Dear Friends and Family,
Uncle Crazy painted the sign for Discovery School. Seriously—that's his name, and as I looked around on the first day of school at 84 three and four year olds, some crying for their mothers; some staring in complete terror at the table, afraid of the play-dough; others wandering around the room touching all the colored alphabet posters (I'm sure they had never seen anything like them before); I thought his name was singularly appropriate. In fact, I thought it might be good to elect him our mascot.
After everyone calmed down from the first day jitters, though, things have been going marvelously. All of our teachers have risen to the task of teaching in a system different than anything they ever experienced—a classroom with centers that the children rotate in and out of. They are coping well with the mess of paste and ink and paint. They make the Bible stories come alive. For the last three days the teachers' end of the day comment has been "Vyose vyagenze neza!" (Everything went well!) We are well on our way to reaching our goals—helping our local church, reaching out into a mainly unreached neighborhood by teaching their kids about the Lord, and providing high-quality education for a low price to people that otherwise wouldn't be able to afford it. Thank you SO much for the materials and gifts and prayers you all have sent our way. I've attached some pictures so you can see your gifts in action!
Since Uncle Crazy doesn't have to be the Discovery School's mascot anymore, maybe we'll adopt him as the family mascot. I keep thinking Jesse just can't do anything more at once, and then I'm proved wrong. As usual, though, he is thriving on the excitement and loving the knowledge that things are being accomplished that help the country and people he loves. We have a team of three amazing guys from Ireland staying with us right now. They are trying to build three playgrounds in two weeks—at the Discovery School, the Deaf School, and the Blind School. Africa's slowness is making that difficult, but they are pushing through, sometimes even working until 9pm, and Jesse is making sure they get all the materials they need and helping communicate with everyone involved. The three of them also accompanied Jesse and the Barundi film guys on a four day film trip up to a small village near the northern edge of Burundi. On top of showing films three nights (Jesse did voice over translation), the film team led a gospel campaign (this is a mainly unreached area) and helped to build a mud brick structure and put up wooden trusses for a new church that will replace the old lean-to made of sticks and grass. There were over a thousand in attendance at the films each night, but the church only has about twenty regular attendees right now, so it was a big outreach.
Jesse is also working to get the Bible School fixed up and ready for its session next month. This involves having meetings to set the teaching schedule, making the schedule up on the computer, designing and supervising the building of a shower (a gift from Forest Hills Assembly in Grand Rapids) and some other major building repairs, coordinating the purchasing of the food, etc… He has also been in nightly meetings with the builder who is putting up a building at the Blind School financed by the Brooks—his job is to make sure the money is used wisely. On top of that, he continues to help me with the school.
Our minds also continue to be occupied with seeking God's will about our future. As always we have the conflict of a flourishing ministry to which we continue to feel called and Zach's health. Is he just a kid who is going to be sick a lot no matter where we live, or is life in Africa a major contributing factor? Is God calling us as Zach's parents to make some changes—not reneging our call to Burundi, but asking us to change what that looks like for a time? We have been searching our Bibles and spending lots of time in prayer. Two days after Zach recovered from his infection, we discovered that he has an inguinal hernia. Our pediatrician here confirms this, and says that it is not the kind that will potentially heal itself. It is not currently an emergency, but it will need surgery. In the US hernia surgery like this is typically outpatient laparoscopic surgery. It can be done here, but only as major in-hospital surgery with big questions about sanitation and sterilization of equipment. Other than the hernia he has been mostly healthy, though he actually has a fever again today-- hopefully just a cold coming on.
Taking all this into account, and having been in communication with our elders, our tentative plan is to come back to the US in late October. We will stay with my parents for the holidays and hope to get Zach's surgery done in November or December. In January we will head to Bethany Chapel in Illinois, stay in their missionary housing, and enter a serious time of prayer with them about whether we all come back to Burundi in February, which is our greatest desire, or whether we begin a time of living in the US, and being involved in Burundi long-distance.
Thank you again for everything,
Joy, Jesse, Zach, and Micah
