Don't Quit Your Day Job

By Michael

 One thing you quickly learn when you arrive in Kibuye is that your weird, quirky, or sometimes esoteric interests might serve a real and tangible need.  For me, I've always been a technology enthusiast and something of a computer nerd.  In the days since Eric wrote about how internet is the hardest part of his job, the ever talented George Watts took the helm of managing the team connection.  When we arrived and settled in back in January 2020 that torch was passed onto me.  

The interesting thing about our connection at Kibuye is that while you might be tempted to think of it as hooking up the wifi in your home it's much more like running a small internet service provider, you know minus the staff, billing services, or technical support...  And with that I'd like to officially christen 

KNIT SP - Kibuye Neighborhood Internet and Technology Service Provider : where we weave communication into the fabric of your daily life. (An unofficial sub-company of Serge)

But to show you what I mean take a look at our network diagram as it currently stands:

For orientation that little cloud in the top left is the internet which then comes into our router and winds up being distributed from there through a series of wired and wireless connections to the homes around our compound.  Getting to this point has been quite the journey.  

The first big batch of equipment arrived back in January 2021.  With that, the intrepid Watts family helped move our main distribution antenna into the belfry of Kibuye Hope Academy.  

The fisheye lens may exaggerate the height a little bit, but that's really high, and that pole/antenna is not light!

Once the main distribution antenna was up, some 3d printed brackets for the receivers to be mounted to everyone's homes allowed us to get the best possible signal and we gradually transitioned everyone over from the hodgepodge of connections to a central wireless distribution point.  But rather than just give every home their own wifi, all of the wifi points across the compound are interconnected and make up one large network.  Now we can roam from home to home and even a few places outside without ever losing connection or having to enter different passwords along the way.  

Being an ISP means dealing with outages...  Including discovering this while investigating a post storm outage:

 

A falling branch had severed the fiberoptic line going to our little network rack.  Fortunately Lumitel was incredibly responsive.  After sending the above photos to the Lumitel Whatsapp help group around 7pm they sent a two man repair team the next day and less than 24hrs later our connection was back up and running.

While one man was responsible for splicing the cable another gentlemen climbed straight up the eucalyptus tree to drape the new line through our all natural telephone poles.  (Side note, that little machine is so cool!  It perfectly lines up the two tiny fibers of glass and then melts them together to make a single contiguous fiber!)  The two bottles in the background were actually used to protect the freshly spliced cable.  

Our network rack has also undergone an upgrade, complete with kitenge dust covers and it now houses enough battery power to keep the signal up and running through most of an overnight power outage.  

So while my day job is still going up to the hospital to take care of surgical patients, God has seen fit to use some of the other talents and interests He gave me in the service of the work He's accomplishing here in Kibuye.

And to finish up here's a preview of the next big IT project, setting up the hospital network as foundational work for the digitalization of patient care: turns out the electronic health record haunts you no matter where you go!

 (by Krista)

If you're a three year old TCK in Burundi, your life is pretty great. 

Please enjoy this snapshot into the life of our three year old - through one second a day. 

ABUC

By Ted

Last week, I (along with Michael and Jason) had the chance to attend a surgery conference in Bujumbura, organized by the Burundian Surgery Association (ABUC). It was the 15^th annual general meeting and scientific conference, and this year’s theme was trauma. Over the course of 2 days, various presenters shared their latest research in an atmosphere of professional collegiality and collaboration. Jason gave a presentation on the current cleft lip and palate program at our hospital. I was also mentioned as a collaborator for a study that presented data from one of my former medical students’ theses (regarding retrograde intra-medullary nailing of middle and distal third closed femoral fractures). Additionally, I find that I learn a lot about what’s going on at other hospitals in Burundi and get a broader picture of our hospital in relation to the others.

ABUC was started in 2007, at which point in time it was estimated that there were only 20 surgeons in all of Burundi for a population of 8 million people. Nearly 15 years later, there is an estimated 35 surgeons (now for a population of 12 million), including the five of us at Kibuye (Jason, Michael, Lijalem, Ben, myself) as well as 2 other PAACS graduates (one in Karusi, one in Bujumbura).

As you can see in the photo below, there were quite a few participants at this year’s conference, significantly more than the last time I had attended a few years ago. The participants include a variety of health professional students, physicians, surgeons, and other interested individuals. It’s incredible to see such growth in the conference, but I am similarly excited to see the growth of ABUC as an organization, which reflects recent increases in the number of new surgeons in Burundi (including 4 urologists!), many of whom completed their residency training outside the country.

Beyond the academic aspects of the conference, there is also a meaningful social piece. The conference affords opportunities to meet and talk with other surgeons in Burundi (with whom I don’t have regular opportunities to interact since I live and work at Kibuye). I also ran into former HAU medical students, who have since graduated and are now working as doctors. I even ran into a current HAU anesthetist student, who had just completed a rotation at Kibuye last month. My favorite part was the special evening social event, where we were able to chat with other surgeon colleagues over scrumptious appetizers like chicken kabobs and samosas.

PAACS grad Alliance Niyukuri and me at the 2018 conference (where we first met)

I’m grateful for our surgeon colleagues in Burundi and for the shared desire to see the quality of and access to surgical care improve throughout the country. I look forward to continued collaboration and future exchanges between our hospital and others, especially after our PAACS surgery residency program is approved and underway.

The Things You Get Used To

 

By Glory Guy 

Hi friends, Glory here. Forever an English major at heart, sharing words about life in our wonderful Kibuye brings me joy. This past month has been filled to the brim with everything from bedbugs, a trip to Kenya for vaccines, a new passport, a GI parasite, and a middle school running club. The way I grasp all the scenarios that we process in every-day life here in Burundi is through words. Over the past two months I had the opportunity to participate in a virtual weekly writing workshop, and it has been such a blessing. After booking it home from class at the school in the middle of the loudest rainstorm I have ever experienced, I crash landed in our kitchen, and ended up sharing this piece of writing with my roommates. I was given the prompt "write about a realization," and what came out was this piece called "The Things You Get Used To." Jenny and Erica suggested I share it here with you because it articulates a little of what the mundane looks like here in our Beautiful Burundi. Sometimes the hardest things to explain about our life here is what goes on in the everyday, because it is a constantly interwoven mess of simple and complex, decisions to be made, and mostly prayer for the Lord's faithfulness in all of the things we don't know. Hope you enjoy this little window into daily life in Kibuye.

"The Things You Get Used To" 

When the potholes in the red dirt felt familiar, I knew. When the rain sounded like a waltz, a lullaby in time, with some movements louder than others. There are things you get used to, mud determined to stick under your toenails, the echo of crickets having conversations back and forth from your adjacent bedroom windows, the desire for a child's slingshot to silence the bird crafting a reggae tune at 5am, and barefoot children, in varying stages of dirt-caked, over age 2 showing up at your door without supervision in search of apple juice. Some things will never feel normal I think, the sickly-sweet smell of milk boiling on the stove, in hopes and prayers of pasteurization, the triumph of hearing the high-pitched squeal of the mosquito desperate for a bite, and realizing it buzzes outside the confines of the net and not from between the sheets. The feeling of utter defeat when the internet returns after several days of disconnection from outside our stone walls, to find that the power leaves, as if in spite. Candles are peaceful and lovely, in their dance on our mantle, but not so much when you're angry and can't boil hot water for a lifeline in the form of a cup of tea. Things oscillate between kindness and rain, and I learn to laugh in the everyday breaths of making a home. 

(Feat. Student Adventurer at Kibuye Rock) 

Wisdom of the Egyptians (and Mike Mulligan)

(By Caleb)

The national electrical grid in Burundi has always given us some significant challenges both in terms of the quantity and the quality of the power delivered to our campus.  

 

In 2018, ITEC came and installed solar panels, inverters, a new transformer, and a new generator which I wrote about here and shared a video about here.  This was a HUGE game changer for both the quantity and quality of power for the hospital.  But with some long rainy days affecting our solar and a national diesel shortage crippling our generator, we reluctantly resort to using the national grid to power the hospital through a lot of the night.  

 

This opens us up to the ‘dirty power’ that puts much of our electrical equipment at risk.  Especially the sensitive and expensive equipment in the lab, radiology, operating rooms, eye unit, and our growing IT service.   

 

A while back I was talking to my good friend, Jason Kurien, who is an electrical engineer and he suggested an Eaton Power Conditioner which is a really sophisticated electronic transformer that can take in ‘dirty power,’ clean it up, and produce ‘clean power’.  I had never heard of one, but this started us down the path to electrical bliss.  Originally, we purchased 2 smaller units to protect our most sensitive equipment.  And they performed wonderfully!  We stopped losing expensive equipment every thunderstorm and this eased many headaches.  

 

But our campus has grown significantly and we have outgrown these smaller units.  So back in 2019, Jesh and Julie Thiessen raised funds to buy a large power conditioner to serve the whole hospital.  This unit is about the size of a refrigerator and weighs 1,020kg or 2,250 lbs. 

 

And it is fragile. 

 

And very expensive. 

Heavy, complex, fragile, expensive and vital to the hospital

 

The time had come to install this wonderful piece of equipment.  But we first needed to move it from our workshop to a hard-to-reach area where the power enters our campus about 150 meters (500ft) away over really rough terrain and down two 1-meter high ledges. 

 

How was this going to happen with the tools and resources we have?

 

Originally it was my brother Jason’s idea to figure out a way to increase the number of hands we could get on it.  And it was Desire, our master welder, who brought this idea to fruition.  We ended up with a system that would hopefully allow 30 men to carry the power conditioner safely without injury to man or machine.  With all the steel, the men would need to carry 35kg or 80 lbs. each.     

Desire welding up the carrying contraption

I envisioned that we would just take our time and move 10 or 15 feet at a go and then gently put it down and rest. It would have been totally fine if it took all day. 

But once those 30 men started moving there was no stopping them!  They even sang as they walked and their flip-flops where flying everywhere. They did end up putting it down one time en route, but that was only to get clarification on which direction it should face once they arrived at the concrete slab.  It was a sight to behold.  Here is a little video:   

Arriving safely at the destination.  Phew!!  

 

One of my favorite stories as a kid was Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton.  In summary, this old steam shovel dug the basement of new town hall so fast to the applause of the crowds that they forgot to leave a way for the shovel to get out. So they just built the building around it and it retired as the boiler heating the building and they lived happily ever after.   

In a mildly similar vein, we had to get the power conditioner shoehorned into place before we could build the building around it:

Beginning to construct the power house around the new power conditioner. 

Power house complete.

Our new power conditioner inside to stay...happily ever after.  

Kibugita

 by Rachel

Recently, Eric and I received a special book in the mail entitled Big Knife (Kibugita).  It's special because it's the autobiography of a man who has been very influential over many years at Kibuye, Dr. Frank Ogden.  Our team has now been settled at Kibuye for eight years, which can seem like a long time but is really not much more than the blink of an eye in the grand scheme of things.  When we showed up, there had not been a long term medical missionary presence in a number of years.  To be clear, the hospital has run and cared for thousands of patients over the years with excellent Burundian staff and physicians, but without another western physician there, we didn't always have a good background as to how the hospital started, who started it, and the stories of comings and goings over the years.  Whose house was that?  How did this project get started?

Of course, since our arrival, we've had the privilege of meeting and visiting with Frank and his wife Carol many times.  Other visitors have come as well to fill in some pieces and regale us with special stories about who used to live in this or that house, when that tree got planted, the tales behind several gravestones.  It struck me as I read through the biography that I don't think we've ever shared the story of Dr. Ogden on our blog.  In fact, even though it was many years before we met him in person, Eric and I might never have gone to visit Burundi in 2010 had it not been for him.  He recruited one of our friends to visit Kibuye in the mid-2000s, while our friend was still in his medical training, and when we put out a broad request for ideas for our future team, our friend contacted us and said, "Hey, have you ever heard of Kibuye?"  So, for that and many other reasons, we'll always be thankful to Dr. Ogden!

It was enjoyable for me to read through the pages of his book because I could visualize almost all of his stories, from crazy surgical cases (including a ruptured uterus that happened 9 months prior to surgery) to crazy road trips (my favorite was the time he and his family drove 1000 miles from Burundi to Nairobi to pick up his brother, only to arrive and discover that his brother had actually flown in to Bujumbura and they had to drive all the way back!).  He shared details of many different difficulties (such as multiple home robberies and the death of his first wife after colon cancer), and joys (surgical successes, preaching opportunities, and even an entire appendix on plane and helicopter flights).  Dr. Ogden served on and off as a surgeon at Kibuye for over a 40 year time period, starting in the early 1970s.  He earned the nickname of Kibugita (Big Knife) because of his surgical abilities and capacity to perform so many operations in a short period of time!  Due to civil war and health difficulties, his time was divided between Kibuye, Kibogora (in Rwanda), and Nundu (DRC) hospitals, and also included some time practicing back in the Pacific Northwest.  His book featured the stories of many of our friends and current hospital employees who have been faithful to the church and hospital over the years, and I appreciated hearing their histories and contributions as well.

So in many ways, it was great to read a book that shared so many stories and anecdotes from the early years of Kibuye Hospital.  It all serves to remind us that our team is not starting a new work on our own.  We are continuing a work that was begun many years ago and has been carried on the shoulders of many, many people (Burundians and westerners alike).  We didn't begin the work at Kibuye and we probably won't end it, but we are just another chapter in a long story of how God has used a small rural hospital in a small African nation to care for the medical needs of so many.  

Why did the tofu cross the road?

By Eunice John 

 ...to prove it was just as good as chicken!

I’m soy excited to share about something I’ve successfully made THREE times this month (it’s become a Sunday tradition)...drumroll please...TOFU!

Neighbor, MK teacher, fellow tofu-lover Erica and me during our tofu making lesson! She is holding okara, soy pulp, which we collected after straining the blended beans.

A little background first -- at Kibuye, aside from the hospital canteen (which serves tasty food, though limited), there are no restaurants for dine-in or takeout. And there are no grocery stores to run to when you’re missing an ingredient or two. However, one of the blessings of team/community life is that you have regular opportunities to lean on your neighbors as well as practice generosity! You and your family just arrived after 24hrs+ of traveling? No problem - there’s already a meal train set up for you! Need a few extra eggs, 1/2c of cheese, a kg of flour, 2 tsp of oregano...or all of the above? No problem - ask your neighbor or just send a message to the ladies WhatsApp group and there’s a good chance someone will be able to help! 

When it comes to preparing food at Kibuye, I would say that it’s a labor of love. Nearly everything we eat is made from scratch -- breads, salads (with homemade croutons...whaat?!), pasta sauce (no Classico or Prego here, folks), yogurt, desserts...you name it. My kids know that at Kibuye, there’s no McDonalds but they do have Mom-Donalds, Mom-fil-A...you get the idea. 

As a Korean-American family, we eat Korean food regularly and wanted to be able to enjoy it in rural Africa. Knowing that it would be near impossible to find Korean ingredients in Burundi, we either brought some essential ingredients with us in our checked luggage or planned ahead and sent them on a team shipping container. Still, there are many ingredients that you just won’t have on hand, so you’ve got to get creative. I am always amazed at how resourceful and creative my teammates are, truly with everything but especially food. From simple foods to fancier dishes, Kibuye kitchens rock! 

Now, if you were to visit a Korean home, you’ll probably find kimchi in the fridge. What else? There’s a good chance you’ll find tofu too -- and 99.9% of the time, it’s store bought. Nobody makes their own tofu...we buy it! Might I mention that tofu is available in various degrees of firmness: silken, soft, medium, firm, extra firm. Moving on...tofu is not only a low-calorie food but it is also high in protein. We love tofu. 

Tofu is made from soybeans which have been soaked, blended, strained, boiled, coagulated, and placed in a mold to get that nice rectangular shape. Sounds simple enough.

I was thrilled to learn that busoma was made of two parts corn, one part SOY, and one part sorghum. To top things off, dry soybeans are plentiful here and very reasonably priced (you can get 1kg of soybeans for 3000 Burundian francs which is about $1). 

Mind you, during our first term at Kibuye, I tried to FIND tofu. Surely our go-to Chinese restaurant in Bujumbura would know where to get tofu, or perhaps they made tofu in house? Nope. Surely, our vegan Burundian doctor would be able to connect us with his tofu supplier in Buja. Unfortunately, he was unable to bring any back to Kibuye. Well, I was determined to make tofu! 

The trickiest part is probably figuring out the coagulant -- there are many options: vinegar, lemon juice, gypsum (calcium sulfate), epsom salts, nigari (magnesium chloride). Each coagulant results in different textures, tastes, and success rates. From that list, we can get vinegar and lemons. I love being able to make food with ingredients we can find locally or in country, so I tried vinegar. I ended up making tofu although it was more like a sorry slab. Basically, it seemed like a lot of work for little return, so I gave it a rest. 

Fast forward two years later. We’re missing tofu again and with our youngest having several food allergies, including milk, I was once again on a mission to get soy based foods/tofu into our home. I did some more reading and learned about a coagulant that I hadn’t considered before: rice vinegar. This is also likely to be found in the fridge of a Korean/Asian household. Rice vinegar is not something you would think you could find in Burundi. In Kenya, maybe, but not Burundi. But sometimes, we find some rare/random treasures here. Back in the summer of 2018, we were on a family trip in Buja. At that time, fellow Serge missionary, Carolyn Bond, graciously took me around to a handful of stores (we were actually on the search for some fish sauce and a few other household items that I was hoping to find). We had lunch at a little cafe called Maison Crèmerie...a hidden gem. I walked into the store afterward to see if there was anything interesting and what do you know? On the shelf were TWO BOTTLES OF KOREAN BROWN RICE VINEGAR! What?!

SO RANDOM but AWESOME! 

I saved that bottle of brown rice vinegar in storage while we were away this past year. I’m happy to report that it’s still good and a successful coagulant! One kg of soybeans produces 2 large blocks of tofu, so I’ve been keeping half of the soaked beans in the freezer for the next batch. Who knew I would be making tofu in Burundi, but here we are. Just a small, but personal joy that the Lord has given me!

 

Korean Spicy Tofu Stew (Soon Du Bu), one of Ted’s favorite meals.

Pray for Jennifer

 by Rachel 

One week ago, Eric and I woke up to terrible news.  Our area director, Jennifer Myhre, had been in a terrible bike accident.  She was airlifted to a trauma center in West Virginia, unconscious, on a ventilator with bleeding in her brain.  Many of you might have already seen this news either on facebook or because you too are friends with the Myhres, but in case you haven't we are asking for prayer.  Jennifer has made tremendous strides this past week...she is off the ventilator, walking with assistance, cognitively intact but with periods of confusion throughout the day.  She has come a long way, but there is a lot of healing still to go, and she is moving to inpatient rehab this week for at least 7-10 days.

Scott and Jennifer have been our area directors for East Africa since we joined up with Serge in 2011.  I still remember meeting them for the first time.  They had just been named area directors and were moving to Kijabe after many years of raising their family in Bundibugyo, Uganda.  Despite the fact that we were not yet approved as Serge missionaries, they drove down to Tenwek Hospital, where we were living at the time, to meet us and encourage us.  They showed up with literally two giant baskets of produce, a big treat as we were living hours from the nearest grocery store.  I was thinking back on that occasion this past week, remembering special times with Jennifer...how two of the things that matter most to her, how she shows her love and support to us, are generosity and presence.

I don't know how to be a team leader without Scott and Jennifer.  They have consistently had our backs over these past 10 years on the field.  Always encouraging, always cheerleading, always praying for us.  Scott has a special gift of incredible photography of the world around us, but it's Jennifer that puts into words the beauty and longing and struggle and mystery that we experience day after day in our lives.  We needed their presence and their advice last February, so at great personal cost to themselves, they braved multiple rounds of covid tests, a long journey, and 7 days of mandatory hotel quarantine to physically be with us and support us at Kibuye.  It was perhaps the most encouraging thing that happened to us during that year...good friends and mentors, laying down their lives for us, traveling to Burundi, loving us.  Jennifer wrote this blog after leaving.  

Scott has been updating their family blog with news about Jennifer.  If you're interested, you can click here.  Their blog is amazing, so feel free to browse around a bit as well.  Jennifer is really the rock of our East Africa region.  We've never closed a session together without her calling us all to and leading us in prayer.  None of us know what the future holds for her, but please pray with us for complete healing.  Scott has also said that right now that they need "courage not clarity," (I mean, we'd all love clarity but that's not always an option) so please pray for that as well.

A Time to Every Purpose Under Heaven

A farewell to the McCropders and the Serge Kibuye Team from John and Jessica Cropsey

To every thing there is a season…

In the case of the McCropders, God ordained for us 4,986 days together.  That is nearly 14 years of life lived together in common purpose on a journey that spanned three continents and four countries, ten of those years as members of the Serge Kibuye Team.  It has been a tremendous honor to be counted among such a band of sojourners.  You have been our everything in so many ways:  friends, family as “aunts” and “uncles” to our kids, neighbors, colleagues, bosses, subordinates, counselors, doctors, running buddies,
piki (motorcycle in Kiswahili) partners, fellow vacationers, and more.

McCropders in the early years

Alma with Uncle John -- looks like she's having fun?

John & Jason tubing on a river in Kenya

A time to be born…  

This team was born under incredibly unique circumstances — 4 specialist doctors from the same church who “just happened” to be finishing their different residency programs (of differing lengths) at the same time, and all with a heart for medical missions. And God grew the team, adding more amazing people, each gifted to meet specific needs and created uniquely to form the beautiful tapestry that is the Serge Kibuye team.  Love, medicine, teaching, music, administration, fear of snakes, humor, patience, vision, construction, pastoring, resilience, language, biblical exegesis, spreadsheets, writing, calm, passion, fashion, IT, hospitality, generosity, frugality — and a million other gifts and quirks have been woven into each of you that made our time with you so amazing. May God continue to bless the colorful mosaic that is found at Kibuye. 

Kibuye Team Retreat -- May 2021

A time to plant…

What has been planted at Kibuye during our years together is mind-blowing.  As we blazed a trail with machetes, axes and hoes for our future houses back in 2013, I remember thinking how exciting/insane it was that our team and Hope Africa University were attempting to develop a teaching hospital so remote it was only a stone’s throw from the southern most source of the Nile, a place Dr. David Livingston died trying to find in vain.  Wild!  Relationships have been developed, wells drilled, buildings built, training developed, healthcare advanced, hospital chaplaincy reinforced, and students discipled. 

A time to harvest…

Despite innumerable challenges — cultural blunders, coups, counter-coups, shortages of many kinds (medicine/water/fuel/power/internet), health emergencies, physical and spiritual attacks, pandemics — God has allowed a great harvest.  We have seen our unofficial team motto come to fruition, “We aren’t the best people for this job, our students are.”  Hundreds of medical students have been trained and many of them are now caring for the sick and the poor in Jesus’ name throughout Burundi and beyond.  Thanks to the ministry of our chaplains and students, thousands of patients have committed their lives to Christ while at Kibuye.  Ten thousand plus blind, lame or otherwise infirm Burundians have received restorative surgery and hundreds of thousands have been treated clinically.  The Lord of the Harvest has been at work.  

A time to laugh…

Mixed in with all of that blood, sweat and tears, was a whole lot of fun too — board games, card games, camping adventures, exploring anything and everything on dirt bikes, the weekly ultimate frisbee game, Christmas floor hockey, pizza oven parties, outdoor movie nights — shoot, even our business meetings weren’t too bad.  There is something special about the slower pace of rural mission life (outside of the hospital that is) that affords for such blessings.

Dinner with current and former Kibuye teammates in Nairobi --
July 2021

A time to die… 

As followers of Christ, we are called to bear our cross daily and to die to self. Without death, there is no resurrection. For so many around the world these past eighteen months, that has taken on new meaning, us included. During that time, God used an unrelenting series of events and circumstances to seemingly and unexpectedly be showing us that we had accomplished what He had set out for our family at Kibuye and it was our time to leave. Obeying that call meant the loss of many things for us personally, not the least of which was our much loved team and our physical home in this world, but also the big dreams we had for Kibuye and Burundi. Our decision also had significant, complex implications for our Burundian friends, colleagues, national partners and teammates who have all born a cost for our decision in different ways. Thus, on many fronts, our departure has felt like death.

A time to weep…

In life, and especially in missions, there are a lot of goodbyes, so one of the things we have learned is that saying good goodbyes is really important even though it feels more painful in the moment.  And so, the month of June was spent visiting Burundian friends in their homes, attending special events, saying farewells on our front porch and visiting special/memorable places.  Many tears were shed, especially when we drove away from Kibuye on July 4th and said our final goodbye to our team.  Pray for us and others as we continue to mourn.

Some of our goodbyes to Burundian friends

A time to heal…

Pray for our Burundian friends and partners. Pray that God would allow them to forgive us where we have caused them hurt and loss. Pray for our team as they have to take much of our load when there is already a crushing weight of responsibility. Pray for the eye team to be unified, to learn and to grow.  

Kibuye Eye Team Retreat July 2021

Pray for our family this month. We are dedicating this next month to reflection on the journey we have just completed. Pray for our counselors to be full of wisdom and insight as we seek to understand more fully what God has for us to learn. Pray for insight and repentance for where we have fallen short and faith to trust the riches we have in Christ to redeem us and our brokenness. Pray for hope and our future. We do not mourn as others, because we have hope.  We believe in resurrection. God is still at work weaving His story in our lives and we look forward to seeing where and with whom He will lead us next. We hope to continue the fight against needless blindness in Africa.  

Cropsey family at the waterfalls

We wish Hope Africa University, Kibuye Hope Hospital and the Serge Kibuye Team all the best as they continue to pursue their high calling to train and disciple health professionals for Burundi and beyond.

God has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God's gift to man.  

— Ecclesiastes 3:11-13 (ESV)

And so, we sign off from this blog as writers (not readers). If you would like to know more about the progress of the Kibuye Eye Clinic over the last 8 years and some of the reasons behind our decision to transition out of Burundi, you can read our last two newsletters here and here. If you’d like to continue following our family for whatever lies ahead and receive our quarterly e-mail updates, please write us at johncropsey@serge.org or jessicacropsey@serge.org. 

A Goat Ate My Police Report (and other stories)

 

By Glory Guy

Amahoro (hello in Kirundi) to you from Burundi! My name is Glory, and I hail from Nashville, Tennessee and arrived in Kibuye a little over a month ago. I am an MK teacher by trade, and am loving getting to know the children in the classroom while walking alongside these incredible families as a teammate and friend in all that goes on here in our beautiful Burundi. I was received warmly by incredibly kind teammates in Kibuye after several days of travel in early August, but we quickly discovered that my entry period into our lovely Burundi was far from over. Unfortunately, when I arrived, we discovered that one of my bags and two of my trunks had been lost in transit somewhere between Nashville and Brussels. A week later we discovered that my bags, which we expected were lodged somewhere in Brussels, actually never left the United States and sat on the tarmac in Washington D.C., classic. Closely following this bag debacle, my passport and visa paperwork, along with several other teammates’ passports, were stolen out of our car on the three-hour trip from the capital Bujumbura to our rural mountain town, Kibuye. A police report was filed and as I was carrying it to my home, our team goat (yes, you read that correctly) promptly took a running leap into the air and bit off a good piece of the Burundian seal that made the report official. Thankfully the US Embassy didn’t mind. It was a real-life “my dog ate my homework” moment, with an East African twist. In all things in the past four weeks, I am consistently reminded that the Lord is with me as a feel like a jumble of contradictions. He has an incredible sense of humor and is teaching me to laugh at myself and my surroundings, and he is just as present in my tears of exhaustion, confusion, and homesickness. He is in my wonder and my sorrow, unfazed and endlessly kind in both. 

Arriving in Kibuye was a whirlwind of activities and grace, so here are some highlights. 

These are the two seventh-grade students with whom I spend most of my hours these days, teaching Language Arts, Reading, and Writing, and History. They are inquisitive and silly and share my love of coffee and voracious reading. I am teaching them grammar rules and how to write a research paper, while they are giving me a crash course in East Africa life, which includes identifying the caterpillars that will burn me if I touch them, and how to ride a dirt bike. We share in the opinion that our last class of the day is the best one because I reading aloud the first Percy Jackson book, though they insisted they would not enjoy it, they now hang onto every word. Needless to say, I adore them. 

On Saturday morning, my two roommates and I emerged from our bedrooms realizing we were on the same wavelength in our accidental matching outfits. Their welcoming presence has been the most significant reminder of the Lord’s faithfulness in my time in Burundi so far. I’m convinced that Jenny is the real-life Snow White, endlessly kind, bohemian, thoughtful, and strong. Erica is both the bread queen and the brains of the operation in our home, our French language expert, and a constant source of laughter and light. 

Rides to Buja in the backseat of the Land Cruiser, jamming to 70s rock (as requested by the middle schooler) and many, many rounds of twenty questions. As a girl who struggles with severe motion sickness, here are the necessary steps to avoid vomiting en route: 

1. Take medicine

2. Pretend you’re in an action movie (heroes never barf!) 

3. Pray. Mostly this one.

Learning how to take good and thorough notes includes asking students to choose a random topic, spout out facts about it, and organize them in outline format. These students chose Hotdogs. For three kids who live in rural East Africa, who have most likely never seen a hotdog stand on a city street corner, they know a lot of facts about hotdogs. Did you know that annually more people die of choking on hotdogs than shark attacks? (What is my credible source you ask? The seventh grader on the left). 

Sometimes we take read-to-self time to the trees for a change in perspective. The student who appears to be suspended in the air is actually on a swing! 

My brain and heart feel like they are brimming over, with all that I am learning and loving about where the Lord has planted my feet. I explained to my roommates this week that it simultaneously feels like I have been on African soil for a year and a day. It is a check to my pride to lean so heavily on those around me with so many questions, like, “do I wash dishes in filtered or sink water?” “How do you say ‘help me’ in Kirundi?” and “If I hit that gecko with a broom will it come back for vengeance?” Though I feel that I don’t know much, what I do know is that the Lord is good, and He is present with us. In all that is going on in the world, regardless of what continent you are on, He is present, faithful, and stronger than we could ever be. I am consistently reminded that HIS power is made perfect in our weakness. So, we learn to laugh and weep in alternating breaths, and we lean in.