Good morning from “Buj”

Good morning from Bujumbura, Burundi!

This is our fifth day in Burundi, and the sights, sounds and people we encounter all over the country and here in the capital bring new wonder and reflection each day.  (This is not to say the trip hasn’t been without its more intense moments…namely, every time in the car…my heart stops…video later)

We are a few minutes away from heading out of the door to visit a Batwa village with our friend Evariste.  The Batwa are the indigenous tribe to Burundi, comprising only 1% of the population, and are currently the poorest of the poorest here, having been historically (and even currently in some respects) denied dignity and rights by other groups.  Everiste is only the 3rd member of the Batwa to attend university and is working on a law degree to be an advocate on their behalf.  There are only 37 others in secondary (high) school now for the first time ever.  We are primarily excited to just meet and greet and hear and share stories and songs during this initial visit, and are mainly feeling privileged for the opportunity.  Stay tuned for pictures and stories!

Which reminds me – so far we’ve stuck to mini-updates on where we are with some ‘teaser trailers’ of just a handful of experiences.  Part of this is the internet availability, our travel schedule and need to be flexible to any opportunity or any plans changing coming up.  However, we’re most of all excited to holistically and completely (and gradually) share full stories, themes and contexts for our trip – with pictures and video! – and that is a project we eagerly look to undertake over the course of the rest of the summer as we unpack the fruit that Restoration Village not only received in Africa, but will hopefully continue to reap through music, story and relationship for months (and years) to come.  Some exciting things are coming out of this trip.  Keep on staying tuned and Amahoro (Shalom)!

-Seth-

Township Stay in Cape Town

Hello Everyone!  Seth and I have a few days of rest outside of Cape Town, which is stunningly beautiful.  The Amahoro gathering was incredible and we will unpack it for you much more than this 8 minutes of internet I’ve found will allow.  I feel so honored to have friendship with people from all over the continent though, from Seth’s Amahoro roommate Mohindu, an incredible 26 year old Congolese leader, to Nicole, a Burundian Finance officer who studied and worked in England but loves her country so much she had to go back and be present.

As the gathering ended and Africans headed home, non-Africans were invited to stay and learn more about South Africa.  Our hosts even set up homestays in a township…historically the areas outside of cities where black and colored people were forced during the Apartheid.  Many townships are experiencing life and growth as people are allowed to own and are investing in the neighborhoods, but many are suffering greatly as they did even during the Apartheid, plagued by poverty, violence and gangs.  We visited and stayed with a young Xhosa couple in Guguletu (the township).  Loretta is getting her Masters in Social Work and works as a counselor at one of the main men’s prisons in Cape Town, so she shared some incredible stories with us.  They were so kind and excited to host us.  We have so much to learn from people like Loretta.

A very moving time for me was worshiping in the township at a church that was historically marginalized for openly doing HIV and AIDS education from the pulpit and starting support groups.  They are known as the “AIDS” church.  I was amazed as almost the entire gathering was sung, prayers, words, messages, testimonies, in one of the native languages (Xhosa).  It wrapped around us and was so redemptive and hopeful, even as they sang, “never give up” over and over to the woman with AIDS who was giving her testimony that morning.

OK, much, much more to come and pictures as soon as we have a faster connection!  We are so excited to get to Burundi as well!  Amahoro! -Tracy

Amahoro South Africa #1

Greetings from South Africa!  After two overnight flights and a 10 hour layover in London, we arrived in Johannesburg and were  transported to the Amahoro gathering site.  There are people from Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Mozambique, D.R. Congo, Swaziland, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, and Burundi and South Africa here…there are “Western” leaders here to learn and converse and support from the U.S., the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Canada and the UK.  We will unfold more specific stories in the weeks ahead (when we have a bit more free time and more internet access), but we wanted to give you a brief introduction to this time.  (Pictures will come later too but we don’t have quite enough bandwidth to upload them yet.)

The most incredible thing for me has been having deep conversations with Africans like Muhindo from the D.R. Congo.  He lives in one of the most troubled regions of the world  and has been a refugee.  He eventually went to university in Uganda and now wants to work in international diplomacy.  I have also enjoyed speaking Portuguese with brothers from Mozambique.  The names of most everyone here carries great meaning and we have spoken a lot about names and identity.  Claude Nikondeha, the president of Amahoro-Africa shared some of his story and what brought about the Amahoro movement.  He recounted meeting a girl named “Nazina” which means “nothing.”  It was the name the parents gave because the baby came when they had nothing and they were sure the child had no future.  Knowing his deep connection to this child in Jesus, it was part of what led him to lead Amahoro-Africa.  You can listen to Claude’s talk on the Amahoro website here:

http://www.amahoro-africa.org/

I wrote a song about Nazina and was able to share it with the group yesterday.  It was very special.  I will post an audio recording and lyrics soon!

teaching, sharing and singing in minneapolis

Hola, all.

My name is Seth, and you can call me “assistant to the regional manager.”  I’m working my way up to “assistant regional manager.”

I’m writing here for the first time (at least under my actual name ; ) ) to share a bit from the opportunity Tracy and I both had this past week in Minneapolis.

For several years now, The Restoration Project has enjoyed an annual presence at the Source community – leading worship, sharing songs, participating in ArtFest and in general being privileged to hang out and connect with the community at ‘The Fallout’ in a poorer part of south Minneapolis.

This year, they gifted me with the opportunity to come along and lead some teaching at the start of their Urban Ministry Training week to help establish a theological and spiritual foundation for all of the exciting challenges and events ahead this summer.  I spoke on the ‘restoration oracles’ of later Isaiah, unpacking some of how the LORD intends for city’s to be restored to shalom, and what our communal response should organically be to this salvific work.  That’s the very short version, haha, though if you’re interested in hearing some of it, I believe a an mp3 podcast will be made available in the near future – stay tuned to the blog!

Other highlights involved getting to explore the amazing array of local coffee shops, eateries, thrift stores and walkability of this very cool city (my first time visiting), that reminded me in many ways of my “adopted home” of Austin, TX.  “Kamp,” a former homeless man now in transitional housing came for some of the teaching and events and shared extensively with us his experience and own songs based on Isaiah!  (pictured below)

Of course, for me, the biggest highlights were the start-of-the-day times for song, prayer and reflection, led by Tracy.  Participants were encouraged (and obliged) to respond in prayer, song, reading of Psalms and dance!

Tracy also shared her gift while singing for turning people’s Psalms and prayers into improvised songs and verse.

All in all, a very special and unique 5 days, and we are both very humbled and grateful for the above-and-beyond hospitality of the community and participants.  We are blessed and thankful for your receptivity to our offerings and your own of prayers and well-wishes as we gear up for Restoration Village’s trip to Africa in June…i.e. tomorrow!!!

Live Video from Charlottesville, VA

oh Shenandoah, i long to see you…

Hello, friends -

So much has been happening – ironically making it hard to keep up with sharing it all!  More and bigger posts are coming soon…stay tuned.  And HAPPY EASTER!

This past weekend I was afforded the opportunity to give a Good Friday music offering in Charlottesville, VA with a community of new friends.  The show was generously hosted by Journey Group Communications in their ‘Lodge,’ which made for a very intimate and reflective house concert experience on a day both somber and hopeful.

The concert also served as a chance to generate awareness, prayer and support for Restoration Village’s trip to Africa this summer (more on that soon – or click the link)!  All in all, a very special evening.

Below is video from that night – “Take My Hand” off of the Fill the Fields EP – Enjoy and WAHOOWA!

mountainspiration

I was blessed with the opportunity in early March to take a week-long writing retreat in the Poconos mountains (Pennsylvania).  There I was able to lay down foundational work on a musical project I’m very excited about and one I prayerfully anticipate will reap fruit in and through this year’s upcoming opportunities as it continues to take shape.  Below is a ‘photo journal’ capturing some of the week’s stillness, process and anticipation of beauty breaking forth in this season…

It has been an unusually long and chilly winter (or at least I hope it’s unusual!) in the Northeast United States this year…

…but there were and are distinct signs of warmth and color breaking free.

“I wonder what’s going on back there?!”

“I stood and heard the steps of the city
and dreamed a lighter stepping than I heard,
the tread of my people dancing in a ring.
I knew that circle broken, the steps awry,
stone and iron humming in the air.

But I thought even there, among the straying
steps, of the dance that circles life around,
its shadows moving on the ground, in rhyme
of flesh with flesh, time with time, our bliss,
the earthly song that heavenly is.”
—————————–
Wendell Berry – ‘Song (3)’

The Restoration Project’s east coast mascot Frodo(g) keeps watch to make sure no one is lurking around to record and leak these fresh hot beats.

“I lift my face to the pale flowers
of the rain. They’re soft as linen,
clean as holy water. Meanwhile
my dog runs off, noses down packed leaves
into damp, mysterious tunnels

He says the smells are rising now
stiff and lively; he says the beasts
are waking up now full of oil,
sleep sweat, tag-ends of dreams. The rain
rubs its shining hands all over me.

My dog returns and barks fiercely, he says
each secret body is the richest advisor,
deep in the black earth such fuming
nuggets of joy!”
——————
Mary Oliver – ‘Spring’

“Come, my friends,
‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew

Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
—————————–
from ‘Ulysses’ by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

“Planting trees early in spring,
we make a place for birds to sing
in time to come.  How do we know?
They are singing here now.
There is no other guarantee
that singing will ever be.”
————————
Wendell Berry – ‘For the Future’

Moving East and a New York City Artist-In-Residence

The past three months have been wave after wave of unexpected wonder and happenings.  Now, I find myself checking a PO Box in Princeton, NJ, getting coffee at Small World on the main drag across from the University Campus and reorienting myself to new “local communities.”  People have asked me if I have adjusted to living in Princeton.  I don’t know.  I don’t know after traveling for nine years, if my mind and body really absorbing anything as permanent.  I will say it feels normal to live in Princeton.  it is a beautiful little city with a downtown the same size as Old Town Louisville where I lived outside of Boulder for years.  I am fully functional…I know where I want to go to get coffee, where I will walk and where I prefer to do my grocery shopping.  I have a few friends in town and many in the surrounding cities of New York and Philadelphia.  But it also feels a little bit like I’m traveling because in traveling, newness and adjusting to different places has become normal to me.

It was after the Everything Must Change tour with Brian McLaren last summer that I started redesigning my life.  The two and a half years I had in Woodland Park up in the mountains of Colorado had afforded me lots of rest and solitude and I was ready to reverse the rhythm and get into a city.  I rented out my home there and moved to Colorado Springs.   I new it was time to look seriously at giving a season to full time study and grad school, something that has been in my mind and heart for years, but the time finally seemed right and ripe.

My fall tour throughout the Northeast was wonderful and had led to many growing relationships.  A highlight was the work I did with New York Faith and Justice and the friendship I formed with Lisa Sharon Harper the director.  She invited me to be an artist-in-residence at New York Faith and Justice.  As an artist-in-residence, I would simply be based out in the New York Area and work with Lisa on developing and nurturing the artists she had connected to, collaborating on new work, and sowing foundations of identity and purpose through relationship and teaching.  I knew there were many opportunities from Boston to DC.  I have wonderful friends in New Haven and communities in New York and Philadelphia that I have had the opportunity to visit multiple times now.  But it was a wonderful and unexpected relationship that blossomed and set the ball rolling.  Once the decision to move was made, housing and gigs lined up within two weeks!  And so I am out here, doing what I have always done, but based in a completely different area until I go to Africa in June.

Already I have met great challenges with significant work and worship gigs I lined up before I came out falling through.  But as my schedule (and finances) became uncertain, of course the Holy Spirit consoled me and I started to see the goodness in an open spring.  I have already played worship at a chapel service at Princeton and am starting to have coffee meetings and conspire with some of the campus ministry pastors here.  I have been to New York City to lead worship and am leading a full day artist retreat in the city March 21.  On the weekends I have been visiting communities I have developing relationships with, leading worship, presenting concerts, speaking and teaching workshops.

I actually have not had a lot of time to work on songs and preparation for Africa until this last week, but that remains a prayerful and creative focus for me through the spring.  I am learning about South Africa and Burundi and the refugee culture as my friends in Burundi continue putting together the refugee camp tour details.

I am not a fan of the February weather in New Jersey, or the incredible high pavement to bare earth ratio…I had to take my car to a shop and put it on the GPS and the directions included passing the shop on the highway 1.7 miles and then doing a U turn.  There was no other way to get there!  The spring is clearly breaking through though.  The ice on the lakes and canal is melting quickly, the days are longer and I am quite looking forward to the Northeast spring blossoms.

So friends, I’m out here!  I’ll keep in touch, the same as always.  I have updated all my correspondence information on my website.  I still hope to see people as I travel.  Write or call anytime.  Blessings, Tracy

On Kingdom and Peace – Live Video from Saugerties, NY

Hello, everyone!  In the midst of a very fruitful and exciting writing retreat this week for music and songs on an upcoming project (pictures coming very soon – stay tuned!), I’ve also been blessed with time to catch up on other stuff like the website and blog.  I thank you for your patience and please keep checking back – a few big updates, announcements and posts are right around the corner (not least of all, more about this new season on the east coast)!

In the meantime, enjoy some spliced-together footage (starring my east coast mascot Frodo) from my time in Saugerties, NY a couple of weeks ago with Family of Hope Church.  (The songs in the video are ‘The King Will Come’ and ‘The Kingdom’ from the album ‘Worship’).  I was privileged not only to speak and lead worship with them, but also to do a song writing workshop on Saturday the 28th of February that produced some beautifully worded and melodic music (pictured below).

Live Video of ‘Bring Me Some Peace’

At the recent gathering with Valley Mosaic in Williamsport, PA, I closed the concert and our time of conversation with ‘Bring Me Some Peace.’  I offered the song up as a prayer specifically for the city of Juarez, Mexico, which daily is consumed by a conflagration of drug violence and murderous mayhem.  (For a brief, recent orientation to what is going on, click here.)

The worshiping community I partner with in Ciudad Juarez and I have committed to praying the words the LORD blessed the Israelites with in Numbers 6:24-26 three times a day.  (My alarm goes off to remind me to take the moment and be still at the same times every day).  It is a way of maintaining solidarity and lifting up trust that God is still in control and working to restore creation anew, even in the situations that seem most hopeless.  My friends in Juarez are a testament to that hope.

I suggest our ritual to you as a potential tool to faithfully pray for a person, community or people who weigh on your heart – be they in Darfur, the inner-city or poor rural areas of your town, or right next door.  I also want to share the video of ‘Bring Me Some Peace,’ embedded below, in hopes that it can serve as a prayer of longing and exhortation when you feel overwhelmed by the rampant injustices that infiltrate our world.  Shalom, brothers and sisters.

Live Video of “Goodbye Georgia” from Valley Mosaic

Hello friends.  A lot has happened since my last post…not the least of which is that I moved across the country.  I am excited to be able to visit some communities out here more frequently, including Valley Mosaic, a group I spent time with last weekend in Williamsport, PA.  Here is a video from the Sunday evening concert… stay tuned for more blogging and way better web interaction soon!