Monday, December 27, 2004

Advent

Waiting

Advent is waiting. We people of faith go through this annual cycle of waiting, remembering and anticipation. We share with child-like anticipation great joy, as we hear the story unfold, knowing the outcome but loving the unfolding just the same.

We anticipate God’s blessing, just as Israel did, though we know that there will be blood and pain and suffering woven into the mix. Having lit our advent candles, we pause now to wait for the birth: night pregnant with waiting, darkness pregnant
with hope, a Word waiting to be spoken.

This year I have been sheltered from the busyness and commercialism of North American Christmas. In my little house in Burkina Faso, it is dark and quiet with the most extraordinary aura of peace. No lights, no decorations, no music, no snow... I am not with the angel choirs, I am not with Santa in the Malls, I am not even with Handel’s Messiah. I am left with the written word, the Incarnate Word, and (like Mary) the ponderings of my heart.

But I have not been sheltered from others’ suffering. Burkina Faso is a terribly poor country. I see in villages babies with big malnourished bellies and glazed over eyes, their mothers with the same glaze of hopelessness after desperation doesn’t work. When we finish a meal of fish and rice at a roadside stand, three street children descend on the remaining fish head and bones and strip it clean like barracudas. This is in contrast to the copious wealth gained by violence and corruption I have seen in the cities.

And so as I prepare my heart this year, I find that I skip the birth story and go directly to the murdered babies: Rachel and the mothers in Bethlehem who (unasked) sacrificed their sons for the Saviour. The bloody afterbirth. Annie Dillard scorns the way we try to make the Christmas story into “...a pretty and sensible picture, like something on a Christmas card.” There is nothing “pretty” about having your first baby in a barn, or fleeing terrified into the night to start your life as a refugee — or hearing the screams of mothers who have had their baby sons ripped out of their arms to be murdered. It is as if our doorways were now marked with a big ‘S’ for Santa, and the angel of the whole truth passes us by.

But the truth is that Emmanuel, who came to ransom captive Israel, must first be given asylum from Israel. The Word incarnate came as a refugee into this world he spoke into being. And in a lovely redemptive reversal, it is Egypt — the country from which the Israelites fled as slaves — that provides a safe haven for the Holy Family.

In West Africa this Christmas, I find the Word incarnate in the eyes of urban refugee children. Their families can be found in obscure corners all over Ouagadougou, having fled from the terrors in Congo, Liberia, Rwanda, Burundi, and Sudan. As I visit one home I see three children lying on a plastic mat on the cold concrete floor— maybe not so different from a feed bin in a barn.

Yet, even in the face of this real and daily suffering I see such strength of spirit. I see warmth and generosity; I see smiles that shine like the rays of a star. I see Jesus. My African friends teach me about waiting. Our advent reward is the baby born into the poor refugee family- much more like their families than like mine- and the brief and brilliant glimmer of hope, like the rays of a star consecrating the doorway of a barn.

“What came into existence was life, and the life was the light to live by. The Life-light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness could not put it out.
John 1:4,5 ‘The Message’ translation

Poem- Desert Voyage

I Kings 19:4,7,8
He went a day’s journey into the desert…The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, “Get up and eat, for the journey is long.” So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he travelled 40 days and 40 nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God.



Desert Voyage

We need the Well and the Desert,
if 'Well' be hope and trust
and 'Desert' be waiting.
I wish I had a well,
an artesian well,
a reservoir for the desert

A desert has its own beauty:
simple line, subtle colour, texture.
And living things with roots that go
deep, deep, deep, into the earth
and store in themselves their own sustenance.

But I need the angel
who gives bread for the journey.
Sometimes it is a long way
before we see green valleys
and quiet streams-
it can be 40 days or 40 years,
or 3 days after the cock crows.

Tuesday, December 07, 2004

Memadji means "God's Will" (orphan in Tchad)

This is a story I wrote for the MCC journal called "A Common Ground". It is the story of a young orphan girl who is part of an MCC program. Hopefully more Tchad stories in January.

November 2004, Tchad

My name is Memadji Lembaye Isabelle. I am 6 years old and I live in the village of Milady in the southern part of Chad. I like my village. We have big mango trees and Karité trees that give us shade and fruit. Now the fields are ripe with tall red sourghum. The stalks are way taller than me, so I can get lost in the fields. Pigs, goats, and chickens wander around the village, and there are a few cows too.

My father died in 2002 when I was 4 years old. I don’t know what he died of, but it was very hard for us, because we were 8 kids. My two oldest sisters were already married, and now they have their own children. But my mom still could not care for the rest of us alone. I am the youngest, and so I live with my mom and two brothers in Milady. We live with my dad’s brother. My 3 other brothers and sisters live in another village with my mom’s brother.

My mom asked the church committee if they could help us, and they chose me to be one of the orphan children to support. They give our family an extra sack of grain once a year. They pay for my school fees and supplies, they give me a school uniform and some extra clothes, and they buy medicine when I am sick. The monitor from the church visits our home every once in a while to see how my mom and I are doing.

It is not easy to be an orphan in Chad. You have to work very hard- harder than the other children. Sometimes my brothers are alone in the bush for 2 or 3 days at a time, and they have to find their own food to eat. There isn’t enough money to send them to school. The way you see me today, this is not the way I was. Now I can eat, I can sleep well, I get medicine, and best of all, I go to school. The way I am now is better. I’m so glad I can live with my mom, but I miss my brothers and sisters.

My name- Memadji- means ‘God’s Will’. What would I do if MCC were not here to help me? I would turn to God. That is what my name means, and that is what I would do.