Easter, Beauty, Blessings

This is an entry with lots of misc things. Its probably not as detailed as I'd like ... hopefully I'll expand it later.

Easter was hard this year - didn't feel like Easter at all. They don't really celebrate it here, which blows me away. But it also doesn't help that April is the month of mourning from the genocide, so celebrations of any kind are not very common and sometimes frowned upon. But our church did make an effort to observe Easter, as least the English service did. We had an Easter message, but that was about all. And on Good Friday, they showed the movie Passion of the Christ. It was the closest I felt to the Easter season. I didn't watch all of it, but I know God spoke to me in the parts I did see. It just hits you a different way when you see that movie. You can put yourself there and it all becomes more real. As I watched Jesus' close friends and mother watching him being beaten, I couldn't help but imagine what it must have been like to see someone you treasure so dearly - your best friend or son - put through that. And then I thought, "well, Emily, but Jesus IS your best friend." But its just easy for me sometimes to think of Jesus as more removed or distant, but he's not. I long to truly love and think of him and see him as my BEST friend and one true lover of my soul.

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At Ubuzima today, Mama Deborah (leader of Ubuzima Ministry/Association) told some of her story. Her father and brother were killed in the genocide and all of one side of her extended family (I think). I don't have the time or space to relate the whole story, and don't know that I remember it all anyway, but I'll just say it was beautiful! I know, I know - how can you say a story like that is beautiful. But it was in the way she told it that was beautiful. And in the fact that Mama Deborah is beautiful herself, inside and outside. She has a glow about her and peacefulness and warmth that radiates from her. I wish I could know her more deeply, she seems like an amazing woman. And with her story of what she went through with the genocide, it just makes me think she is that much more amazing and beautiful. I think there's something special and beautiful that occurs when someone shares their heart, their story, their soul ... they are vulnerable but the fact that they are inviting you in, is just so precious to me. Maybe that's why I saw her as that much more beautiful.

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One of the Rwandans we work with, who accompanies us on house-visits, requests each week for transportation money and there has been a big stink about how much money to give him. Poor guy is so frustrated because he keeps getting the run-around. My heart has been convicted lately that we've been making too big of a deal out of how much money we give him. I mean, after all, its only about the equivalent of $4 ... I've been thinking about and paying attention to how I might use some of my individual ministry money to bless Enoch. Sometimes we forget that even those who work alongside us and minister WITH, don't have it as easy as us and need blessing just as much as those we minister TO.

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We were able to use some of our ministry money to bless one of the ladies we visited a few weeks ago and pay her rent for the next 2 months. Part of our budget each month has a certain amount of money set aside to be used to give away to a need we see in someone's life - to bless them in a special way. This lady was going to be kicked out of her house if she didn't pay, and it had been on our hearts to help her somehow. Unfortunately, paying her rent isn't a long-term solution, but its what we can do now. And we can just hope that it gets her by for now and that in the meantime, God will provide for her in other ways so that the months following she will still have a roof over her head.