Saturday, October 31, 2015

24 hours in our new town

We are nicely tucked into our hotel in Bukavu, DR Congo. It's raining outside - as is likely to happen during rainy season (Sept-April), and all I need is a cup of tea to help me wake up from my jet lag-induced nap.

A gal I mostly knew of in college has a great blog that I read occasionally. Last week, I found she was writing a series on transitions. I have been touched an encouraged by reading it and cried some tears while doing so. If you're interested, you can find it here.

Our new co-workers here have been really generous with their time and helpful in answering a lot of questions and showing us around. I'm really happy that we got to go to an open-air market today! Our house isn't ready until Monday, so we're not buying all that we need for settling in yet, but it's good to see what's available.

We also had really delicious Indian food for lunch and got my cell phone set up.

I've been trying to find information for a local church, but there's not much online and we don't have much "social capital" built up yet, so I don't know if we'll go tomorrow or just try to sleep off the jet lag. 

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Departure

What about the Lamp Stand?

First, Mark and I fly tomorrow to Kigali, Rwanda, and drive to Bukavu, DR Congo (our new city of residence) on Friday! That's the plan, and God has proven faithful - again! - in providing our visas in time to make our flight. <It's really quite a story!>

We've been in Pennsylvania for Orientation with Mennonite Central Committee for the last ten days, and this morning we did lectio divina, reading Matthew 5:13-16 (on being the salt of the earth and the light of the world). I thought it appropriate to share some of my reflections in this last email before jumping into the deep end.
What stood out to me in this passage was the lamp stand and it's role in giving light to the whole house. (Note: I think the word "you" here is likely better translated "y'all" as in "All y'all Christ followers are the light of the world".) The lamp stand is a humble instrument but enables the light to spread further. The light is shining for God's glory.

It's hard for me to understand and harder to accurately communicate about this humility in going to another country to do good works. And I can't control what anyone thinks of me - or of Mark, for that matter (though he did make some really great jokes during orientation). Some people talk like what we're doing makes us extra special to God or extra good people. I see it that this is what God has planned for us and not going would be hiding and taking glory away from him. So we go because it's where the path is leading us.

I'm especially aware, too, that we have little to offer, as we'll be learning language and culture, relying on our hosts to help us, even in small things like shopping and catching a bus. Maybe this feeling is magnified because we're leaving tomorrow and I feel so small in airports and bureaucratic visa application processes. But I know God is with us and has called us to this, and we are thankful for your support along the way.

To be realistic, I'll try to keep posting on the blog and send an email occasionally, but we do expect the first couple of months to be very busy.

Much love and fond thoughts of you in a tender time of transitions!

Monday, October 26, 2015

This might be the last post for our Fall

'Cause our fall will be over with in a few days.

No matter how many times we apply for visas, and I am the most extreme "J" of the Myers-Briggs type, trying to get everything sorted well ahead of time, there still is something for me to get stressed about. And this time, I knew and could verbalize that God will take care of us and I don't need to be anxious, even that he's giving me an opportunity to trust Him (although Mark doesn't agree with me phrasing it like that for theological reasons…)

<--That was a run on sentence, but you get my gist?

I've been anxious about our visas and don't need to go into the play by play, but they're on their way, and it looks like we'll make it on our Wednesday PM flight.

Now to trust him with my neck and jaw pain… I guess I'm getting old. SPEAKING OF…!

This guy had a birthday yesterday!
And our friend Bex, one of my classmates from EMU-CJP, has a birthday that's today (and mine is Thursday) SO we had a heck of a complimentary birthday dessert at this restaurant called JB DAWSONS!

And it's lovely fall weather here and we're leaving for Congo in less than 48 hours, God-willing.



Do the comments work on this thing?

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

A little "Presentation" - Karen's part

We weren't looking for this move to DR Congo. We were happy with where we were at in Harrisonburg: our awesome church community, parenting Anthony, great frisbee scene, etc. Mark's year-long grant was going to end at the end of August, but they would have been happy to have him stay for a while longer.And MCC actually had someone lines up to fill the position of Seed Co-Facilitator, but that fell through.

So we've had a strong sense of God's leading in this from the beginning. When I (Karen) read the job description, I got really excited and sent it on to a few people, telling them it's my "dream job," largely because it's at the interpersonal level, within a multi-cultural team, and working closely with a counterpart from another culture. Mark encouraged me to apply and was also excited about the possibilities it would open for him in finishing learning French and doing anti-corruption/human rights law. The positions we're entering into really fit our gifting and prior experience well. And this came to us not through our own efforts and planning but rather out of the blue.

What Karen's doing:
I'm co-facilitating a multicultural team of young adults (only 2-3 from US/Canada and 5-6 from the Africa Great Lakes region - DR Congo, Rwanda, Burundi). They come for two years as part of a service, learning, and reflection program. Participants will be placed in local communities to accompany  the community development work of a church or NGO (non-governmental organization = non-profit organization) doing work in trauma healing and food security in camps for internally displaced people (IDPs - like refugees but still live within their home country). At the beginning of the program and at intervals throughout the two years, we'll gather together for learning/reflecting retreats to focus on a particular peacebuilding theme, such as "Connecting the rural and urban". I'm looking forward to being an organizer for the program and encouraging participants as well as doing some sort of spiritual direction.

I think I'll leave what Mark's doing for another day. :) 

Saturday, October 17, 2015

Good-byes are my least favorite

Tomorrow we head to Akron, Pennsylvania for training. That means packing and weighing suitcases again tonight. And saying more good-byes tomorrow. I'm thankful for a friend who encouraged me to accept the tears and the mourning that come with partings because they are signs of our love for each other. But still not fun, and my head still hurts from some tears.

So I'll keep this short and share a couple of pictures of our nice time together.

And remind myself of Matt 10:37-39 that reminds me following God's call and loving Jesus more than family or comfort is finding true life.

Prayers for the transition appreciated!



Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Mark's reflections on Roswell and small towns

I (Mark) am in Roswell, New Mexico. It's my wife's home town. I just left Austin, where I grew up. I'm glad to be in Roswell because my life here is very peaceful. In Austin I have lots of people to try to reconnect with, and there are so many fun/interesting things to do there that I feel like I need to cash in. But doing anything in Austin means I have to pay a tax of 45-90 minutes per event because: (1) my parents live in the suburbs, and the only thing around us is other houses; and (2) Austin has terrible traffic, so it takes more time to cover the already far distances between myself and the things I want to do.

But in Roswell, it's so chill. Well, at least for me. My wife grew up here, so she has the same "see everybody" problem. But there's not so many "things" to do here, and everything is so close. So we end up having more time anyway. And that's just it. The days here FEEL longer. It's a part of the urban/rural or past/future dichotomy that ripples through America. I like the longer days in Roswell, but I miss all the fun things to do in Austin.

But Grandma Frances makes delicious apple pies!

What Mark's going to be doing

(Mark writing.) I've got plenty to do right now because I'm trying to learn French. I also need to familiarize myself with DRC's system of government, its current political actors, and how elections work. Did you hear? I officially have a placement for my work in Congo. I'll be working for the ECC (l’Eglise du Christ au Congo) which is the general association of protestant church in Congo, and doing their work in connection with the CIME (La Commission d’intégrité et de médiation), the Commission on Electoral Integrity and Mediation. The CIME is not a government entity, but a creation of different civil society groups. CIME's general mission is for the 2016 Presidential election in DRC (which, like the US, is also in November) to be peaceful, lawful, free and fair. I'll be doing legal things connected to this, but don't have many details yet. I do know that I'll be flying to Kinshasa sometimes for my work, which is exciting for me because I'm very interested in big cities and also in seeing the Congo river; it's 1-2 miles wide at Kinshasa.

(Here's a google satellite image of the North side of Kinshasa. Note the scale in the bottom-right of the image)





Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Starting to Head Out!

Hi Friends!

I don't always post on Facebook when I write a blog post, but the blog is still up and fairly active and will hopefully be even more active as I recruit Mark to write some posts too.

We moved out of our place in Harrisonburg a week ago and have been enjoying time with Mark's family in Texas (minus his sister and her husband and son, who live in Europe).

I've been enjoying regular Skype conversations with my co-facilitator, Serge, as we begin to evaluate applicants and other various (less exciting) work toward opening the Seed program in February.

Mark has new developments on what he'll be doing in DR Congo, and it's exciting! I'll let him write about it.

Please pray for quick work by the US Postal Services, as there was confusion with addresses for the DR Congo embassy, and we're going to be cutting it close with our visa application.

We continue to work on our French and enjoy learning more about the region we're moving to. We were excited to find out that our first weekend will be a retreat with the rest of the DR Congo MCC team on an island (Idjwi) in the middle of the big lake we'll live on the southern end of (Lake Kivu).

One more awesome story of God's provision for selling our car! We'd had it posted online for a few weeks and a few people had looked at it in Harrisonburg and some had made offers significantly below what we were asking. So it hadn't sold and we were flying out; a friend was going to help us out by keeping it in Virginia and selling it on our behalf. After packing up our house, another friend drove us in our car to DC where we were flying out of (since our car had more space than hers) and took it back to Harrisonburg to leave with the seller-friend. On the return drive, she decided that she wanted to buy it! And that's how God provided for the sale of our car when we trusted him with it.

Now to keep practicing trusting him with this visa situation...