Experience Burundi

Lars squirts a worm from his hip. Matt recoils at the sound of a guinea pig’s skull popping in the jaws of a large crocodile. Together they brave open cobra cages in the world’s poisonous snake capital. Together they scoff at the hippos in Lake Tanganyika for the pleasures of bodysurfing. Lars and Matt experience Burundi.

Things got slightly out of hand last night when our game of croquet turned ugly, and Seth wasn’t entirely prepared for the competition put forth by the Canadian contingent. Perhaps expecting a more conservative and orderly arrangement, he soon found himself reeling on the other side of the yard after Lars sent him running like 1812. Braving canine land mines, massive drop-offs and invisible wickets, the US captured second and third place, but gold was solidly in Canada’s hands despite being outnumbered by a factor of two.

I wonder if my cat will ever be the same after a mortally frightful encounter with Matt’s beard. Matt wonders if all females respond the same way. Lars wonders if he’ll ever have a beard. I wonder if Matt and Lars will ever be the same after Burundi. I wonder if Burundi will ever be the same after Matt and Lars. I wonder if it’ll again be such a long time before I see them again. I wonder how long it will be before I am able to see the others who aren’t here with us but who have often been the subject of our conversations. I wonder if you’ll soon be able to experience Burundi yourself.

Read Matt and Lars' account here.

Sometimes dreaming is easy. Other times however, it seems more likely that longing and languish breed only more longing and languish without any easy resolve. To see people in need, or to be in need yourself, but to know that the answer lies far off or that it cannot be envisioned at all, is to be vulnerable to discouragement and even to despair. 

The dreams, when they come, are life. Glimpses of potential, visions of what could be, are the tiny sparks that set aflame Hope. And it is by tenaciously clinging to Hope that one receives life and strength in the struggle for those things most desired.

The dreams, when they come, are what put to death that most awful sin of complacency.

The dreams, when they go, sometimes draw us back into sleep, that we'd enter again the land where with ease anything is possible.

The dreams, when they go, are sometimes born anew in the hearts of those courageous enough to enter the land where with difficulty and perseverance and heartache and joy and sweat and tears, truly anything is possible.