8.2 - Final Entry in Rwanda

This is our final entry from Rwanda.  It’s not so much a post for you as it is for us.  Our trip has been amazing and we’ve been well fed, but we’ve eaten the same thing at almost every meal since we’ve been here: eggs & toast with butter and jam for breakfast and some kind of meat with red sauce over rice, a vegetable and french fries for lunch and dinner – all of it topped off by wonderful fruits.  It’s been very good, but it’s been the same…EVERY SINGLE DAY.  That’s 12 breakfasts and 24 lunches and dinners with no variety. 

So about three days ago we began talking about what we wanted our first meals to be when we returned.  For any family and friends who are reading this and would like to know how to love your traveler well once they return, here’s a few hints:

Teresa Kincaid: Pizza & dark chocolate

Jennifer Kromhout: Mike’s steak, Alton Brown’s Mac & Cheese, roasted green beens and 12 Ice Cold Diet Cokes

Taylor Waren: Peperoni Pizza & a vanilla cupcake with chocolate icing

Sarah Hughes: Rudinos Royale Pizza

Manning Pruden: Big Buddah pizza (from Lilly’s), side salad & blood orange sorbet (see Beka Dominguez)

Hillary Dotson: Huge salad, “chocolatey” ice cream

Eric Bolash:  Giant salad and frozen pizza

Ford Jordan: Berry Cobbler (made from exotic NW berries that I can’t eat in NC) with a side of vanilla ice cream topped with amaretto 

Off to the airport in 2 hours.  Please pray for our travels.  We’ll see you soon!

Tuesday, July 31st

Tuesday – Visit to Lake Kivu. To the West  near Kibuye

Muraho (Hello) Friends!!! It has been almost two weeks since my hands have touched a computer. It has been an incredible freedom for me, but I am so glad to break my fast to tell you of our journey of fun and relaxation to Lake Kivu on Tuesday. It was a dream. This is quite possibly one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. If you have never seen a picture of Lake Kivu do yourself a favor and visit Google Images . . . right now. Ok, now that you have seen it . . . can you believe we got to be there!!!!???

We settled in at a beautiful grassy place where we took in the sun, rest, and fellowship. We kept saying that it felt like being in Monet’s Picnic on the Grass. Of course we had to go for a swim. Ford was the only one who had a bathing suit (which Eric later borrowed – don’t worry we have pictures) so Taylor, Hillary, and I made due with what we had. I swam in my pajamas – an experience I recommend for all. The water was crisp and clear and parasite free (or at least as far as we can tell). It was marvelous.  Before leaving we feasted on grilled cheese and pineapple sandwiches.  A large part of what made our visit to Lake Kivu so wonderful was being blessed with the company of Reverend Prosper. I wish you could all meet him. He is a delight and full of joy. His joy is clearly from the Lord and contagious. He has requested that we teach him to swim next time we come – I can’t wait!

The 2 hour van ride there and back was not wasted – it was full of seeing the beautiful countryside and enjoying our friendships. It was a great day of enjoying God’s beautiful creation – both on the earth and in each other. “It is by faith that we understand that the universe was created by God’s Word so that what can be seen was made out of what cannot be seen.” Hebrews 11:3

Murote Imana! (Dream of God)

Sarah

Monday, July 30th

As I write this entry, it is difficult to wrap my mind around the tragedy of the Genocide in Rwanda, which began in 1959.  Before coming to Rwanda, I read 5 or 6 books, watched several documentaries and movies to prepare for this journey and what I may see at a Genocide Memorial.  It was important for me to come with a heart of love, respect and compassion to honor our brothers and sisters in Rwanda.  Daily for the past couple of years, I have prayed for spiritual healing of their deep inner and physical wounds.  However, all of this did not prepare me for the journey I embarked on as I walked into the Genocide Memorial in Kigali.  The first area is a water fountain which has a Flame of Remembrance, which burns each year during their 100 days of Remembrance.  As we walked down to the 3 levels of mass graves, my breath was taken away by a wave of unbelievable grief.  We walked quietly and prayerfully around each level praying for the victims, their families and those who committed these horrendous crimes.   Then we walked inside to learn the history of Rwanda leading up to the Genocide.  During this time as we listened to stories and saw pictures of the victims which families had donated of their loved ones, including the sweet little children, I was thinking these horrible killings have happened where we have been walking each day and to the people we are meeting each day.  Everyone we have met has been affected by the Genocide in some way.  It became difficult to breathe due to the huge knot in my throat.  My heart was overcome with deep sadness, grief, anger and love for my brothers and sisters in Rwanda, especially those of Gikomero and the Shyogwe Diocese, whom we have spent so much time with.  Even as I was overcome with these emotions, I was filled with a hope for reconciliation and unity. 

Rev. Prosper from Shyogwe Diocese was our guide for the day.  As we returned to Gitarama, Prosper shared personally in regard to the Genocide.  He said that he doesn’t like to talk about the Genocide, but would share a few things with us because of the close relationship we are building.  It was a privilege to listen as he shared his heart with us about his family. Prosper lost 7 members of his family.  He and four others were saved due to a Christian hiding them in his house. He said that more people would have been saved if the Church had lived out the Gospel during the Genocide.  There are too many stories where people were killed in churches by their Pastors which has caused a great deal of mistrust and has damaged the witness of the church.  Rev. Prosper shared that faith and trust in God and in the church is being restored.  He said the people no longer identify themselves as Hutus, Tutsi or Tway, but as Rwandans!  Their hope is in unifying the people of Rwanda through the Gospel.  As Christians help Christians through the ministry of reconciliation and bring others to Christ the Genocide will not happen ever again!  This is the hope that Pastor Prosper has in his heart.

As I bring this entry to a close, Hebrews 13:5-6 is on my heart. God has said:

“Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”  So we say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid, what can man do to me?”

 These past couple of weeks as we have spent time in worship and fellowship with our new friends in Christ and today with Rev. Prosper, I have witnessed the Almighty power of God the Father, Jesus our Savior and the Holy Spirit’s victory over evil!  God is faithful to His promises! 

Please pray for the work of Shyogwe Diocese in their Ministry of Reconciliation.

Yesu ishimwe! (Jesus be praised)

Teresa

Sunday, July 29th

Muraho everyone!! This is Jennifer coming to you from Gitarama, Rwanda. As you may know from reading the previous entries I am writing today to tell you about our day on Sunday. Before I do that I want to say that this trip started out very difficult for me and for about the first four days all I really wanted to do was go home. I remember the first time Ford asked for a volunteer to write for the blog all I could think was that I would never write anything because I felt so miserable. Looking back now I know I was suffering from sleep depravation, culture shock and on top of that I was the last one to receive my personal luggage from the airline. Having that little bit of home with me went a long way toward improving my outlook and catching up on some sleep helped a lot too. As we were driving to Lake Kivu this morning (more from someone else on that later) I just knew I wanted to write about Sunday. It was a special day for all of us and I thought I could do a good job writing up the days experience for the blog. So here I go.

We were up early and headed out to Gikomero. We brought gifts with us as this would be the last day we would be spending any time in this village with members of our sister church. We were all a little sad as we had come to enjoy our time with the people of our village. It was easier this time as this was our second Sunday in this church and we knew more about what to expect during the service. And what a wonderful, spirit filled service it was. Starting off with the entire church singing and a group of teenagers & children dancing in the center of everyone. We processed in and took our very special seats up front facing everyone, behind the Lord’s table. Once again all of the children, as well as the ladies of the church, had huge eyes and big smiles to greet us and many were much less cautious with us. Makes me wonder if they’ll miss us next Sunday and wonder where we are. But I digress. We sang Amazing Grace for everyone as this was a familiar song to anyone who had sat in on our lessons since we sang it there too. There were two baptisms that Ford performed. Two beautiful little girls were welcomed into the body of Christ. Ford did great and neither baby cried. Eric gave a wonderful sermon on Mark 9:18-26 and they had communion for the confirmed members of the church using the wafers that we had brought for them. After the sermon we got up and sang On Jordan’s Stormy Banks I Stand for everyone and soon the service was over.

It was now time for us to present our gifts to the congregation and Etienne & Felicima but first the congregation presented their gift to us. I happened to be sitting next to Ford and whispered to him, in jest, that they were probably going to present us with a goat. (Back story; I believe someone else has written about our adoration of the goats that just stand around on the side of the road. We ladies have ooed and ahhed all over them.) At that point Vianne (pronounced Vi-ah-nay), who seems to be one of Etienne’s right hand men came up the aisle through the congregation with…. A SHEEP!!!!!!! We could NOT believe it and I jumped up immediately with my camera to get some shots of the sheep. Etienne then presented the goat to Ford who immediately named it COTA. Now… WHAT were we going to DO with this gift??? Did they really want us to take it?? Did it have a passport?? More about that later. The gift giving continued with Eric presenting the guitar he had brought to the congregation and let me tell you they were SO excited about this! Sarah was standing next to Eric holding the guitar and before Eric even started speaking a woman let out an excited screech and another one started to cry.  What a generous gift Eric offered and it was wonderful to see the excitement on everyone’s faces. We also presented the congregation with our team verse (Isaiah 55:11-12) that Erin Solomon had painted on a canvas for us.

There were other smaller gifts presented to us. It may have been mentioned in earlier posts that Hillary had found a sweet friend in little Phoibe (pronounced Foy- be) and was given a sweet card that expressed Phoibe’s love for Hillary. Hillary also received a very kind and thoughtful note from a young man we all recognized as exceptional named John Baptiste. It might just be me but I sensed a little crush in the air. J (I got permission from Hillary to write this.) People in the village and even here have been referring to Teresa as Mama which in this culture means grandmother and she was presented with a card expressing thankfulness for her concern & helpfulness to the church & village. Felicima presented all of the ladies with a gift of passion fruit and then I was given a present from the head of the mother’s union at the church. She gave me a picture of her youngest son Timothy from when he was two years old because they had all noticed my love for children. I have to say I so very touched by this and gave a huge wave to everyone. At this point, as they were wrapping up the gift giving, I had the urge to speak and asked Ford if I could say something. I explained in as few words as possible how the trip had been difficult for me, how I had never been this far away from home and how all of the love & joy they had showered on all of us had helped me so much in feeling better. I had not planned on doing this but I felt the prompting of the Holy Spirit to convey to everyone how much their love had meant to me.

After the service we were led immediately to the health center where two avocado trees were planted – the first one was a tree planted by Apostles and the civic representatives who had come to greet us (a lady who served as executive manager for the area and a gentleman who was in charge of development) and the second was planted by Apostles and the Gikomero Parish.  The trees will take about 3 – 5 years before bearing fruit, but future Apostles teams should make sure to enjoy! 

After tree planting we went into Pastor Etienne’s house and had lunch. This has become as very familiar thing as we have shared many meals this week with quite a few of the same people. After lunch Ford was able to use some very good advice Venant had given him about the sheep and asked Etienne if he could find a family to take care of the sheep for us in the hopes it would be helpful to them.  The first offspring of the sheep would be ours, any subsequent offspring wil belong to the family caring for it.  This seemed to be accepted and we all hope that COTA can be a blessing to a family from our village. Then one of the senior leaders of the church presented Ford with a document detailing the different ministries in the church and their progress as well as the progress on the new church building including a cad drawing of the front & back elevations of the church building.

It was soon time to say goodbye to our sweet friends and this precious village. I think we all couldn’t believe this would be the last time we’d see these people and were all sad especially Hillary as she had to say goodbye to sweet Phoibe. We all pray that this little girl maintains the light of love she has and that her relationship with Christ deepens as she matures.

On the drive home we all realized that the church service had been four and a half hours and suddenly we were all drained from the joy & excitement of this special day. Each of us took some time that afternoon to rest, journal or read and we had a wonderful dinner together. (One of the many we’ve had since being here.) After that it was time to visit with one another and just to make the day end on a fun note Taylor decided to let Hillary trim her hair a bit. Once that was finished it was lights out for everyone as we prepared to start our second week here in Rwanda.

I hope this entry has painted a joyful picture for you as I have come to feel in this place. We have all talked about how hard it will be for us to put into words the beauty of this place. I know we are all thankful we came and I can honestly say I certainly am. We’ll see if the Lord ever calls me to do this again but I know now that He will provide me with what I need. Maybe not what I want but what I need.

Praise God for his creation, love & mercy!

Love,

Jennifer

7.28 - Blushing in Rwanda

This was without a doubt the best day yet.  We woke up early in order to arrive at Gikomero around 8am.  On this Saturday we were going to participate with our sister church in a training put on by the Mother’s Union that was intended for husbands and wives.  At this point in our trip, most of ‘purpose’ for coming was over (Eric would still preach at the service on Sunday and we have many cultural experiences ahead of us, but the English teaching and the pastoral teaching was behind us) and so it felt like the pressure was off a bit.  We were all excited to spend more time in Gikomero and to continue to deepen our relational connections.

Not knowing exactly what to expect, we arrived at the new school house in Gikomero (which was built by the Government in the past year because of their new initiative called Basic 9 (I think) which is meant to have every child complete at least 9 years of basic education).  We arrived into a room of about 15 men, 30 married women and 10 single women.  As usual we were ushered to the front of the room and seated in chairs facing the crowd.  After introductions, our seminar began with some teaching in the scriptures from Pastor Charlotte out of Galatians 6:7-10 and some ‘Family Planning’ (Birth Control) encouragement by one of the Mother’s Union workers, we were split into 2 groups (boy and girls) to answer 5 questions.  The questions were:

1.     What problems do you have with your wives/husbands and family? 

2.     What are the obstacles you face in taking care of your wives and children?

3.     What is the role of the husband in keeping harmony in the home?

4.     What is the role of your wife for bringing harmony?

5.     Do you think Family Planning is a good idea?

We were sent off in separate groups to answer these questions and we were all fascinated to hear their answers and get a clearer picture into the lives of our Rwandan brothers and sisters. 

Their answers blew us away.  I was expecting answers about how the cows caused a problem at home when they wouldn’t milk or how the untethered goat caused an argument when he got away again…  I’m not sure why I expected such different answers…when we look at one another and when I see they way these people live, their lives seem like they are so different from ours – it seems at first glance like we have very little in common.  That couldn’t be further from the truth.  Rather than hearing stories about a life that sounded different from mine, if I had closed my eyes and heard them speaking in English, it could have easily been my own Community Group from Apostles talking.  I was amazed to hear that the problems they face are the exact types of things that we struggle with in our marriages and families here in the US.  Below is a brief summary of the men’s side of this conversation:

1.     What problems do you have with your wives/husbands and family? 

a.     We have different personalities and that can cause misunderstanding

b.     I can lose patience if my wife has a friendship with another man

c.      If my wife cannot complete her daily work, it can cause tension

d.     If my wife does not listen to what I say

e.     When my wife asks for things that we cannot afford

2.     What are the obstacles you face in taking care of your wives and children?

a.     Children don’t listen and pay respect to their parents (or if they show more respect to their mother rather than their father)

b.     Dads do not have enough time to spend with their children

c.      Children ask for things that the family cannot afford

d.     If parents are not agreeing and getting along well, children will not behave

3.     What is the role of the husband in keeping harmony in the home?

a.     Providing food for our family is our role and doing so brings peace

b.     Praying for our families and showing them love

                                                  i.     If we do this, we will be a good father

4.     What is the role of your wife for bringing harmony?

a.     To have good management over the house

b.     Cooking

c.      Taking care of the kids

5.     Do you think Family Planning is a good idea?

a.     Everyone agreed that Family Planning was a good idea, but I got the sense that they said so because they know it is the right answer.  There seems to be a great deal of confusion over what Family Planning actually means and why they are supposed to do it.  The push from the Mother’s Union on this is because many families are so large that they cannot take care of their children.  They encourage children, but only as many as can be well cared for.

Any of that sound familiar from your home???

After our discussions in separate groups, we gathered back together only to discover that the women had experienced the very same thing in their groups.  The Rwanda mothers described to a T the relational struggles that wives and mothers face in their homes in America.  It was just another reminder to me that despite all of the apparent differences in our lives, we’re really very similar.  We all have the same sin, we all face the same relational struggles and brokenness, and we all need the same savior to come and help us love one another well.   There was a great time of teaching out of Ephesians 5 on wives submitting to and respecting their husbands as they do the Lord and on husbands loving their wives as Christ loves the church.

…And then the real fireworks began…

Out of the blue we were directed to turn to 1 Corinthians 7 and for the next 30-40 minutes we received a very detailed discussion on the birds and the bees and on our responsibilities to one another as husbands and wives in this area.  The lady speaking had an incredible gift to be VERY clear about what she was saying without using any descriptive language.  Either that, or our translator was sparing us some of the embarrassment.  It was amazing and awkward and hilarious and helpful all at the same time.  Needless to say, it was going to be a good time in Gikomero that night and we will have several more children to baptize next year…

After lunch Eric gave a very helpful teaching to clear up some misunderstanding about the concept of Family Planning.  Many of the men knew that the scriptures said to be fruitful, increase in number and fill the earth.  They wondered why they should have less children if God had given that instruction.  Off the cuff Eric spoke thoughtfully on the fact that God not only commanded us to be fruitful but also our responsibility to subdue and rule over.  We are to multiply, but we are called to do it in an orderly, manageable way.  We are to do it in a manner in which we can care for the children we produce. 

At the end of our time together, an older man and woman who had been together for some time but had not been married yet stood up and gave a testimony that because of the time in this seminar, they had decided to get married.  It was a great moment of joy and celebration.  Much praise was given to God.

For many of us, despite a few incredibly awkward moments, this was our best day yet. 

Friday, July 27th

This morning, Eric and I led a seminar for pastors and catechists (lay leaders) in the Gohogo Parish (not far from where we are staying).  There were 5 or 6 ordained clergy present along with twenty some catechists.  We led them in a training on Bible Study Methods; teaching them the three part method of Observation (What does the text say?), Interpretation (What does the text mean?) and Application (What does it mean to me?).  We had a very interactive discussion and practice session working through this method on Luke 11:1-13. 

After our session, an American couple from Colorado arrived and led a training for the pastors on how to build a ‘rocket stove’ – a cheap, efficient wood burning stove that can be built with only a handful of bricks and would save families a great deal of money each month in gas or wood expenses for their cooking. 

We spent the afternoon visiting the Rwandan Ancient History Museum.  We saw replicas of the grass huts that the Rwandan’s use to live in (The King’s Hut, the Milk Hut and the Beer Hut).  We saw some of the most incredible cows I’ve ever seen (with horns that would put our longhorn cows to shame).  After a few of our team members (who will remain nameless) allowed themselves to be bathed by the cows tongue, we visited the ‘mansion’ built in the 1930’s for the first King of Rwanda who didn’t live in a hut.  It was a fun outing and was nice to see some of the history of this beautiful country.