Learning from the Fulani

School has finished and now are boarding students will go home tomorrow.
My boys are leaving. Yesterday as we climbed the hill behind the house
out into the bush they tried to instuct me on what makes a good piece of
firewood, clearly I choose pieces that are too big or too small or too
green but I'm trying. Just one of the many lessons I've picked up in my
time with them. In Burundi I am always forgetting to shake hands so I'm
thankful that the Fulani, as a whole are not as formal, shaking hands
doesn't seem to be first nature for them either. They always run to
greet visitors though, all 23 of them sprinting across the field to
greet arrivals, old and new. They are so hungry to learn. They value
time and touch and community. Yesterday we gave them each a folder, you
know the kind you buy at Wal-Mart for 10 cents. They were over the moon,
"Yes!" they said as they ran the the assemley hall to decorate them in
Ben's Star Wars stickers with pictures of the "Old Man" we know as Yoda.
They broke out the markers and began to write their name and their
school location and their A B C D's. All the things they have learned
since starting at Hope Academy. It is like magic to watch them, to see
them take something so little and make it so important. Now they will
report to their fathers not only their impressive exam scores but in a
folder that is all their own. Three of our boarders took 1st, 2nd and
3rd place in their Primary Two class. They are so proud, of course we
are too, to have our boarding students, our friends, Fulani ranking high
in their class. They are eager to begin Primary Three. On Holiday our
boarding students will spend time with family and follow cows, an event
they speak of with much joy and expertise. I will miss seeing life
through their eyes, where everything is new and exciting because not
only are you still a child but your world grows with each book you read
and each conversation you have and in all the ways you are learning
without even knowing it. I wonder if that's how it is with the Lord,
that he finds joy in the things we enjoy. That even though I've played
Candy Land 100 times in my childhood, the 101st is somehow exciting
again, because going all the way back to Candy Cane Forrest really is a
dramatic event.