New Year Update

Friends –

Happy New Year! I hope this letter finds you all full of new dreams for your world and new visions for how to bring the light into the dark places you encounter each day. We are writing to you because we want to invite you into some tension we are feeling and some prayers we are praying. Our hope is that you would join us in this tension and pray with us through the upcoming days as we seek God’s good and perfect will for the remainder of our time here in Burundi. We hope you forgive the length of this letter, because we have much on our hearts we want to share with you.

We have been so excited to hear your stories from back home, pregnancies, weddings, good news of all kinds. We hope you know that we are celebrating with you. We wish we were there to jump around and shout and embrace you in these times, and we are definitely doing so in spirit. We are also hearing a great deal of bad news of late, relationships breaking, friends passing away, heartaches of all sorts. We hope you know that we are grieving with you. We wish we were there to sit beside you in these times and mourn, giving our support by our words or possibly our absence of words. We feel greatly connected to these stories, and they enrich our lives whenever we hear them, drawing us close to you, our brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers.

But one story seems to be coming up over and over, and that story is shared by countless people across the country. We are steadily hearing how the economy is siphoning the jobs, indeed the hope and joy, away from so many of you. We are hearing about choices to go without, changes in living situations out of a lack of resources, the inability to provide necessary repairs or health care because of ever-tightening budgets. We are hearing about deficits in giving to churches all over, not just to Fellowship, our church home, and it is becoming clear that many of you are simply not in a position to give.

Firstly, we want to say how much we are hurting for you. These stories break our hearts, and we many times wish nothing more than to return home and shoulder these burdens with you. You are our family, our community, our fellow citizens in the New Jerusalem. We are bound together with you. Please know that we are interceding on your behalf at the throne and we believe that our God is a God who hears the cry, no matter how weak or small.

Secondly, we want to thank you. We want to thank you not just for giving to us and praying for us, those of you who have done so. We want to thank you for standing beside each other. I’m sure there are some of you familiar with the African concept of Ubuntu. This is a sense of interconnection to teach person. It is gratitude expressed on the behalf of humanity. It is seeing someone serve their brother and approaching them, despite the fact that you personally received nothing physical, and saying, “Thank you. You have helped put us back together by doing that.” So, in that spirit, we want to offer up gratitude to those of you who are giving generously in any way, especially to those who give even out of their lack. Like the widow of Jesus’ parable who gives her last, these are the sacrifices that stir the heart of the Father and the souls of each of us. We are so thankful, those of you in the FMC community who gave to the Christmas Eve offering for peacemaking in our neighbor Congo. You cannot know the light you shine by standing for peace when the conventional wisdom would simply chalk up another thousand marks under the cynical phrase uttered by many, “AWA,” meaning “Africa Wins Again.” You are part of a church, a body, a people who are standing up and saying, “There is already sufficient blood shed for all on a cross two thousand years ago. But if more blood is needed, you can have some of mine.” You are being broken open and poured out for these people who need your hope. We thank you for that.

Thirdly, we want to invite you into our tension. We are at a profound crossroad about how to approach our remaining time here in Burundi. Again, we are keenly aware of the struggles so many of you face financially to provide for yourselves, and we know that many others of you are giving more than ever because there are more needs around you than ever. It is becoming increasingly difficult to ask for support from you, our community, because our hearts are bent to give, not to receive. We wish nothing but restoration and wholeness for each of you, and we don’t wish to take anything from you that would diminish that.

The reality remains, however, that we are still badly behind in our support. At this point, we are already indebting ourselves to World Relief, who has generously given beyond our raised support to keep us here in Burundi, that we might continue the work God is doing through us. We have cut our proposed budget nearly in half, and still lack badly at the bottom line. Now, please hear us. We are not asking right now for belt-tightening or pocketbook-opening. We are asking you to pray with us. Our prayer is simply for the ability to discern the will of God for our time here. Our desire is to stay until the end of April. Prudence would be to leave at the end of February. Even in the latter case, we would still have an outstanding deficit with World Relief. However, we believe in the miraculous provision of God. We believe that if, indeed, God’s desire is for us to remain here for the entirety of our intended stay, God will provide in a way only God can ordain. If our work here is the best use of time, gifts, and resources for the Kingdom, we trust that God will make a way. But we need discernment to know if that, indeed, is the case. If we stay simply because it is what we want, we will lose much. If we leave early because we desire to stand beside you all in your struggles, and God still has work for us here, the Kingdom loses much. If we capitulate to fear and fail to trust in a God who sends enough for today and no more, we lack much faith.

We hope you hear our hearts in this. We could not simply ask for support again. We had to invite you all into this tension, because we believe that wisdom comes from the body as well as from the still, small voice of the Almighty. So please, pray with us and give us your discernment. We will join with you and together, we will find God’s good word for today and tomorrow. We will continue to share stories and pictures on the blog, and we cherish your comments, emails, prayers and ideas. Again, our contact list is only so long, so please share this letter and our story with anyone you feel might want to partner with us in prayer. We long to be with you all, and we carry you with us into the streets of Bujumbura every day. May the God of peace bring you your daily bread, and may you trust that He will do so again tomorrow.

Grace and peace,

Jim and Karri