Communion in Rwanda!

We came back from Nyagatare on Saturday. Overall, it was a good few days. I have to say, I know more than I care to know about birth control now ... :)

One of my regrets for the weekend, though, was that I never sat in on the actual pastor’s training sessions. I have an idea what they were like based on the question-and-answer time we observed, but would have liked to see the actual pastor training in action. Friday night was the pastor’s “graduation.” Each time the pastors’ complete one of these trainings, they are given a certificate and sometimes a gift – this time it was a shirt and tie for the men, a katonge (wrap/skirt) for the women. A certificate is a big deal to them! They told us a story about one the of men, Innocent, who had completed a training session got pulled over by the police who were checking for proper papers from taxi/bus drivers. Innocent doesn’t have a Rwandan driver’s license (he’s from Burundi, I think) so he had no identification. He told the police he was employed with ITeams, they wanted proof, so he went home and got the certificate. Because it had his name on it with an official ITeams logo/seal, he was given no trouble!

Anyway, at the graduation ceremony, after they were given the certificate, we had communion. In preparation for actually receiving communion, we sang a couple songs. Not long after the singing began, I began to hear weeping. It was even more powerful to hear the weeping during the silence while we all ate and drank the bread and cup together. Put yourself there for a moment. Think about the silence and the sounds. And it wasn’t just a wimper here and there, it was weeping! It was a beautiful sound. One that I’ve never heard … and because of that, I was taken aback. Shouldn’t that be a sound we hear and make all the time during communion? When we think about the meaning behind it, the sacrifice that was made for us and the love surrounding it, shouldn’t it overwhelm us and bring us to tears?