around 1 pm, we'll be paying a brief visit to the Sisters of St. Margaret and dropping off some supplies for them, seeing the Cathedral, and stopping at an orphange in the city before making the hour and a half trip to Cange. We will be met at the airport by staff from Zanmi Lasante (Partners in Health), who will provide our transportation to Cange.

Once in Cange, we're being hosted by Jackie Williams, an American from South Carolina, and the mother of Clarkson Williams, member of our parish and fellow traveler. Clarkson has been the principal organizer of our trip. His 80 year old mother has lived in Haiti for the past several years. She and her late husband, Pierce, had gone often to Haiti on short term missions from their parish in South Carolina. Pierce was a civil engineer, who together with others from the parish designed and built the water system that brought water to the village of Cange in one of Haiti's poorest areas. It was this feat that enabled the young Harvard Medical student, Paul Farmer, to establish his first clinic in Haiti and together with the local Episcopal priest, Fr. Fritz Lafontant found Zanmi Lasante. (Tracy Kidder writes about all of this in his epic book on Paul Farmer, Mountains Beyond Mountains.)

We are often asked, "what will you be doing while you are in Haiti?" The answer is, "we don't know for sure." Some of us will be working in the artisan center founded by Jackie, where she teaches and organizes classes in a variety of arts and crafts. Some of the artists in our group will undoubtedly be spending most of their time in this way. Some of us may help make repairs or do inspections of the water systems if we have those kinds of skills. The rest of us, I'm told, get to mix cement. I'm preparing myself for some backbreaking work.

Perhaps most importantly, we'll be getting to know the people there, hearing their stories, sharing for a few days in their lives, and doing our best to bring the experience back to share with others here. We can only hope to do justice to their stories. I have also been asked to preach in the Sunday service at the Episcopal Church in Cange. Fr. Lafontant, I'm told, will translate for me into Creole.

We will also be receiving the shipment of soccer balls which we sent a few weeks ago for the Bon Saveur school in Cange. Clarkson, in preparation for our mission trip, learned about a newly invented soccer ball developed specifically for people in the developing world. The balls do not go flat, even if punctured, and yet have all the properties of regulation soccer balls. We had a soccer ball drive at Christ Church which enabled us to purchase about 125 of them. We're told they just arrived in Haiti, and should be to Cange by the weekend when we're there. Can't wait to see the kids' faces!

I hesitate to say much more at this point, because there are many unknowns, and we will simply be embracing the experience as it unfolds for us. We go with open hearts and few expectations, other than that we will meet some of our fellow residents of this small planet of ours -- people whose experience is very different than our own, but which will undoubtedly shed some light on the meaning of it all for us.

During the past Sunday's service, the parish sent us off with a Litany for Haiti and a final blessing on our journey. I share the final blessing with you here now as we prepare to leave in just a few hours.

O God of compassion, bless and keep those who travel to Haiti this week. Keep them safe and in good health. Enable them to bear your love into the places they go, and to be open to receive the blessings you have prepared for them there. We ask this in Jesus' name, and for the sake of his love. Amen.

Africa's Hope: Its Children and their Dreams

This is my friend Martin. He's standing here with two child soldiers in the eastern Congo -- former members of a militia headed by the dreaded leader (or fearless liberator, depending on one's perspective), Laurent Nkunda. In his work with Save the Children, Martin went into the bush to find and meet with Nkunda on numerous occasions to negotiate the release of some of these kids from his army. Martin is fearless. One of my heroes.

Martin and I will be giving a talk at Adelynrood (www.adelynrood.org) on July 13 on "Africa's Hope: Its Children and their Dreams." It would be great to see you there if you're in the area.

Amahoro Africa 2010 -- Mombasa

Thanks to JJ Kercher for her fabulous photos and the video here on YouTube. These were all taken at this year's Amahoro Gathering in Mombasa, Kenya. .

Great memories. Incredible people. Unforgettable stories. Inspiring ideas and creative ministry going on that give me hope -- for Africa and for the world.

A Sudanese soldier's vision

He came up to me with the awkwardness of a young man who was experiencing a place like this for the first time. We were together at a modern 5-star resort hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, for an annual gathering of emerging church leaders from across Africa, together with friends from around the world. We were from 22 countries total. I’m from the US. He is from South Sudan – I could tell that by looking at him. I was pretty sure he was from the Dinka tribe, but I would have to ask him (later) to be sure – very black skin, tall (about 6’ 3”), thin – the look of a cattle herder, but one who I would later learn had taken up arms in the struggle and served as an SPLA soldier for twenty years. He barely looked 20 now.

Abraham is somewhere around 30 years old, however. He doesn’t know exactly how old he is. His mother can only tell him that he was born during the rains about that long ago. They had no records. They had no paper to write down such things. But they remember things like rain. Years later when he was confronted with bureaucratic forms asking for a birth date, he decided to put down March 6, 1980, as his birthday, so that’s what he continues to tell people.

Leaving one of our plenary sessions at the Amahoro Gathering, Abraham first approached me and, with the deference he naturally showed to his elders and people he considered to be in some position of authority, asked to set a time to meet with me. Abraham hadn’t met many people like me before, but his pastor suggested he find an opportunity to speak with me. I suggested we go sit down right then, which we did. Starting off earnestly and somewhat hesitantly, his story began to unfold over the next hour or so. It began with the present, the predicted story of hardship and need, of being away from his home and his people, and living off the generosity of others, of dreams as yet unfulfilled.

Life is hard for Abraham in Uganda, where he now lives. He went there from Sudan to seek education after leaving the military two years ago. Education is everything for the Sudanese, perhaps because (and certainly in spite) of the fact that it is so abysmally unavailable to so many of them. There are many bright, intelligent people in Sudan (Abraham is certainly one of them) but few who are well-educated – a fact which leaves South Sudan’s future in a great deal of question, and underscores the importance of dreamers like my new friend. He explained how he had been attempting to enter the university in Uganda, and indeed had been accepted, but he could not get the scholarship that would be required for him to take advantage of this opportunity. For the time being, he was dependent on the generosity of a church in Kampala and the people there who were providing him with a place to stay and a community of support. His pastor, Kennedy Kurui, whom I had met two years ago in Rwanda, thought that coming to the Amahoro Gathering this year would be a good experience for him, and arranged for him to come to Mombasa to be with us.

Until two years ago, being a soldier was the only life Abraham had known since he was nine years old. He had been part of the South’s struggle against the Islamic Republic of Sudan and what the international community would come to recognize as a genocide against the non-Arab Africans of Sudan, the Christian and animist peoples of the south, during a bloody twenty year conflict that had left over 2 million people dead or displaced from their homes. Abraham was a nephew of John Garang, the legendary leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, who died in a suspicious plane crash on July 31, 2005, only months after the Comprehensive Peace Agreement had been signed with the Government of Sudan. Garang was a highly respected leader among the South Sudanese, a real hero, partly because he was a brilliant and well-educated man, and also because he had been able like no one before him to make peace between the Dinka and Nuer, two of the south’s major tribes and traditional enemies. “Nephew” could mean many things in Dinka culture, but it was a close enough relationship that people knew that Abraham was related, and often congratulated him on accomplishments of Garang during his leadership of the people of South Sudan. His loss was a great tragedy for all southerners.

Abraham continued his story. Recently, after laying down his gun, he had embarked on a new journey. He wants to be a pastor, someone who participates in the healing of his country and his people. Initiating a conversation with me was part of the plan, and one I am very familiar with in gatherings like this. Just being a muzungu – a white person – in Africa earns one the presumption of wealth and connections that will pave the way to their dreams for a young man like this. I’ve had several of those conversation (and even a written, bound, proposal) in the past week, conversations I’m happy to have, in spite of my inability to satisfy all of those dreams. Just having the conversation is important – for them and especially for me.

This conversation was especially important to me because I have cared a lot about Sudan for a long time. As a graduate student in international conflict resolution a number of years ago, I took a special interest in the Sudan conflict and wrote several papers on the subject. I had also met a number of Sudanese refugees in the US, including some of the so-called Lost Boys of Sudan. My only trip to Sudan had taken place just two years ago, to the opening of South Sudan’s first secondary school for girls in Yei – a project our church had gotten behind and provided some modest support for. It was an amazing experience to be there in the land about which I had read so much and imagined even more. I had traveled there together with a Kenyan friend who worked at Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya at the time the Lost Boys arrived there in 1992. Martin was a child protection officer with UNHCR (the United Nations High Commission on Refugees) who was responsible for the intake, settlement, and oversight of the 15,000 undernourished, unclothed, skin and bones boys (and some girls) who arrived at the camp after their four year odyssey in the deserts of Sudan, Ethiopia and now Kenya.

Abraham, it turns out, was one of them. Unlike many of the Lost Boys I had met in the US (including the very articulate and personable Panther Alier, who had spoken at Christ Church Andover and captivated the imagination of our young people a few years ago), Abraham had been recruited into the south’s rebel army – the SPLA – during his time at Kakuma. He would not become one of the 7,000 or so who would eventually emigrate to the United States. From nine years of age, he went to school in the camp during the mornings, and in the afternoons he participated in drills and military exercises that would prepare him to go back into the deserts and jungles of Sudan to fight for his people’s survival and liberation. They practiced with wooden rifles as young boys, and at age 15 he left Kakuma to return to Sudan, where he was handed his AK-47.

Two years ago, several things changed for Abraham. He left the army and returned to his home. His brother had just been killed in inter-tribal violence by a Nuer, leaving three wives and nine children. Abraham, being the next brother in age, would be responsible for his brother’s family. He does his best, from Uganda, to send what little support he can put together for them. His father was also killed by a Nuer – the same man.

What began to come out of Abraham next was perhaps the most surprising thing of all. He began to talk about how he feels he must participate in the healing of Sudan, out of the suffering of his own life. He knows the man who killed his father and brother, and he thinks about him a lot. He imagines a day when he will sit down and speak with him, and through God’s power and not his own, offer him the good news of repentance and forgiveness. Abraham understands that there is no other way. Forgiveness and reconciliation are the only key to breaking the cycle of violence for Sudan, and that all its peoples must heal their divisions and animosities if they are to have a future together. He wants so desperately to be a part of that, and he feels sure that if there is a reason for all of the suffering that he has had to endure in his life, it is so that he can bear witness through his own experience of adversity to the potential for transformation of people and society. People will not be able to say to him, “you do not know what we have experienced.” This attitude, in my book, is a mark of real transformative leadership potential.

Next year, in 2011, South Sudan will have a referendum on independence from the north. It is a foregone conclusion that the people of the south will vote for secession. What is not as clear is how they will be governed, and whether historic inter-tribal rivalries will frustrate their hopes for creating a stable, independent society for South Sudan. People like Abraham, I think, are key to setting a new course.

I told Abraham that I had been to Sudan, and that I had also been to Kakuma Refugee Camp – a place that when I visited it two years ago felt like the very end of the earth to me. For him, it had been the best home he ever knew, and a place he remembered fondly as a place where there was always plenty of food, and where he got to go to school, and where he had a deep sense of community among his fellow Lost Boys in Group B. I told him that on my laptop in my room, I had some pictures of Kakuma – and of Yei, Sudan – that I would like to show to him. We agreed that sometime in the next day or so, we would look at them together.

We did. He came to my room where I showed them to him. Kakuma changed a lot after he and his friends left, some into the SPLA and some to the US or other places. Finally, once the peace agreement was signed in 2005, all the Sudanese refugees there had left, and the camp went from 100,000 residents to about 40,000. The Sudanese area of Kakuma is mostly uninhabited now, and many of the huts have disappeared or are in disrepair. He recognized the places I showed him in my pictures and explained where Group B had been located. His eyes filled with memories as I showed him through the Ethiopian and Burundian and Congolese communities they had abutted there. We saw the Episcopal Church of Sudan in the camp – his church – as well as others defined primarily by nationality and language.

When we went on to the pictures of Yei, Sudan, he recognized places there as well. He travels through Yei when going from his home in Bor to Uganda and vice versa. He looked at the faces of the children and told me one by one which tribe they all belonged to – some Dinka, some Kakwa, and a variety of others I do not remember. He showed me the subtle differences in anatomy and facial structure that were the cues known to all but nearly indistinguishable to me. “This boy,” he said, pointing to one, “is from my town.” We came to the picture of me with the Bishop of Rumbek. “That’s Bishop Alapayo,” he said. “I know him.” I had by chance bumped into the bishop during my brief stay in Yei during a walk around town. He and other Sudanese bishops were gathered for a meeting at the cathedral in Yei, and I happened to be walking by during a break, met him, and asked a passerby to take our picture. “I’ll tell him we met when I see him,” Abraham promised.

I don’t have any idea what Abraham’s university tuition and expenses will be or how he will come up with them. I do know that I want to do what I can to help him. It can’t be much, compared to what it would cost in the US. I can’t do it by myself, but I can do it with the help of others. If you (dear reader) would like to help, let me know.

We spent the following day talking again several times, laughing and joking about things. Gone was the hesitance and awkwardness. We are friends. He left this morning to return by bus with his group to Uganda. We promised to stay in touch and to pray for each other. I have a good feeling about Abraham – and the role of people like him in the future of South Sudan.