A Franciscan Benediction

May God bless you with discomfort
At easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships
So that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger
At injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people,
So that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless you with tears
To shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger and war,
So that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and
To turn their pain into joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness
To believe that you can make a difference in the world,
So that you can do what others claim cannot be done.

Amen

Weddings

A wedding is a great opportunity to experience some of the important customs and values in a family or culture. Othniel, a close friend from day 1 of our Burkina adventure, invited us to his brother's wedding in Doumbala – a village some 400 km from Ouagadougou, near the Mali border. We knew it would be a long trip so we decided that just I (Jeff) would go. See our January update for more reflections on the wedding.

I show this picture because this is so typical of Burkinabé weddings. The bride and the groom seem so distant from each other. Neither shows much emotion – to the point that they seem to expressing pain, almost wishing they were somewhere else. I am told that this is expected of them. The whole day is in their honour and this is one way to show humility.

How to Have Fun at a Bwaba Wedding

At a Burkinabé wedding, you must make noise and lots of it. If you have a gun, shoot it in the air (preferably without bullets – see collection of wedding pictures). If you have less means than that, get creative. Here, Othniel’s nephew has fabricated his own noise-maker – a motorcycle wheel spoke is bent around and fastened to a stick by some old rubber tire tube. A nail is also attached. Cut off the head of a match, place it in the spoke, put the nail snugly against the match head, pound the head of the nail on a rock, and boom! You have your noise-maker. Pretty ingenious (and inexpensive). Watch the video for the demo.

Here's how the noise toy works...

Wedding Celebration in Doumbala.

Watch these videos (continued below) to see some pure, unfettered dancing. The Bwaba people (Othniel’s ethnic group) love to dance and they are amazing dancers. Even the children pick it up quickly. The wonderful part about their dancing for me was that it included people of all age-groups, genders, and abilities. Even I could give it a try with some simple steps while I marvelled at the moves of the experts. The key thing is to do it together in community, and to have fun – no alcohol needed.

The young dancing team.

These were the expert dancers at the wedding. They could really get going.

Not done yet.

Are they tired yet after 3 hours of wedding dancing? Nope.

Bus Trouble - I think the goat must have tipped the scale.

Our bus had two flat tires and after putting on the spares, the driver noticed that at least one of the spares had been cut in half and sewn back together at one point. This resulted in a 7 hour delay on the side of the road while we waited for a solution. But this picture will always remind me of how the bus-hand let down the spare tire from the roof, where you see the goat. Instead of dropping it parallel to the side of the bus, or waiting for help, the bus hand dropped it perpendicular to the bus. The huge tire promptly hit a rut and shot straight out towards me. I took one step sideways and watched the think streak past at another young man who wasn’t paying attention. It caught him so off guard, all he could think to do was to start running with the path of the tire, instead of side-stepping it. So he tried to outrun the tire for a good 3 seconds before diving out of the way. The tire continued another good 20 metres after that.

Watch me now, hey!

I think dancing is as natural as walking for a Burkinabe kid.

January Prayer Letter

January 2009

Warkentin Prayer Letter

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine, your anointing oils are fragrant, your name is perfume poured out. – Song of Solomon 1:2

I had had a preview of the trip – the road had been awful that first time so I was prepared. This time promised to be longer and more rewarding. My two short, recent village experiences were like book-end glimpses into two of the most significant markers of African life: first, a funeral, then, a wedding.

The road had dramatically improved from the funeral visit 3 weeks earlier. After an hour of paved road and 4 hours of unpaved, the first great challenge this time came when the police officer stopped the bus some 100 km from our final destination asking everyone to get off. I was relieved to see my passport still had at least a month left on the visa. I chuckled nervously when Othniel showed me his identification card: a 10 year old boy smiled back at me…Othniel is 28. His card had expired years ago. I looked up. The 28 year old was now smiling at me. I was glad he was so confident. The police man did not seem in good humour.

We were separated into two groups – those with valid identification, and those without. I found myself wondering if this was how calm it was in places like Rwanda where similar grouping had occurred in more dire times. Othniel was not in my group. My group was told to get on the bus and take off. I started praying. The bus driver was nowhere to be found. I heard someone say that he was "negotiating" with the police. Moments later, Othniel ran gleefully back onto the bus and sat down beside me, smiling even bigger. "On peut aller!" We can go. I was greatly relieved.

I am screaming down a dirt road on the back of a motorcycle. Cold. This was as cold as I'd been since being in Burkina. My jacket was zipped up over my head to protect me, now a headless horseman, from the cold and dust. We drove for almost an hour. I was blindly balancing myself on the back of the bike as we seemed to swerve and hit every hole along the way, my bag in my arms preventing me from holding on effectively. What if I fell? I was a hundred miles away from…anywhere.

We arrived in the village of Doumbala – a village of the Bwaba people, 10 km from the Mali border. The Mali border literally cut right through some of the Bwaba villages. What was the white man thinking? We arrived at night, under a multitude of celestial Christmas lights – enough to give you a neck ache, or worse if you tried to walk and look at the sky at the same time.

For the next 2 days, I was the King of the Sahel – at least, my hosts treated me as such. What was most remarkable was that Othniel, who hadn't been back to his home for over a year, never left my side. I was his priority, even before his childhood friends who he hadn't seen in so long. I thought about western hospitality. I thought about stories of missionaries leaving African guests outside while they go in to eat. I learned and thought about a lot of things those 2 days.

The wedding itself revealed the high points of Bwaba culture: music and dance. In fact, most Burkinabé love to celebrate. While the married couple traditionally must look reserved and almost bored (see blog and web pictures), the rest of the congregation is alive and lively. Even at 5 am the morning after the wedding, there were still dancers regenerating the eternal dust cloud of the courtyard by the church. The same balaphone player (see pictures) had played from 8 pm to 5 am with very few breaks!

We left at 5 am to catch our bus back to Ouagadougou. Othniel had an exam the next day – yet one more frustration with the university system: because of all of the striking, some students only had Christmas Day off before they had to continue their exams. This messed up Othniel's entire Christmas and New Years plans – a much needed and well-deserved week in the village with his family was cut down to 2 days.

Our bus broke down 30 minutes into the trip. We waited almost 7 hours on the side of the road for a fix (see blog for more info). These various challenges made me think of the effort "incarnational ministry" takes and how much it is worth. I could have dreaded such a trip – why not stay home and read a book? It is Boxing Day! When I have a busy week – a sermon to write, a Bible study to prepare, I often find myself torn between two paths: the known (books, commentaries, a laptop, efficiency) and the unknown and unpredictable (visits with strangers, conversations, a stroll through the neighbourhood, taking the time to get to know what people in our church need).

The 7 superfluous hours turned into great conversation time. I learned valuable insights into the culture I live in. My travel companions and I talked about what marriage and weddings mean in the Burkinabé context. This is such a crucial topic for the students with whom we work. We talked about what being a servant-spouse looks like. Burkinabé young adults are struggling with the ideologies of marriage: Do you have to follow the traditions of your culture when getting married? Do you need to be completely financially autonomous before taking the step? Do you marry a woman you know will be hard-working and serving, or does romance play a bigger role? Young adult Christians in Burkina are pushing some of these boundaries and asking important questions while discerning what the Bible says about these themes. And we are listening and praying for ways to treat these issues respectfully in our young church context.

We praise God for…

• A wonderful holiday season of fellowshipping with church members and mission team members alike.

• Astonishingly good health throughout our years in Burkina and especially during the Christmas season.

• Significant "bonding" between Jeff and some of the students at the wedding in Doumbala

We request your prayer support for…

• Knowing how to progress in our ministry in the ambiguity of the coming school year. Will there be a school year? When will it start?

• Students who are still finishing up exams, now even in the midst of a professor strike

• Attentiveness to God's calling as doors shut for some because of failed exams or a yet-again postponed school year.

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For elaboration on any of the above, please visit our blog and website.

http://foothills.mennonitechurch.ab.ca/warkentin.html