A Strange Marriage.

Another part of my amazing weekend.
Saturday morning I attended the wedding of an American girl and a Congolese man.
The ceremony was held in a huge catholic cathedral planted on a hill overlooking the city and tucked amidst small groves of bamboo, pine and palm.
Despite many frustrations leading up to the wedding, it was a beautiful event.
I'm thankful to have seen both the marriage of a man and woman of two cultures,
as well as the mysterious beauty of the almost strange marriage of Catholic tradition
and Congolese culture.

As the church choir sand, you could hear the African voices and they were not able to hide the distinctive free rhythm and patterns of song that seems to flow through every person here. But within the songs they sang you could also hear the tradition of hymns over the ages sung by monks in monasteries and by medieval choirs. It was like you could hear the ringing of church bells across the European countryside as their voices rose and descended with a strangely conservative freedom.

 

While at the wedding I also made a point to get to know a few Europeans that were also there.
I had a good time getting to know them and enjoyed the reception with them as well that night, enjoying hours of dancing with the people there, learning a few Congo moves and laughing at a few awkward situations that came up.

A Bit of a Dream Come True.

Some things you just can't plan.
Sometimes God orchestrates life in such a strange but beautiful way,
like a melody where you never would have guessed the next note coming
but as soon as you hear it you realize how beautifully and perfectly it fits into the whole song.

This past week I never would have even imagined that one moment of being intentional with a stranger would lead to a series of events that resulted pretty much straight into a childhood dream coming true.
I never would have thought that listening to an American mother share of her frustrations about a cross-cultural wedding would lead to talking about my faith with a Pakistani clothing designer while hiking through the jungle looking for the Eastern Lowland Gorilla.
Ask me about it sometime. 

Somethings you just can't plan.
But you can take pictures!
Here are the smelly beasts that I have been a dreaming to see since reading Jane Goodall books as an animal-loving kid.

Arriving at Kahuzi-Biega Park

The hike into the jungle

 

 

 Chilling with the gorillas!

Silverback. Dreams of this.

 

 

 Riding in the back of a pickup with the park rangers. 

 Sitting and having a broken-swahili conversation with a bit of a local legend,

i.e. the old pygmy who long ago first stumbled across the gorillas and reported them.

More to come on this crazy week later! Yes there is more :)

A Step Through Time

There are some moments that make you feel like you've stepped
through some sort of temporal rift, a gateway through time.
Last month I had the opportunity to visit the Lwiro Science Center,
about an hour and a half or so drive outside of Bukavu.
I hadn't high expectations, but I was pleasantly surprised at what I saw when I arrived there.
A complex, several decades old, built by the Belgians as a research center
and planted in the midst of vast fields on one side and jungle on the other.
 
There is something captivating about walking through old halls and archways like these.

 

Now the science center hosts a wide range of research including geology, tectonic studies and zoology. I'll be the first to admit that I would not have minded living there for a time just studying some of the wildlife of the area.

 

Something that I perhaps enjoyed the most however was one of the last parts of the tour. The group and I entered another section of the complex after checking out a few of the animals (most were hiding in the bush, save for a few chimps).
Now as the group was reading a plaque under a pair of ivory tusks on the wall my curiosity was peaked and my attention drawn away by a glimpse of this dark wooden spiral staircase just barely visible behind a large set of doors.
 I had a feeling that I would like what was in the next room, and I was right.

Behind those large doors was this beautiful library with two levels of books and dark wood. I felt like I could read and even write a world of books sitting in that room, and that I would have been sitting next to the famous authors from over the centuries. At the very least, I wished that my school had a library like this to study in, everyone would be a grade A student simply because just standing in the room makes you smarter and have more profound thoughts...its true.

There was also an old overhead photo of the whole compound in the library.

After we spent some time visiting the library we headed through the door above, up a level of stairs and into a binding room. This too was like stepping through time. Though some of the Congolese I was with complained about how outdated the equipment was, I secretly loved it.

 

The final stop was for lunch in an old house that now serves as a bit of a restaurant and hotel for workers. It was no exception to the beauty of the visit as it held its own simple charm from where it overlooked the countryside of Eastern Congo.

Visiting places like these you can easily forget that you're in a country in the midst of war and what seems like government apathy. I think, no matter where you are though, its okay to be on the search for beautiful things to hold onto.

General Update

I am loving my time here, though it is winding down with only 24 days to go!

Sunday I say goodbye to my amazing cook Momma Dorcas as she heads to Kenya 

for three weeks on an evangelistic trip, and will not return until after I leave.

I'm sad to say goodbye to her, but excited that she has this opportunity.

Pray for her safety and the safety of her companion as they travel and go to share the Gospel. 

Please pray that I don't kill myself with my own cooking.

Tomorrow I'll preach again at the 'Morning Glory' youth service, 

a 6 a.m. time of prayer and worship that, I'll admit,

 I was not particularly excited to attend the first time. 

But there is definitely something beautiful about prayer and praise rising alongside the new day sun.

 

Saturday I'll be attending a cross-cultural wedding between a Congolese and an American.

Today I talked with the very frustrated mother of the American girl as she is dealing

not only with the stresses of a marriage but of the many cultural expectations as well.

I hope that I can be an encouragement to them and that both sides, 

the Congolese and Americans can learn to best respect each others cultures and hopes. 

Next blog post I suppose I may finally post some photos of the city I have called home 

for the last two months with all its beauty and chaos. 

God is good!

 I have no doubt that I would be a bitter intern if not for the wonderful work and refining 

 that He has been doing on me and in my heart. 

Prayer is powerful.

The Sun Rising

I pity the moon sometimes.
I think that it sees the worst of the world
in the hours when the darkness of the human heart
 comes out to meet the darkness of the night.
 It seems that the moon must watch some of the worst of the world's atrocities
when fears and selfishness run high and logic fades like stars suffocated by city lights.
When gunshots ring out.
When drunkenness runs high and good sense is tossed aside with all the empty bottles.
When people are afraid to walk their own streets.
When women scream out with every breath in their lungs as the noble listen on from their beds.
 When children disappear.
When innocence becomes something to be bought or stolen like powdered milk or pirated DVDs.
What stories of pain the moon must have to tell.

Even yet, I hope the moon knows that the darkness does is not an all-encompassing presence.
 It does not span the whole world at once, it cannot, and it will not last forever.
The darkness may abide for some time, but it must pass.
Those who have spent the dark hours only waiting for them to end
know that on the morning light rides a strange peace and relief.
The first sight of morning light like that first breath
after breaking the surface of the water coming up from a dive.
 Dawn breaks the darkness with a bright army,
chasing away all the ghosts and phantoms
 living in all the unseen corners, nooks and crannies of sleepless nights.

 With the sun rising the world becomes a little less frightened.
Now, the sun will have its share of stories to tell as well,
some of beautiful things and others of pain.
For as the mists, fogs, and morning dust rise
the moon and sun will greet each other with tales of what they've seen from where they've been,
like two old friends swapping stories by the smoke of a campfire.
And as this time goes on and the moon departs, the sun rising will remain to keep watch.
The sun rising will be left to watch over 
the young girl carrying a baby on her back
 making her way through the rubbage heap
pulling out old strips of cloth to bring home for later use.

I wonder if we, from where we are, see or know of the sun rising over that little girl.
I wonder if we see the sun rising over the Rusizi river.
I wonder if we see the sun rising over the steep and narrow alley ways,
the stick bridges and the dirt paths that wind between Bukavu houses
which seem to have shot up from the ground
as if from seeds haphazardly scattered in every direction.
I wonder if we see the sun rising over the
 mourning women gathered on the floor of a dark room
in a house where a babies last breath was carried away with the night cricket songs.
I wonder if we see the sun rising over the guinea fowl
 running through the small room of young people whose worship songs and prayers
 are filling in the holes and cracks of the tin roof and brick and barn-board walls.
I wonder if we see the sun rising of the young men,
 ladies and children walking the dusty roads with yellow buckets,
 going out or already returning from one of their dry-season searches for water.

I wonder if we see these things,
 or if we think that the sun rising belongs to only to us,
that the sun rising only watches over our own lives.
No, the sun has risen over and seen much of the world by the time we see its light.
 I wonder how aware we are that our dear world
 will have done much laughing and crying
by the time we finish prying
our heads from our pillows.

Now when we ourselves begin our rising
I hope that in our minds we find ourselves comprising
ways that we may fully seize the day,
but really only so that we may give it away.
Not necessarily to the little girl in the trash heap,
but to whoever nearby that may be in need of that strange peace riding on the morning light.
Imagining, moment by moment, that our lives are not our own,
but rather that, perhaps,
our hearts are beating with a rhythm that is meant to give others a reason to dance.
Maybe, there is hope in the thought, that if we can learn to live a bit more of the heart flipped inside-out, upside-down sort of way in the day hours,
that maybe then the moon will not have watch so much darkness in the hours of the night.
Maybe then the sun and moon may swap more stories of light and peace and joy and dancing
with a few less heavenly tears being shed.