Christmas and my heavy heart

12. 25. 09



Christmas: If it were possible to smile for an entire day, I probably would have come close on Christmas day.



Christmas Eve was spent at home, learning how to make American Christmas decorations including paper snowflakes, paper chains, and popcorn strands. The electricity flickered continuously between dim and none but that didn’t halter our fun. After staying up late watching TV, we got up at 4:30am Christmas morning to prepare for the coming day of baptisms and celebration. Everyone joyfully got ready and then we loaded the kids 2 by 2 onto bicycles and sped off through the dirt roads to the church. Their laughter could be heard all along the road that morning.





The baptism was a time of great celebration and joy. The onlookers surrounded the pool where the nearly 150 Rwandans were baptized, their joyful singing ringing through the church, while a plethora of “Hallelujuahs” added to the beautiful noise.
Afterwards, we rented a bus and headed to town. The boys sang at the top of their lungs and beat on the sides of the bus the entire 45 minute ride to town. As we neared, we found out that 4 of the boys had never been to Kigali before and they were wide eyed as we pulled in. Christmas afternoon was spent walking around, hand in hand, looking at the town and eating small candies.




Our final destination was Josiane’s house where the boys filled the small living room and thoroughly enjoyed a feast of roasted goat, rice, peas, French fries and soda. While we let the feeling of being stuffed linger in our bellies, we went around giving testimonies of gratefulness for how our lives have changed.



I couldn’t have asked for a better Christmas gift than to celebrate the boy’s baptism with them.


12. 28. 09

My heart is heavy tonight with many things I saw or talked about today – the abandoned building that I was instantaneously drawn to today in Kabuga that the street boys live in, my mind’s image of hundreds of children starving and naked in prison, the children of the villages who have literally nothing, and the Rwandan churches abundant hesitancy to care for the poor around her with action. My heart is sad for our world.

This morning I was walking to church in Kabuga and passed by an old, crumbling, seemingly abandoned building. As I continued walking past it, I saw that there was tattered clothing draped over the entrances of 2 small rooms where trash, dirt and mounds of dirty clothing covered the floor. It dawned on me then that someone might actually live there and I was instantaneously drawn to the place, filled with a sorrowful curiosity to know the story of those who slept there and to become friends with them. I found out later from Tonto that the crumbling building is where the street children sleep – I should have guessed. My prayer is for an open door to go back there and make friends with these kids who live in a place I will never be able to come to grips with.

Oh, my heart hurts just thinking about all this. Meanwhile churches spend thousands of dollars buying new carpet and better sounding instruments when each day 30,000 CHILDREN in our world take their last breathe because they don’t have enough to eat. These are real children, with real faces and they’ve become my friends. They have precious little fingernails, twinkling eyes, unique stories, hopes, and fears. The Christians of the early church said that if a child starves while a Christian has extra food, then the Christian is guilty of murder. Basil the Great said, “When someone strips a man of his clothes, we call him a thief. And one who might clothe the naked and does not – should he not be given the same name? The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry; the coat in your wardrobe belongs to the naked; the shoes you let rot belong to the barefoot; the money in your vaults belongs to the destitute.”

Today I talked with Tonto and Mama Sissy about tithing and money as she was having a difficult time with her church who is frustrated with her that she tithes by giving her money to Hope For Life instead of the church. She said they’re starting to talk bad and this grieves me greatly. We continued talking and Tonto said that he refuses to give his money to the church because they don’t take care of the poor with it. How can he give them his money to improve the church building when there are children, the real church, in his neighborhood who are literally starving?

Within me, I feel rage, deep sadness, but also the ever close presence of greed in my own life tempting me to spend my money and thoughts on wanting nicer clothes or a new pair of shoes when I already have more than enough. Why should I be afforded such luxuries when the vast majority of our world, of flesh that is the same as yours and mine, only dream of such things?

I asked Josiane if she was going to visit Pascal in prison tonight, and it started a conversation about life for the children in jail. I closed my eyes as my insides cringed hearing the reality of it – hundreds of children naked or close to it, crying out to anyone who passes for food and to get them out, sleeping on the dirt floor. They are surrounded by grown men who are imprisoned for crimes of theft and murder, meanwhile their crime is living on the street and stealing food in order to survive because their parents and their society has failed to provide for them. How is their plight not our responsibility? How can we live in such abundant, luxurious excess while CHILDREN all over the world are suffering more than we could ever imagine for ourselves? I can’t wrap my head around it at all. And I hope that I never will be able to make sense of it. It never should.

Meanwhile, police also reserve the right to arrest citizens who wear plastic flip flops and mothers who sell fruit on the streets with their crying babies strapped to their backs under the hot, blazing sun. Since when did punishing people for being trapped in a system of poverty and oppression become a viable solution?

People of the world, arise, your brothers and sisters are crying out for you.

Church, how I fear your future if you don’t open your eyes and your hands to the needs of our world (Matthew 25: 31-46).

Love and hope,
Megan