Saturday at Club T

The sun had thrown an orange and red blanket behind the mountains of Congo. The water, warmer than usual, was being churned into waves by the satisfying breeze that had simultaneously made the hot day bearable and caused the volleyball to fly in all sorts of unexpected directions. We had settled onto towels on the sand with our drinks, new friends and old friends alike, and Brandon began regaling us with stories from his summers as a tree-planter north of Vancouver. Apparently, this is a Canadian legacy; university students take several weeks of their early summer to go out into the deep forests of the North and replant the land that the logging companies harvested that year. It gives them income to pay tuition and satisfies the governmental mandates to ensure that their country’s natural beauty and resources are not depleted. Never heard of that in the States… funny…

Beside my lovely wife and I were some new friends. Steven, “the white Kenyan,” laid on his back, half listening, half dozing through the story. He grew up in Kenya, and Swahili is practically a first language for him. He works for the Assemblies of God here in Burundi, and hustles for the volleyball harder than anyone on the beach. Perhaps not as hard as Matt, who works at the US Embassy. He wasn’t listening to the story at all. He was too busy organizing another game, this time with anyone who still has the legs to play at this point in the afternoon. Estelle was enjoying the conversation, though. She enjoys most conversations that give her a chance to practice English. We get a few French tips from her, and discuss which languages are hardest to learn. We’ve got friends from South Africa, England, France, Canada, Italy, Scotland, and we realized that we were two of only four or five Americans there.

The conversation drifted back and forth from French to English, and I occasionally let my eyes drift to the cityscape of Bujumbura to the south. It sprawled to the East along the lake, southwest to the mountains, capped by the white walls of the university. I looked back across the water. No hippos today. Oh well. On the volleyball court, there’s a guy I don’t know who can really thump the bal. So I watch him smack another one, this time right into Matt’s face. His sunglasses fly off, and we all howl in laughter and approval.

An airplane soars overheard. We’re only a few kilometers from the airport, so you can make out the tail colors. Brandon shouts, “AIR BURUNDI!!!” As far as I can tell, the joke is that the Burundian airline only has one plane, so whenever it flies overhead, you cheer it. Everyone laughs, and I look at Karri. We’re both thinking the same thing.

There are moments in my life where I’m really happy, moments where I’m with great people doing great things (or a great deal of nothing!) that restore my soul. It may be sitting in a living room with the gang from Eastern, laughing that painful, tearful laugh that you wish would keep going for the rest of the night. It may be hitting that moment with the musicians from FMC where the creation is ringing with the sounds of eternity, and we fall into sync with enthusiasm and gratitude. And if I’m aware enough, if my eyes are open enough to see it, I’m caught up in the idea of heaven. I start to understand when Isaiah describes the Kingdom manifested here on earth, how it involves food and wine, friends and family, stories and songs. It’s a feast. It’s a community. It’s a wedding. And if I can catch it, I can feel the vibrations of heaven on earth in those moments.

So my eyes meet my wife’s eyes. We’re sitting on a beach in Africa, surrounded by mountains and surf. The sun has disappeared and the reds have gone purple. The heat has dissolved into a delicious dusk, and the drinks are cold. And we’ve got friends from all over the globe sharing stories in all sorts of different languages and accents. They’re teaching us about things we never knew, reminding us that God’s world is huge and America is just a corner of it.

“We’re blessed,” our eyes say to each other. “This must be the life of eternity.”