On The Receiving End

Back from Burundi and Rwanda (8 hours on a bus Monday, all day Tuesday on planes) and surprisingly alert and renewed: totally on the opposite end of the dead battery in my car.  For a month I was on the receiving end of God's love and beauty manifested to me through the love of my former students, the beauty of these two countries, and the fruits of prayer and generosity that overtime have wrought miracles in the lives of these students, the efforts of the Marist Brothers and in the remarkable, yes, even astounding recovery of these countries after genocide and bloody civil wars. It will take me months to process the wonders I beheld and the gifts I received.  It was like being on a 30 day retreat with my former students as my directors.  "Rest!"  "Eat!" were their commands; time for prayer abounded in days whose hours were spent in a much different sequence than my ordinary routine.  In Burundi, after a good breakfast, the next meal could come anywhere between noon and 3:00, and the final meal seemed always to fall at 11:30 pm, just before bed.  I never knew what was  "on the agenda"  for the day, never mind the next tomorrow...but it always worked out better than any plan.  In these countries the culture fosters family, relationships and time for one another.  Greeting people everywhere as if they were the only people you wanted to see that day, was one of the most important and touching aspects of it. Time, for a change, was not only sufficient, but abundant, integral to the day, and not a luxury. How these things nourish the soul and remind us that this is how God wants us to live...assured of his care, free from worry or constraint, open and ready to receive.  Because my life is so hectic, when I boarded the plane on June 26, I knew only two things:  I was landing in Bujumbura, Burundi on June 28th and going to a wedding on July 14th.  How I was getting here and there, whom I was going to see, all fell into place in a manner that surpassed anything I could have planned. I pray that we may all learn to cherish and live being on the receiving end.  It's God's way, his gift to us.
Bro. Rene