the time has come for a new quest

And two months later…”settled” in Boston…let’s see if we can recharge and continue this Africa narrative (with some current catch-up thrown in) by just starting with a short post.

With The Restoration Project friend, collaborator and producer Brian McLaren at Amahoro Gathering 2009

The purpose of this post is to pick up right where we left off – Brian McLaren’s keynote teaching at Amahoro Gathering 2009 outside Johannesburg.  As many of you know, Brian is a good friend of The Restoration Project.  Tracy toured nationally with him on the very different kind of book tour for Everything Must Change (Which has a chapter titled “The Amahoro That Flows Between Us”). They collaborated on, recorded, and Brian produced the album “Songs for a Revolution of Hope: Everything Must Change Vol. 1,” based on his writings and lyrics.  It was on their tour that Tracy was introduced and ultimately invited to Amahoro.  Finding ourselves at the southern tip of Africa together just seemed kind of fitting!

Truth be told, if I didn’t make this post short and sweet, my only other option would be to write a novel culled from my extensive notes and reflections on his talk and presentation.  While comprehensive and thoughtful (I hope) in their own right, they cannot do remote justice to what was actually spoken and challenged.  So rather than try, like in other posts, I highly encourage you to listen to and share the talk yourself.

The talk in mp3 format, along with the PowerPoint Brian used, can be found by clicking HERE!

Load it on your iPod, in your car, or for an early morning reflection and teaching with a steaming cup of coffee/tea/cocoa.  (Argh, I can’t have any of those right now – I’m doing a ’sleep study’ for a local hospital (keeping a log) – for a couple weeks – the agony!)

Amahoro, friends – we look forward to keeping the conversation moving forward.

-Seth-

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“A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies. This call for a world-wide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all [humankind]” - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. -

“Life into life”

Adding a little to the thoughts and discussion from yesterday on identity and postcolonialism…

Photo by Seth W.

“When the soul remembers that its origin is in God, it places the origin of society there as well. When it comes to itself, it finds a sense of life everywhere; and this with the consciousness of its own participation in the world’s guilt and the world’s responsibility. It accepts for itself the judgment under which the world stands, and takes the world as a burden upon itself. There can be no awakening of the soul which is anything but a ‘sympathetic shouldering of the cares of the whole generation.’  This awakening of the soul is the vivifying movement of God into history or into consciousness – the movement of Life into life.”

-Karl Barth-

postcolonialism

What of the lands of tribes and nations who lived here first?
Who took the best with broken treaties and left the worst?
By whom were slaves bought, used and sold?
Who valued people less than gold?
Who told us racist lies until our hearts went cold?

-from “Hymn of Remorse,” off of the album Songs for a Revolution of Hope, produced by/with Brian McLaren.

A signpost to the major cities of the world directs visitors at Cape Point, South Africa, where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet

Postcolonialism “matters because it is a matter of one’s identity.  The colonial project robs one of what one has of the most precious: one’s identity.”  So said Dr. Mabiala Kenzo, professor and theologian from D.R. Congo, during the first keynote talk of Amahoro Gathering 2009.  Those who follow Jesus know that where we invest and root the core of our identity is everything.  Everything.  That foundational belief and practice begins to unveil, then, the reasons why postcolonialism matters for the worldwide community of believers, given our world’s history (and present state), and especially why it matters when entering into conversation with said community and Church in Africa.  It is why postcolonialism, and Dr. Kenzo’s teaching, undergird and inform each Amahoro Gathering.

And what is postcolonialism?  Is it so easily defined?  It is certainly more than the literature, stories and expression that come out of previously colonized and oppressed peoples and places to add ‘balance’ to the dominant historical order and narrative (though it is certainly those things).  It is more than just a marker of a time period.  The breadth and richness of how one can and should approach postcolonialism is outside the bounds of one, restrictive blog posting.  However, if one is looking to get started, or wants to start a conversation with what you already know, there will be linked prompts below.  I mainly wanted to share the appreciative depths we felt at Amahoro for the framework of Dr. Kenzo’s African, and theological, perspective on the matter.  In many respects, postcolonialism is who Amahoro-Africa is and why it does what it does (and how) for African leaders.  As Dr. Kenzo queried to the other African participants, “Can Africans hear God speak in our own dialects?”

But I get ahead of myself…

View to a guiding light - Cape Point, South Africa

For my piece (and so I don’t overwhelm myself, haha), I will just add this, taken from my notes on Dr. Kenzo’s talk: Postcolonialism is a mindset – it is a spirit and an attitude.  It’s being able to understand, and hold in tension (in our spirits, minds and hearts), not only the world’s painful history, but also the story of God’s continuing work of redemption and restoration, and how those two can and do come together.  It is understanding and knowing our role in both of those stories, individually and especially communally.  Postcolonialism is also defined by and necessitates a willingness to deconstruct prevailing orders and traditional “power centers” – in our histories, our literature, our leaderships and our theoogies – so that everyone’s identity can be reclaimed as special and unique.  It is then, ironically and perfectly enough, that we can hope to honestly subscribe to a unity in our diversity, under God.  I hope I’ve done some of all that justice.  If not…or if you’re thirsty for more…

I highly recommend listening to Dr. Kenzo’s actual talk!  You can download the mp3 HERE. Furthermore, the academic paper that the talk is taken from is linked HERE if you’re more visual than auditory.  Which reminds me – both the talk and the paper are quite academic, so their density can take some extra time to absorb, but the depth of their insights and offering are well worth the effort.

Finally, those of you who know Tracy and the work of Restoration Village well will certainly know how much postcolonialism infuses the very essence of what her work, worldview, relationships, music and travels are about (see lyrics above/buy album).  This “spirit and mindset” inform Restoration Village and the “why” and the “where” of its connections nationally and globally – .  (One of the big draws of Harvard Divinity School is the expertise and teaching by some of the faculty on postcolonialism and theology/the Church/interreligious dialogue, etc.)  Indeed, I’ll let Tracy speak for herself, in this excellent article published a year ago (under her mild mannered alter ego “Traci” Howe) at The Other Journal:

Postcolonialism and Songwriting: Our Challenge and Opportunity

Let the conversation continue!  And may we know remembrance, forgiveness and living hope.

-Seth-

NEXT UP – Brian McLaren speaks at Amahoro Gathering 2009 on “Questions for a New Reformation”

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Rainbow at Cape Point, South Africa (if you can make it out). As fitting an image as I could imagine for the subject matter - many colors unified and suspended over a meeting and connection of oceanic proportions.

Tracy and I spent a good bit of time in prayer and meditation in run-up to the Amahoro conference and our month in Africa – hoping to prepare our hearts, minds and spirits for what we knew would be an experience we couldn’t truly prepare for.  In one such instance, we were speed-writing poems/songs “back and forth” – i.e. one of us would come up with a title to a poem, one of us would write a line, push it across the table in the coffee shop and the other person would have to write a new line (JUST ONE line) building off of (ONLY) the previous line, etc…until we felt we were done.  Below is one such poem/song that organically came out of that time that maybe we could’ve just titled “Postcolonialism, 2009.” Haha.  I’m excited to share it with you now.  Words by Seth W. and Tracy H.

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Dear Africa, I Love You

I don’t know you. I love you. I hope that’s allowed.
I have listened to stories, and I have imagined the sound of your voice
I can’t pretend any longer – the chorus is more
Lovely and true, made with love and promise and tears and wounds healing
Knotting together the scars and my throat
But if I listen, across oceans and lies and continents of history, I hear
The song you’ll sing is the song you’ve sung
But sound hits the wall of…you were stolen and broken and slain
Our plunder and riches clouds my eyes and my ears
And I cry at the strain and frustration of hearing, but not making out the words
Cry to me, love, yell scream and hush
“I love you” is the mantra I offer, both hands out, leading me forward “I love…
You – you offer a peace you give a knowing do you love me?
You, dear Africa, call me with song and history and long suffering…
Be long-suffering with me
Lay your hands on me and pray

Why I am going to Harvard

Nerdalert! We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming of “The Restoration Project in Africa” to bring you this important announcement from Tracy.

WHY I AM GOING TO HARVARD

The FAQs

This is what I wrote in my statement of purpose, the centerpiece to my grad school application, “I am a peacemaker. I want to see and be Christ’s peace in the world. This has been my life’s work and has birthed in me a desire to better understand the practice of our faith in a wounded world.  I have formed friendships within the prisons of Bolivia and the industrial wastelands of Northern Philadelphia, each time being transformed by the beauty of hope and living faith in people.  I have labored to build relationships and bridges and in my greatest imagination, pathways of reconciliation.  I am a songwriter and have written about the beauty of God’s creation and psalms seeking to illuminate a kind of love that can unfold in the midst of poverty and violence.  I am a teacher and encourager, wanting to see others come into the fullness of their purpose in Jesus, believing it is part of moving the Church forward in the purposes of God.  I want to grow in my ability to see these things with the eyes of a theologian.  I want to learn to speak these things with discipline and care. I want to learn to recognize the restoration and the reconciliation that God is pouring out over our wounded world.  With that in mind, I want to do graduate work at the intersection of theology and just peacemaking.”

I am continuing my path and am so excited to pursue a Masters of Theological Study (MTS) focusing on peace studies. I put together a FAQ sheet as it is a tremendous transition, and one I want to do with my friends and supporters!

1)  Why Harvard? Indeed, I applied to 5 programs across the country.  Harvard became my first choice in large part because of the Boston Theological Institute (BTI), a consortium of 9 theological schools and seminaries in the Boston/Cambridge area that allows students to cross register into other schools.  So, in addition to Harvard, I will be taking classes at Boston University, Boston College, perhaps St. John’s as well.  The BTI itself also focuses on peace making.  Harvard also offered me a full scholarship   

2)  Will you stop traveling? No, but I am going to take a break.  I even gave my van away a couple of weeks ago and bought a subway pass and signed up for a Zip Car account.  Creatively, though, I am not taking a break at all.  I wrote a ton of songs in Africa I want to develop and produce.  I am taking a composition course this fall at Harvard as my studies and creative work will inform one another as much as my travels and songs have all these years.  I am still committed to the communities I work with regularly in the US and Latin America and may take a short summer trip or two while in school, but also look forward to establishing myself in Boston.

3)  What about the support you receive through Restoration Village? I am very excited that Harvard offered me a “full ride.”  That is, tuition and fees are 100% covered and they kicked in extra to cover health insurance, books and transportation.  However, I am very much depending on the support I receive to continue to live into the work and ministry of Restoration Village, which I see my time at Harvard being a part of and not the other way around.  I have even had a few churches commit to some extra support these next two years as I will not be able to “tent make” as much by booking shows. I am honored to be “sent” to Boston by so many!  All giving information/addresses will remain the same.

4)  Is Neve moving with you? Yes, Neve my great dane mix made the drive across the country and I will find a dog friendly apartment.  I am looking forward to exploring the Adirondacks with her too! (You may recognize the cute black labrador-retriever from previous blog posts as Seth’s dog, “Frodo: The Restoration Project’s East Coast Mascot”)

5)  What classes are you taking this fall? Harvard does a pretty cool thing where you can “shop” around and go to as many classes as you want in the beginning before you officially decide.  I am taking several theology classes, one I am especially excited for focuses on Christian-Muslim relations.  I am also taking a class on the early Church (Acts to Constantine) and an electronic music composition course.

6)  Will your work change? Well, I hope it grows.  I love to speak and teach and write and I hope all of these things develop and grow.  I am going to grad school in part because I still feel called to Universities.  I am even hoping to work with college students while I study and am in touch with some wonderful campus groups and ministers.  And, as it has, music and songs and worship I hope allow me to serve and connect to people and communities.

7)  Do you need anything? I’m glad you asked.  I did sell and give away all of my furniture and many of my appliances, my matching, hand picked bedroom set will be replaced by Boston Craigslist items little by little.  I am not worried about that…anyone who has moved has gone through that!  However, I am trying to come up with extra money to get a lease signed in Boston (first+last+security is pretty standard) and in a city with prices comparable to Manhattan, it is no small thing!  I am happy to have had the space in my calendar to move, but some summer bookings I had hoped would work out to provide for just such expenses, did not.

***THIS JUST IN*** I have found a great (dog-friendly) apartment in Central Square (Cambridge) and the lease is in hand!  The neighborhood, the people, the farmer’s market, (the yoga!)…wow, it’s like it’s meant to be or something.  What an answer to prayer — the full story has to be heard to be believed…and what a (tough) exercise in holy patience!

CLICK HERE to donate and continue helping Tracy settle in Boston.  Thank you, dear friends – it is a humbling privilege to set out in this season, forging new relationships and outreach with your prayers and support.

Amahoro!

-Tracy-

We now return to your program.

“some people eat to live”

Here’s a quick post with some food for thought (pun completely, annoyingly intended).

When we arrived in South Africa at the beginning of June, it only took the drive from the airport to the Amahoro conference site outside Johannesburg for me to realize we were in a very unique country – both for Africa and the world.  A seemingly innocuous billboard caught my eye for an Olive Garden/Chili’s-esque establishment.  Under a blown-up picture of a hearty portion of standard restaurant fare was the supersize text: “Some people eat to live.  We live to eat.”

I say it was innocuous because here in the U.S. that phrase might not even register as we pass it by.  We’re encouraged to consume as much as possible – and told that we can.  Furthermore, even though it might be a little jarring here to hold up that comparison to a known truth about hunger in the world, we don’t exactly “see” people in the U.S. who are “eating to live.”  I also want to note that I personally am a huge fan and proponent of the enjoyment of cooking and eating real food, as well as advocating for sustainability and support of where that food comes from.

That being said, the billboard caught my eye precisely because we weren’t in the United States.  Certainly South Africa is a “developed country” (indeed, the trip from the airport was not unlike the trip I made from Austin to San Antonio so many times in some ways both geographical and commercially).  My thoughts at the time were that it says something about a country’s wealth if they can “get away” with a billboard like that (my journals notes say “we sure won’t find that in Burundi”).  I couldn’t help but wonder, though, if that billboard might still be that much more jarring in South Africa – a country whose unemployment rate only recently has fallen to the still-high 23.2% and contains a quickly growing number of immigrants from much-poorer countries like Zimbabwe.  In trying to see this from all sides, I wonder also if advertisements like this speak “hopefully” to some of a “prosperity” they too can attain.

Finally – just to split hairs with clever marketing as today’s resident Debbie Downer – we all technically “eat to live.”  And there are some in this world who quite literally cannot eat to live.  Many more cannot eat enough to live a full and abundant life.

I hope it’s clear that I’m not in any way putting South Africa “down” here (they didn’t put up the billboard – the company did).  In fact, part of the reason their unemployment is falling recently is because of all of the work and jobs being made available in the country in the run-up to the World Cup 2010 (WOOT!)…Tracy and I were quite heartened to find that all of the official merchandise (T-shirts, hats, etc) is being made and distributed in-country.

And rather than put anything “down” at all (like, say, our oft-times hypnotizing gluttony-inducing infotainment culture), I’d rather choose to lift up my and our ability to yes, enjoy delicious and real food, but also to do so responsibly and then act joyfully on our ability to empower those who work extremely hard to “eat to live.” That’s the work of restoration – for our bodies and health, individually and collectively, here and abroad.

-Seth-

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Do you have any thoughts on the “issue” at hand?  This was very much just a “thinking out loud and type as I go” post…am I reading way too much into the billboard?  It’s highly possible – I was deliriously jet-lagged and also tend to over-theorize when I’m putting off other projects…like today.  Who reads billboards, anyway?  How many boards could the Mongols hoard if the Mongol Hordes got bored?

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If you haven’t already (or if you’re looking for a place to get started), do take some time to discover the writings of Michael Pollan, one of America’s foremost thinkers and activists on “food issues.”  You may have read or heard about The Omnivore’s Dilemma or In Defense of Food. If you’re searching for some good airplane or subway-commute reading, the original article/manifesto that led to In Defense of Food was published in The New York Times here.  It’s a long read, but I promise a fascinating and stimulating one.  I strongly believe that how we think about and understand food and where it comes from and what it does for/to our bodies (not to mention how it’s available – or not – to people around the world) dictates so much of what is possible in the restoration of Creation.  The land, the plants, the animals and the peoples – a lot is at stake.

In case you can’t get enough of what all that is – here’s another Pollan article published just before last year’s November elections to the next “Farmer in Chief.”  Food for thought indeed.

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NEXT UP: Discussing and wrestling with Postcolonialism at Amahoro Gathering 2009

a ministry of presence

Just some of the countries represented at Amahoro Gathering 2009

My journal says that the 250+ participants came from: The Netherlands, Switzerland, USA, Australia, Burundi, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Swaziland, Canada, Dominican Republic, D. R. Congo, New Zealand, Mozambique, Uganda, Kenya, Ghana, England and South Africa. I hope I didn't forget any!

In this and the next few posts, I’m going to try and make sense of my scribbled journal notes to share some words and reflections from the Amahoro Gathering.  If they seem incomplete, or if you find yourself wanting to plumb these more deeply, they all come from talks given during the conference and the mp3s for all of them can be found HERE! At the very least, I highly recommend the ones I’ll be sharing on in these posts.

On the first night of the Gathering, Edward Simiyu inaugurated the proceedings and spoke on “the ministry of presence.” Edward is a pastor and new friend from Kenya with a powerful understanding of how people are best woven together.  He spoke to how Africans engage one another in life’s ups and downs, and what that means for any Westerners or conference attendees who hope to enter in to conversations, let alone work, that seeks restoration for the continent and its church/communities of faith.

Edward began by suggesting that Africans are only recently beginning to use watches and as such are becoming more beholden to the West’s tendency to be governed by the time of day and our schedules and our pasts and our futures…whereas “in Africa they walk with the time.”

Furthermore, in Africa if there is funeral for someone in a village, the people and neighbors go (rather than send a card).  When a new baby is born, you go.  Therefore, speaking to the Westerners (the minority at the conference, but see the list of countries above), Edward offered that to come here from the West is in and of itself a powerful ministry.

Oral communication is huge – but in person.  We in the West must be there physically first and foremost, just showing up and letting them know by our presence that we care.  These nuggets of wisdom were not untethered from potent challenges.  Edward challenged very specifically and by example that in the case of the Democratic Republic of Congo, praying is all well and good, but not enough to show you truly care.  You must come to stand with those who are suffering.  Email, phone…they don’t cut it.  Physical presence communicates everything.  Physical presence can be and is a  ministry to another.  A ’satellite conference’ does not work in Africa.  Sit – and hear thoughts, words and conversation.

Only then can you truly “dance with the other.”

-Seth-

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Again, I highly recommend listening to Edward’s actual short and powerful welcoming message, and then sharing your own thoughts below!

sunrise

Among many other things, our time in Africa was an experience filled with the hearing, producing and sharing of new music, songs and worship – in an incredibly diverse array of contexts.

Tracy wrote “Sunrise” as her ’symbol of reconciliation’ that all participants in Amahoro Gathering 2009 were asked to bring to Johannesburg, South Africa.  These symbols were then shared during a special time of communion and worship towards the end of the conference with those participants we might have developed especially deep bonds with.  One of those people for us was one of my (Seth) roommates at the Gathering from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

With our friend Muhindo and the lyrics for "Sunrise" - our shared offering of hope and reconciliation

Muhindo is a 26 year-old leader who has attended every Amahoro Gathering.  Muhindo has worked in caring for orphans and rehabilitating child soldiers and  and now continues that work while also involving  his considerable talents and language skills in the peace process in Uganda and near Goma, DRC, the epicenter of one of the world’s most war-ravaged and desperate places currently.  We sang “Sunrise” with Muhindo in a shared hope (and humility) for his work, heart, perseverance and friendship.

The song is a psalm seeking the parts of God that create wholeness and lead to restoration for people who work with – or experience themselves – hunger, war, disease and the life of a refugee – the very kind of people we would encounter at Amahoro (and throughout South Africa and Burundi).

This video consists of a rough mix of the track recorded in the few weeks after The Restoration Project’s return to the United States.  The video’s footage actually comes from our two weeks in Burundi following our two weeks in South Africa and the Amahoro Gathering.   We hope you enjoy.  I personally believe the song holds forth great promise to be an “Easter standard” for many communities of faith.  Not that I’m biased or anything.

-Seth-

The specific stories behind many of the video clips will be shared in the coming weeks.  Credits on the song should also include – Aaron Strumpel: Electric Guitar

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Sunrise

The Son rises for me to be peace

Peace breaks the fear

And it is for all

So everyone can know

It is for all

A way of peace and love

Jesus

He is a way of peace and love

He is a home for every refugee

A place to rest when we are running away

He washes us when our eyes have seen death

He is our love when we have none left to give

Jesus

trumping the travails of travels

We here at Restoration Village know that true restoration will only come if, in the midst of our (seemingly incessant) travel, work and rewarding time with family and friends, we take time to restore our own minds, bodies and spirits – especially in the busy seasons.  This is most certainly true for you and your vocation, wherever you are and whatever you do.  This is also much easier said than done – for example, ten flights in one month (June) with almost all of them red-eyes halfway around the world will test even the sturdiest person’s well-being.  For example.

Therefore, we take this moment to share just a few of the things we’ve found that keep alive the barest shred of sanity for when you need to arrive at your Amahoro Gathering (and move from Colorado to the East Coast, among other things) in one piece – with inner peace.

The Personal Restoration Project

The Recommended Guide for Surviving an Unrecommended Three Months Living Out of a Bag

Start your day (especially if it's inbetween two overnight flights) with a sturdy meal - like a "Full English Breakfast"

Stop to smell the flowers...

...take in the sights around you...even if you're jet-lagged out of your mind...

and go for a hike and breathe in Creation and nothing else for a day!

But don't forget to go on another hike after you've road-tripped BACK across the country.

And bring a furry friend - or two. Pets are proven to decrease stress and promote overall well-being.**

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, do lots and lots of yoga…it’s the thing one you can always bring “with” you wherever you are, be that…

London, England...

...or the middle of Burundi!

Last but certainly not least, be sure to pray for present-moment-living in each and every day.  And connect with community.  The Restoration Project would hardly be a Project without the people who comprise the Village.  We are blessed by ours here and around the world.  And have survived thanks to them – and all of the above…so far.

As always, more exciting updates coming very soon.  No, THIS time we mean it.

Namaste, friends,

-Seth-

P.S. The dogs are not for sale.

Amahoro! What does that mean again?

So.  We went to Africa.  For a month.  The month of June.  Two weeks in South Africa, two more all over Burundi.  How to begin unraveling the richness and wonder and relationships of the experience?  Where to fit in the pictures, videos, stories and songs?  How to pack for two weeks of winter (South Africa) and two weeks near the Equator (Burundi) and still carry on all our luggage?

Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start…

View from a hike at the Amahoro Gathering 2009 site outside Johannesburg - Photos by Seth W.

‘Amahoro’ is a primary greeting used in East-Central Africa, especially Burundi and Rwanda.  It is the greeting of respect and it means ‘peace/hello,’ or ‘peace be between us in this encounter.’  However, to truly grab the depth of the word, the closest approximation would be the Hebrew word ‘Shalom.’  It is an offer of God’s peace, of a hope that people might be knit together in a pursuit and glimpse of the beauty, mystery and perfect justice of the Kingdom of God.  It is the naming of that Peace to come.  It is a prayer that it would come now.  Between two and three and more then, it is ultimately a prayerful conversation and subsequent living-out of the reconciliation and restoration needed in all of the broken and hopeful places that seek a greater understanding of said Peace.  Amahoro, friends.

Amahoro Africa, begun by our good friends Claude and Kelley, is a “creation and offering of space.”  They themselves admit that people tend to find this definition a bit abstract, even esoteric.  However, while this might be a bit ‘meta,’ it is precisely that definition that enables the work of Amahoro Africa to be as empowering and effective as it is in the lives of those in Africa pursuing (and realizing) Kingdom visions of restoration, peace and justice.  Because without being present with others, without congregating to truly listen to and affirm (and challenge) others, that “knitting together” gets pretty tiring (and impractical) really quickly – especially when confronted with the pain and oppression happening large and small scale that “no one ever seems to be doing anything about.  Not really.”

Amahoro Africa provides a space and affirmation that people really are “doing something about it,” and when it comes to Africa and various issues confronting that specific continent, Amahoro lifts up the work, promise and voices of Africans themselves.  This ’space’ manifests in two distinct ways, the Amahoro Institute that takes place in a host country each fall, and the Amahoro Gathering in the same country the following late spring/early summer.  Tracy/The Restoration Project and I attended the third annual Gathering outside of Johannesburg, South Africa (the 2007 and ‘08 Gatherings were in Uganda and Rwanda, respectively).

Tracy was originally invited through her connection and friendship with author Brian McLaren, a mentor to Amahoro Africa and a keynote speaker (more on his message in a later post).  Her collaboration on tour and in the studio with Brian around Everything Must Change, not to mention her own extensive restorative work led her to a relationship with Claude and Kelley.  Both of us individually had talked and thought about traveling to Africa for years.  We were connected to countries and people there in various personal and professional ways, but the *right* and most potentially long term entree point (and invite) had never presented itself to either of us…until now.

Like the assortment of other Westerners at the 250+ Gathering, we were going simply as “scaffolding” –  in support, partnership and postured towards absorbing as much as possible.  We were not let down – we were lifted up.  The relationships are rich, the stories Tracy was already able to transform into songs are haunting, hopeful and lasting, and we feel known enough to return.  Amahoro exemplifies a ‘ministry of presence’ (more on that in a few posts).

One last thing about the ‘created space’ of the Amahoro Gathering – part of the reason it can be a hard concept to wrap one’s mind around (though hopefully I’ve done a halfway decent job of describing it – or at least laying a foundation) lies in the fact that the very act of being there is necessary to “get” what Amahoro is about and actively “doing.”  Probably a pretty ‘duh’ statement.  Like with any transformative, international trip/conference, we can obviously never do full justice to the talks, conversations and songs shared and heard.  We cannot recreate the real-time and stunning moments of reconciliation when the air itself seems to rush from the room.  However, what we can do is share some of the conversation, some of the experience, some of the life and relationship of Amahoro – both experienced and observed – and in so doing say a little ‘Amahoro’ to you as well.  Enjoy!

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And enjoy a snippet of musical group Siyaya performing the popular South African song “Shosholoza” at the welcome and celebration that was opening night of Amahoro Gathering 2009.  (Siyaya, who provided worship, song and dance throughout the Gathering, hail originally from J.L. Zwane church in the Guguletu Township of Cape Town – a church and township Tracy and I would eventually visit and stay in – stay tuned!)

-Seth-

P.S. Before the giant ball of yarn unravels all of our reflections, photos and stories, some of our new friends from the Gathering are much more on top of things and set the bar very high…

Read Claude’s recap of Amahoro Gathering 2009

Craig from Australia and Mike from Canada have excellent and moving responses as well…

and/or subscribe to the Restoration Village blog and see how our first African journey will inform and inspire Restoration Village’s work for weeks, months and years ahead!

NEXT UP: Actually getting to Africa – trying to get sleep on two straight overnight flights and attempting sanity in the process…

beyond mountains…

…there are more mountains.

Mountains of catch-up.  Mountains of work and reflection.  Mountains of blog posts!  And trust me, they are coming (I mean it this time).  Consider this post the ‘teaser trailer.’  We arrived back in the United States about three weeks ago now, and since then have been running running running.  Moves, transitions, family time, friend time and now a bit of traipsing around Colorado (mountains!) while Tracy records a few songs inspired by our time in South Africa and Burundi, and prepares for the move east to Boston/Cambridge and beginning at Harvard Divinity School.

Sunrise in Burundi - Collecting the day's water (Photo by Seth W.)

Speaking of ‘Tracys,’ mountains, Burundi and Cambridge, MA, I want to use this blog revitalization to make the most earnest plug I can for some required reading and suggested tithing.

Today’s New York Times includes an Op-Ed by Tracy Kidder, A Death in Burundi.  Read it. (We can certainly attest to the life-flashing-before-your-eyes driving conditions in Burundi…The subject of a future blog post (with video)).  Kidder is the author of the essential Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World.  READ IT.

While certainly a ‘biography’ of sorts, the book reads like a page-turning novel.  Even if you think you have no interest in the combination of medicine and anthropology or the intersection of theology, public policy and health care for the poorest of the poor, this book will change your mind, and your thinking.  It will make you want to read books written by Dr. Farmer himself.  It’s become my default gifts for various friends over the years (It was actually the recommended book for the whole city of Cambridge to read one year – there’s that connection!). Dr. Farmer is the co-founder of Partners in Health, the organization based in Boston that partners with sister organizations in the poorest of the poor areas of the world.  PIH’s community-based model provides (extremely effectively) top-of-the-line health care and holistic life improvement to the people in Haiti, Peru, Russian prisons, Malawi, Boston and much much more.  The PIH model is based on social justice and a response to the call to give a preferential option for the poor, empowering them and equipping them with the tools not just for survival, but life – healthy lives.

Village Health Works, the health care community described by Kidder in today’s Op-Ed, is the PIH ‘Partner’ in Burundi.  (It looks like Deo’s compelling story is also the subject of Kidder’s upcoming book, Strength in What Remains.)

Upon learning about Village Health Works in preparation for our trip to Africa, and knowing the profoundly positive impact PIH has wherever it works, we financially supported Village Health Works as a show of solidarity with the country we were about to develop lasting relationship with.  That’s what PIH and Village Health Works provide – solidarity.  Whether directed there or towards any of PIH’s other partnership, we highly recommend their work, model and the voices and lives they make heard through both.  Headed to the beach and in need of a good read still?  Pick up Mountains Beyond Mountains!  Don’t get sunburned.

For Tracy (Howe) and Seth’s adventures in Africa…as always…stay tuned!

Tracy sings with girls in rural Burundi while we wait for our flat tire to be fixed. Video soon! (Photo by Seth W.)

Shalom.

-Seth-