I love Rwanda, her joy & her pain

(the first picture is Auntie & Pastor Beatrice on our adventure to South Rwanda, and the 2nd picture is me with a little boy while we were taking a break from English class)

Hilliary and I have been SO busy! Besides teaching English, we’ve been traveling, visiting friends of Pastor, hanging out around Kigali with some of our new friends, and going to a crusade that’s in town this week.

The weather here has been a bit crazy also as it’s been stormy. We loved experiencing our first African rain shower though and went out in the driveway to dance in it.. they thought we were so strange!

We also have had a few opportunities to get out of Kimironko (the area we live in) and see the rest of Kigali and Rwanda. On Sunday, we took a 4 hour bus ride to Butare, the second biggest city in Rwanda to visit Pastor Beatrice’s eldest daughter, Lilian who is there studying. Apparently, we were really close to the Burundi border. On the way there and back, I looked out the window the entire time, lost in thought and in the sights of the Rwandan countryside. So far, I am loving Africa immensely. Time is going by so quickly and I feel that I could easily spend at least a year here. I am loving Africa and her sights, her taste, the smell of her air, the song of praise that exudes vibrantly from the lips of her people, the colors, the simplicity… yet at the same time I am soaking in the pain and the tears, the smells that rise from the sewer and from the water, the sound of despair and pain, the sight of sadness at not being able to provide for your children… it’s all part of Rwanda and I cannot help but love this place and these people.

In talking about the genocide, Pastor Bea told me a little more about her story the other night during the rainstorm. Sadly, her father was stoned to death during the genocide, and her husband was shot after paying the interhamwe (rebels) to shoot him instead of chop him to death with a machete. This left behind Bea with 3 children under the age of 4 to take care of. She said she saw babies ripped out of pregnant women, women raped and tortured sexually, while blood ran down the streets of Rwanda’s hills.. it’s hard to imagine that all this could have happened here. We’re going to the genocide memorial next week..

I’ve also been seeing a lot of crippled and deformed people—especially children. There are many kids whose legs are crippled underneath them and they crawl along the crowded dirt roads using their arms to hold them up. Some of them can’t be more than 10 years old. I cannot imagine how insanely difficult, painful and disturbing it must be to live this way. How are these young children (some with cerebral palsy, spinal bifida, and malnutrition) left completely alone to fend for themselves on the bustling streets of Kigali? Who cares for the least and most vulnerable of society when even the healthy have a difficult time caring for themselves? They go along day to day crawling not more than 12 inches from the dirt, begging with their crippled legs crunched beneath them. Where is their hope in this life? I can’t help but wonder the question aloud. And yet this is only one place in the vast world filled with so much pain… how can God stand it, I wonder? To be able to hear the cries of all the billions of people on earth all at once.. I can’t begin to fathom or understand, yet I also know that I cannot stop God’s praise from flowing from my lips. My soul groans with the painful sights my young eyes have seen, yet because of Jesus, hope will also never leaves my peripheral vision.

The past two days we’ve been going to a part of town called Yamirambo to attend a crusade that’s in town from Muzungu (white) pastors. It was so much fun last night. We stood under the crystal clear stars with two of our new friends from Patmos Church, dancing and singing amidst hundreds of Rwandans in the middle of a soccer field. It was like a huge dance/priase party in the middle of Africa and I loved it! It was also interesting to compare preaching topics and style from white pastors to the preaching from Rwandan pastors.  

Thursday, we’re going to visit the doctor we met at the hospital when we went to help the sick man we found in the road. I am thoroughly looking forward to discussing the psychological state of Rwanda, obstacles that stand in the way to getting medicine and services to the most poor and vulnerable, and how he got to where he is today. I’m SO excited!

prayer requests:

-opportunities for us to serve & help in sustainable ways

-that God would continue to bring wholeness to Rwanda, including the economy