My first "holiday"

This weekend we went to Bujumbura, Burundi to get away. Really, it was because we needed to leave the country in order to renew our visas. When you enter Rwanda, they issue you a free visa for 3 months and you either have to leave and come back or you can write and request a new visa. We chose the former of the two options!

So, Burundi is beautiful! We were near Lake Tanganyka ... went to the beach a couple times. Its beautiful! I think I might like it better than the ocean b/c of all the mountains on the other side and looking at the clouds on and in the mountains. In one direction you could look at some of the city of Bujumbura (capital city where we were) and in the other direction, you were looking at the mountains of the Congo! Stayed in the city (wish we could have stayed ON the beach, but it was more expensive) ... its a small city compared to Kigali and Kigali is a lot more developed. But Bujumbura had a nice feel to it. I could live there longer, but the French would be a problem. It’s a lot more common than in Kigali.

One of the ladies at our church (her husband works with ITeams) is from Burundi and has family there. So her sister showed us around the whole time. We ate at little restaurants in the town ... one day we ate lunch on a hill overlooking the city. It was actually in the "red zone" ... a place that used to be off limits because it was dangerous from the war, a lot of conflicts happened there between the rebel forces. Rwanda has all the attention in media about the genocide, but there’s been ongoing conflicts between Tutsis and Hutus in Burundi for years. Its interesting how many NGO’s you see in Kigali and hardly any in Burundi. Anyway, we broke so many cultural rules that day!! People don’t eat outside (we found out soon why – b/c you’re eating in front of people that might walk by and not have food), women don’t eat in public (now its not so bad, but in the “old days” you never saw the woman eating with everyone), eating and being on that mountain in the red zone.

We went to the top of a mountain one day to an old university that has been abandoned from the war and is now unofficially used as a community center – kids play soccer there, people exercise, play basketball, it’s a hotbed of activity! It also looks over the city of Bujumbura and it is absolutely beautiful!! It feels like the clouds are so close, too. One night (and for lunch the next day when we went back) we ate at a restaurant on the beach. Food is pretty similar ... nothing fancy. Usually they have burgers and sandwiches (but not great quality) at restaurants as well as traditional food (rice and beans and ‘fries’.)

All in all, it was a good trip, but I'm glad to be "home" in Kigali.

Traumatized by the Genocide

Not a lot of "processing" in this one, but i want to share our house-visiting this week. It was pretty impactful to me.

This week we kind of focused on people particularly affected by the genocide, considering how we’re still a pretty heavy time of the mourning season in April. At the first house, we found a lady who’s father sent his children away to Butare when the genocide began while he stayed behind in Kigali. She married and had a baby, but Butare turned out to be no safer than Kigali … her husband and baby were killed; she’s 32, so she must have been like 17 when the genocide occurred. Her father was killed in Kigali genocide (I think other family as well … the only survivors were half-siblings). Then, she “took” a husband during genocide – it was a forced marriage and she was raped. She started getting sick in ’03 and found out she had HIV in ’04 (from genocide). Her stepmother at first wouldn’t let her live in father’s house and continues to “encourage” her to sell the property, but its all she has left of her family. She’s been in mourning big time these last few weeks – she calls it “traumatized.” I SO wanted to get up and go comfort her as she cried, but I didn’t know if it was culturally appropriate! Another girl lives with her – they met 4 months ago at the hospital, and she invited this girl to live with her b/c she was alone. This girl was one of a whole group of people who where taken to a house during the genocide and it was set on fire … she was like one of two survivors so she has serious burns on the right side of her body and is looking at having surgery done in Uganda. Its hard for her to move her body b/c its burned together; she was hidden by a muzungu and that’s how she lived. She might have been like 4 or 5 years old. I think her parents must have not been with her cause she talked about finally finding them and they had been killed when she did – I think. It all is running together. She was in school but traumatized and when she remembers things, it causes her classmates to remember, so she was asked to leave school and get “treatment.”

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.

* * * *

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.

* * * * *
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.

* * * * *

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.

Trouble at Moureen's - Intercessors needed!!

A large part of our time here is spent helping/teaching kids at Moureen's place - aka "Women in Action." Just a few days ago, we learned a lot of these kids lives are potentially going to be turned upside down in a couple weeks. A large number of them live on a property managed by a lady named Moureen, who is also the pastor of a church that meets there as well and in charge of Women in Action - the association for former prostitutes and their children.

Last week, Moureen received a letter from the owner (who mysteriously disappeared after the genocide and is now living in Belgium) saying everyone had to vacate the property by the end of the month, with no explanation as to why. It is very difficult for even just one person to find new housing in Kigali, so you can imagine how daunting it is to think about 30 people being displaced! And this is where I spend half my time working! So, needless to say, we’re all pretty stunned and don’t know what to think or what we’ll do in the near future if this all does play out as expected. PLEASE PRAY FOR THIS SITUATION!! Pray for guidance for Moureen and the other leaders of ITeams, pray for provision of the families being displaced, and pray for a change of heart or circumstances of this owner. And ask your friends to pray!

Genocide Commemoration Week

This month has been pretty quiet around Kigali. April is a time of mourning for Rwanda in that it was in the month of April that the genocide occurred, this year marks the 15th anniversary. In order to “help” people remember what happened and make sure it doesn’t happen again, you will find numerous memorials held around the country all month, radio shows with testimony, tv programs and music videos commemorating the genocide, and nightly prayer vigils. The city is covered in purple – the official mourning color of Rwanda for this time. Last week was the official mourning/commemoration week so most of our activities and ministries were cancelled and even today at Ubuzima (HIV group) the attendance was low because many are still observing the mourning or visiting relatives and/or graves. On Tuesday (April 7), life basically stopped in Kigali–stores were closed, transportation was slim, and hardly anyone could be found in a city where the sidewalks are normally jam-packed with people. April 7th is the day after the president’s plane was shot down, marking the beginning of the genocide (although, I don’t know that you’d officially call it the beginning – the killing had already started in many villages outside Kigali as the Interhamwe were planning the mass murders that would soon take place). The other interns and I wanted to attend the national memorial service, held in Kigali this year, but we were advised not to go alone. But how do you ask someone to come along and translate that kind of stuff? Especially when most of the people we work with were so closely affected by genocide. So instead, we stayed at home and watched what we could on TV, the parts that were in English. Most of the commemoration events and programs are in Kinyarwanda so we’re still pretty sheltered from everything.

Hopefully more later ...

Am I Serving God, or is God serving me?

I’ve now crossed my half-way mark of the time I will spend in Rwanda! It some ways it feels like I’ve been here for longer, other ways it feels like I just got here. I think I’m finally settled now and have been able to focus more on why I’m here and doing the things I’m doing, rather than trying make myself comfortable. But you know, it never really should have been about me ... its about God and the people who are here. I’m not here for me – I’m here for them.

Last week I was reading 1 Corinthians, I think it was verse 7 or 8. It was The Message translation, so you never know what the specific verses are. But I love this translation of it ... its something I would never think about from the more traditional translations like NIV, RSV, etc. "We must never try to get Christ to serve us instead of us serving him." A lot of my prayers since I’ve been here have been things like: "Help me find my place; Make me comfortable; bring me relationships; I want to do this and not that." Hear a theme? Me. Now, I know that those prayers are okay – there is no prayer that is wrong – but I think lately I’ve been focused on what I can get out of this experience, rather than what God wants me to do. I know that I need to remember to focus on the fact that I’m serving and not here to get my own needs met or find what makes me happy.

UPDATING

So, its been awhile since my last post ... I've got lots of stuff to write and update you on, so bear with me ... its coming.

If you are on my email update list, some of the first few blogs will be repeats, since I included them in my email.

Thanks for reading!
(4/22/09)