Birthday in Burundi

I just turned 24...mid twenties. Sarah's brother turned 24 while working as a missionary in Brazil, and she said that if a guy there isn't married by 24, they think he's not into women. Good thing that in Burundi guys don't get married until 28-35 ;)

I received a few nice gifts for my birthday. Sarah made me a great crafty collage to hang on my wall. Here is an example of one of the 9 panels. 

Good ole Pooh



My roommate JD got me a cool knife from his trip to Rwanda.

The Burundi YFC office staff baked a delicious banana cake.

The orphans at Homes of Hope gave me a fancy new drum set.

Just Kidding, they didn't give me this. But I wish...so much character!

Eric, the guy who runs the shop out in front of my house, gave me 3 Pepsi's.

3 Pepsi's doesn't seem like a good birthday gift, does it? Well, to put it in perspective...this guy and I are just acquaintances. He earns the equivalent of about $80 US per month. These canned Pepsi's are much more expensive than a bottled Coke or Fanta (which cost about 35 cents). Each of these Pepsi's costs $1 US. That means that this $3 present, which was given to me by a guy who isn't a super close friend to me, represents a sacrifice on his end of over 1 day's full wages. His generosity is huge, and I'm completely humbled. I'm grateful for this gift and I pray that I will be able to give as freely and willingly as he does.

To celebrate my birthday, we went out to a hole in the wall joint to enjoy a classic American meal of a burger, fries, and a coke. So good!

   

After dinner we found a nice friend outside of our house :)

In other news, we're still working hard to get the Gitega International Academy up and running. Classes start on September 24, so it's crunch time. Work in Africa moves more slowly than I'm used to, but we believe that everything will come together by the time the school starts next month. Check out this video that I made, which shows the building process at the academy.

In my free time, I still enjoy teaching kids at the beach how to play lacrosse. They have some serious natural skills!