One Globe, Many Worlds: Season Change

I'm home now. In the States. It' hard to believe only 3 weeks ago, I was in a completely different world. God has been so faithful in bringing me back to this place. Even though it's incredibly different, so many things are the same as my old world. I'll come back to that thought in a moment.

First, I just want to celebrate a sweet ending to my time in Burundi. Whenever you're leaving a place, you want to make sure that you say proper good-byes, and that you leave things in a way that the footprints you made while there will start a path that others can continue to walk on after you're gone. Well let me say, Burundians know how to give a proper goodbye. My friend Freddy says Westerners wait 'til the funeral to say good things about a person. I don't know if this is completely true. But it's true sometimes. Not Burundians. Usually, all they have the means to give you are their words. They make sure you know how they feel before you're gone. They tell you thank you for the specific things you did, and sometimes they give you a gift to show their gratitude. I was grateful for open hearts and grateful for the chance to express my own gratitude. I didn't come for their thanks, but it's always nice when that happens.

My fancy bread in a box that Alphonsine surprised me with on the last day!

(probably cost her half a day's salary!)

Alphonsine and I in the classroom. She is the lady I worked with my

last couple of months at the school training to take over P3 class.

It was hard to say goodbye. It was hard to leave my children. It was harder to trust that the work I had done was done in such relevance to the culture that it would be continued after I had left. But God and life had just released me into a new season. And so it starts. Home sweet USA.

Being back has been good, surreal at times, but I guess that is to be expected. Overall it has felt natural, and God has been really faithful in helping me transfer my experiences in Burundi back to life here. To preface the next thought, I need to share a little confession: The past two times I've been to Burundi, I had only gone for about two months at a time. That being said, it's really easy to only see how great everything is there--how nice the people are, how beautiful the African cloths are, how incredible the long-term missionaries who live there are, how yummy the mangoes are, etc. It's really easy to come back and judge your own country. Grimace.

Going for a longer period changes a lot. I saw the unbelievable crazy corrupt effects of the government and even the church on people's lives. I drove a car that broke down on a regular basis on the streets that have no structure according to my culture (but did according to theirs). I saw the effects of the lack of education in the people affecting their daily lives. I saw people selling eggs and peanuts on the side of the street to make a living. I visited my friends, that I worked with everyday, in their homes or the hospital, recovering from malaria and typhoid and stomach ulcers, and who were wondering where the money would come from to pay the hospital bills. In other words, I saw the faults. I saw how imperfect Burundi is. Yes, they are doing some things at life better than us, and we are doing some things better at life than them. But we're all just

trying.

to.

get.

by.

For some people, trying to get by is just feeding your family. For people who have already conquered that step, trying to get by could look like buying a boat because it makes you happy. There's different levels of it I suppose. If Burundians could get to a level where they have enough money to buy a boat, you bet your socks they would! But most of them just aren't there. So it is a different world. But what I'm come to see is that it's the same heart. People just want good lives for themselves and the people they love. It's made me less judgmental of America. Or the western world. Because now that I've lived in two extremes, I see we are people--terribly broken but full of heart and just wanting to restore it to the way it was meant to be. People want a redemption. We're crying out for it in every possible way. Some ways are working, and some aren't. But through it all, it's not my place to judge. It's just my place to offer up the places I've

found that I believe in or walk alongside others as we find a place together.

I'm thankful not to be as cynical. It's not fun to be a cynic.

As an ending to my time in Burundi, here's a little tribute to some things I will miss: Here's to Burundi and to new seasons.