Imyaka ibiri / deux ans / two years

after supper we had a celebratory-two-year desert. Appropriately enough- pineapple upside-down cake

Well – as of today we have now been in Burundi for two years!

Two years ago today we stepped off a late-night flight from Edmonton (via Montreal & Brussels) to walk across the tarmac at the Bujumbura airport.

It feels like we’ve lived so much in that time – lived so many experiences that it must be more than a mere 24-months worth.
Some have been incredibly joyful, some gut-wrenchingly sorrowful.
We have camped out in the beauty of breathtakingly beautiful waterfalls and natural hot springs.
We have had our kids hide under the bed as large-calibre guns fire their bullets directly over the house.
We have experienced friendship, loyalty, and sacrifice from people we had known only months.
We have felt more frustrated and mislead and taken advantage of than ever before.
We have seen people who find such whole-heartedly joy in worshiping God – and have heard stories of betrayal by those claiming to follow Him.
We come face to face with poverty, malnutrition and physical suffering on a daily basis to a level that I had never before witnessed in my life.
We get to be part of a team that, despite all that seems to be working against us (and that list can often feel very long), is a small part of God’s redemptive work – fighting poverty, feeding the hungry, curing the sick.
We’ve sat in places with dirt floors and mud-brick walls, and we’ve somehow met up with ambassadors, diplomats, and the first-lady herself.
We have been inspired by our Burundian friends and colleagues – who can possess incredible resolve, determination.  Who keep their Faith that God is making all things new when it’s hard from a human perspective to see that it’s true.
And I’m pretty sure I can honestly say that I’ve personally shed more tears – of both sorrow and joy – in the past two years than perhaps the rest of my life combined.
Two years ago I’m pretty sure I’d heard the sound of a gun fire perhaps a few times (and honestly, that would have been in my Outdoor Education class trip to a firing range, and when my brother Phil was skiing biathlon) – and soon after we arrived, and for essentially the whole time we lived in Bujumbura – it became almost a daily occurrence.
 
Honestly – there are still days that are so hard I feel ready to quit. Days where cultural misunderstandings, differences in approaches, and just plain hard things make me want to pack it all in and go home.
But for now- this is home.  This is where we feel God has called our family. There is so, so much work to be done here – and for now we get to be part of it.
For those of you who are perhaps new to our story – or if you want a bit of a re-cap – here’s how the last 24 months have gone down:
2015
March – we get all packed up and say good-bye to friends, family, Canada, & snow
We arrive in Buj and live in temporary housing for the first month – starting to look for a car (which proved to be an incredibly hard thing to do)
April
We move into our house – the ruling party announces that the President will run for a third-term, and the protests and violence start.
Already some ex-pat families are leaving as embassies and some NGO’s start to pull out people.
I start teaching my MBA classes – having to avoid road-blocks and clashes between protesters and police getting to and from HAU.
May
A failed military coup takes place – and we drive up to Kibuye
After staying about a week and in discussing with others – we decide to drive to Rwanda, hoping we can stay there for a couple weeks while things settle down.
June, July, August
We stay at the mission station in Kibogora, Rwanda while things in Burundi continue in much the same way. Elections are announced, delayed, boycotted & disputed. Violence continues. While in Rwanda we kept up homeschooling the kids, they played with new found great friends, we swam (and camped) in lake Kivu to relax, I made several trips back to Bujumbura (including one time where I ended up getting left there with no ride, the immigration office closed down with our passports inside and there were rumours of an impending rebel attack), we had surgeries (x3), and I got involved with the local university trying to help out as I could. We go for a hike through the canopy of the rainforest for Susan’s birthday.
Sept – Oct-Nov
We move back to Bujumbura Aug 30 since things had been settling down -there had been several weeks without much noticeable violence. The night after we arrive – gun-battles start up again in opposition neighbourhoods not far from us.
I get back to teaching my MBA classes at Hope Africa University, and have been asked to take on more responsibility on the admin side becoming Directeur Pédagogique (VP Academic).
Since HAU is unfortunately in one of the neighbourhoods experiencing a fair bit of conflict – clashes, fighting and attacks are essentially always in the back of your mind. Checking twitter for reports of attacks before deciding what road to take home.
My classes – which are supposed to start at 6.00pm as it’s an executive-style MBA for people working full-time – keep getting pushed up as people are too scared to be out after dark.  Finally after having to stop mid-class three times in two weeks due to gun-battles really close (including once when the students hit the floor and crawl into the corner as I’m lecturing as shots ring-out just on the street outside the window behind me) we move classes to a spare room at our house, since our neighbourhood had remained relatively peaceful.
The violence continues – with the sound of grenades and AK-47’s audible from our house essentially every night.
December
It feels like everyone in Bujumbura is starting to accept that this is “the new normal” – the tension, in uncertainty, the angst, the rumours. Oh so many rumours. Rumors of rebel bands training across the border in Congo, of people recruited out of refugee camps, being armed and amassing together somewhere in the jungle.  Rumours about the government. Rumours about what laws or rules are about to change. Rumors about who is involved in what, who’s been arrested, who’s disappeared -and most of all. what the heck is going to happen next.
We realize that since this does appear to be the new normal – we are going to put our kids in school. Because of the security issues, deciding on either the French School (close enough to the President’s office that you pass barricades, and road blocks, and soldiers with huge guns stationed just outside the wall of the school yard) or the Belgian School (which is a bit further away, and means it could be harder to get to if things heat up – meaning we may not be able to get to the kids if there is a large flare-up in fighting while they’re at school). We visit l’Ecole Francaise on Dec 10 – the only reason I remember the date is because I remember what happened the next day.
Dec 11
The next day we are awakened at exactly 4.00 by the sound of explosions, and gunfire. Lots of it – and big ones. It continues throughout the day, and as news starts trickling out over social media it seems that some unknown rebel group(s) conducted coordinated attacks against three military bases in different parts of the city. The sound of fighting can be heard from our place for about 14 hours straight. So much shooting. So many grenades. Then every so often something much larger than a grenade. Then the sound of guns much larger than the typical AK-47. Then a slight pause. Then more shooting from a slightly different place. At one point I things had calmed down a bit and I was standing in our yard talking with our Serge East Africa director – who happened to be in the US. He was saying that they wanted us to leave town the next day – as soon as it was safe to do so.  As I was standing in the yard talking to him the relative calm was pierced by what sounded like larger caliber guns, closer to the house – immediately followed by the instantly unmistakable sound of bullets whistling overhead.
Once we could leave – we headed up to stay in Kibuye for what we thought would be a few weeks. Hoping to return home to Bujumbura just after Christmas.
2016
compared to the previous year – 2016 seems almost uneventful. On a security call on new years eve it was decided that Serge did not want our family to return to Bujumbura.
 That was hard.
Working at Hope Africa University was what we had come to do – and having to leave a place that had finally felt like home was really hard. After looking at our options – it was decided that we’d move permanently to Kibuye to join the team working at Kibuye Hope Hospital where there was a huge need for administrative oversight. We moved Jan 13.
 I tried to pursue my work at the Hospital – but we were faced over and over with month after month of false starts, missed deadlines, broken promises and more.  The kids kind of slipped into the school here with the other kids when we got here.  Jonah broke his arm, and we almost got a monkey,
Susan quickly found a very acute need at the hospital working with the kids in the paediatric ward – including a lot of work with the kids in the malnutrition program.
We had our first ever visitor as our friend Karen came from France.
In May we attended our first Serge mission-wide conference in Spain and then got to spend some time back in France seeing friends and spending time in some of our favourite places.
In August we made the incredibly hard decision to have Jonah enrol at Rift Valley Academy in Kijabe, Kenya (mental note: never say “never”)
The other kids are now fully part of the school here which now has 19 kids in it between kindergarten and 7th grade.
Susan’s parents came for almost a month
Which pretty much brings us back to today.
 Two years in.
I’m not sure there is anything else to say about that. I’m pretty sure there’s really very much at all that I’d change even if I could.
We are so thankful for what we’ve been able to see, and do, and learn and experience here in this place.  My great hope is that we could have a tiny sliver of the impact on Burundi – that it’s had on us.