Processing...

Many of you have asked me to write a little something more after I've had time to process my thoughts. I have sat down to write before and never come up with anything coherent. So instead of answering questions... let me just make a list of things I came home thinking about.

1. I don't like flying in and out as the Mzungu savior. Don't like feeling like the superstar because I'm American. That feels empty.
2. Filling spiritual needs goes even farther than physical needs. (But both are essential.)
3. There are a lot of Christians out there with a lot of money and some of them are using it in amazing ways.
4. There are some really needy people in Rwanda, and there are people in even worse situations in neighboring countries.
5. There is some amazing rebuilding and growth happening in Rwanda, too.
6. I love meeting new people and accomplishing tasks with a team.
7. I sometimes judge people unfairly.
8. I prefer to get to know people with conversations... which makes the language barrier a problem.
9. Hearing stories of real people is good. But hearing them as part of a 'tour' feels exploitative.
10. I don't know the middle ground between giving money and helping people help themselves.
11. People genuinely are encouraged when someone comes that far just to hear their story and say that they care. Even when it feels too simple for me.

There's more in my head (and heart)... but none of it probably adds much more to my list. That was just a brain dump in random order. But if anyone wants to chat more in person... I'm always happy to talk. I'm just happy that I went ahead and did it. Although after the 40+ hours of travel home, I was swearing I would wait at least a few years before I travel overseas again!!

Thanks for 'joining' me on my journey... maybe I'll use this blog again sometime!!
-Amy

Winding down

The festival went well again last night. I worked most of my afternoon at the medical clinic, just escorting patients to the pharmacy and stuff like that. Met a guy originally from Burundi who came to Rwanda a few years back because it is a safer place to live. We had a detailed conversation about church and politics. He was very bright and very deep and it was comforting to see so many capable people here that are working on the future of the country and hoping for Rwanda to be an example to other countries.

Today many of the people on my team weren't feeling well. We suspect something we ate last night was a bit iffy. I'm mostly just light headed and tired at this point... so hopefully by travel time tomorrow, I'll be feeling better. I'm excited that 5 of us from my team are all traveling to Nairobi together... and two of those also are on my same flight to London. We have a long layover in Nairobi, so it will be way more fun with company. There's not a lot to do in that airport!

Unfortunately, my computer is telling me there is NO more room for pictures... so I can't upload my newest pictures. There aren't many more, but Lucy, I took some pictures of Nicole Mullen singing last night... you would have liked her fancy clothes!

Hopefully, as I process all that this week has held, I will be able to add a little bit more insight to the blog... but thanks to all of you who have been interested and reading!!

Love,
Amy

Wow!

Well, that was a big day. I don't have to time to write it all down right now, but I did get the pictures uploaded. There aren't a lot more, but I got a great sunset shot during the festival.

The photos include some of the crowds watching the concerts and also some in the medical clinic and the children's sports area. Things are well organized and the people really enjoyed it!! There were about 4 or 5 different music concerts, action sports events and also Andrew spoke. They are expecting even more people tomorrow as word spreads... plus it's Saturday so it will be a day off work.

I came across an article on the Palau website with great photos of the prison festival we did. I didn't have my camera that day, so if you want to see pics, go to http://andrew.palau.org/news/detail/andrew_speaks_to_kigali_prisoners_7.

So, it's time for me to go to sleep and do the whole thing over again tomorrow. It will be an even later night for us tomorrow, so it is unlikely I will have any updates!

Thanks for being interested!
Amy

New muscles!

Well, I did it again... I missed a night. I was completely exhausted last night and just couldn't do it. Yesterday (Wednesday) I woke up at 5:00 and couldn't go back to sleep. By 5:40 there was a slight hint of light and I could hear singing coming from somewhere. So I went down to the outdoor restaurant area and watched the sunrise while listening to voices coming up the hill. Have I mentioned that Rwanda is the "land of 1000 hills"? Kigali seems to have 1000 on it's own. So I never saw where the voices were coming from, but it was fun to have soundtrack for the sunrise.

Our team started the morning at a work site. Africa New Life ministries is working on building homes for genocide survivors. Our job that morning was to help pour concrete floors. I wish I had my own photos to upload of that job.... I will get copies from someone else, but I didn't have my camera down there with me. There was a pile of sand, a pile of concrete and a bucket of water. They mixed up the cement using shovels and making a well in the dry 'ingredients'. When that was mixed, they shoveled the wet cement into 'buckets' which were passed from person to person until we gave it to the guy doing the floor. He poured it over the rock chunks that were already on the floor to create the base. The buckets we used were things like cut off jugs with the pour spout plugged with rags. Most of them had leaks. I told Andy he would have had an aneurism if he were working on that job. Nothing was done the 'right' way... but in the end they had a smooth floor. (They did screed it with a long skinny board... I was happy to see that!) Tonight they are probably sleeping on it!

After that we had lunch and went to the market. Things are actually a bit more expensive here than I had guessed, but I was brave... I haggled on a few things. I brought one guy way down, and then I felt bad. Oh well!!

Last night the women in our group went to a women's dinner. This was a chance for women from all over town to come hear Andrew (and Wendy) speak and to fellowship together. It is a newer thing for churches to work together and so it was very exciting for the organizers to see it happen! The women were all decked and were truly gorgeous!! I enjoyed it, but I was so tired from the day that I just wanted to go to bed!

Okay... on to today. Today we went back to the same site and began the floor process for one of the other units. (It's a 'quad': a four home building.) All the piles of supplies for the construction were up a steep hill from the house. They needed to lay rocks for the start of the floor. So we basically moved a pile rocks from up top to down below. (At least it wasn't down to up!) Again we made a chain of workers and passed rocks down the line to the last person, who got to throw them down to the bottom. That was the fun part... smashing rocks!! Needless to say, my arms have had a work out the last two days. I'm not too sore, though.

After that we attended a lunch where leaders from churches around Africa were gathered for a day of meetings. Next Generation Alliance was sharing it's vision for reaching Africa and explaining the festival process, if they are interested in doing one in their country. I met a man from Nigeria and also a missionary to Burkina Faso. Following that, we had counselor training for the festival with Summit View's very own Chris Webster!

The rest of the day was a break for me. Most of the team went to another dinner like last night, except this one was for business leaders. I decided that I didn't need to hear more people speaking, so a few of us stayed back and a LOT of talking has been going on! :) I also found out that the hotel offers $12 massages!! So I had my first ever massage. Now THAT was a cultural experience. But I have now decided that massage is like a ministry and all churches should offer it!! (Actually, I'm kinda serious... what a blessing to someone. Just like feet washing is an act of service... so is massage!) So, I thought I would blog earlier this evening, but shockingly, I stayed up late at dinner talking.

Tomorrow is the beginning of the Big Event. I believe I will be working for part of the time at a medical clinic, but may also be working with children. Please pray for:

1. Logistics: There have been a lot of complications. Hotels have oversold rooms, the stadium decided to host a basketball tournament, even though they signed a contract with LPA for use of the whole facilities. Not sure if that has been worked out yet. There are also many buses going through the city to bring people. (They don't have other ways to get there.) Just pray for safety for the travelers and just basic timing!!

2. Medical: There are SO many people that have been coming to the clinics already (I haven't had a chance to work there yet, but they have been going on.) that they have had to turn them away. The needs are huge. Some of our group have been there and described a few of the problems they have seen and it is overwhelming. Pray for me to handle whatever comes my way if that is where I am tomorrow. I want to, but I don't want to!

3. Lives changed: The ultimate purpose of the festival is for people to hear the gospel and for lives to be changed. So many lives have already been changed through by the power of Jesus... just seeing the ability forgive here has convinced me of that. The hope of the LPA is that more people would be reached! Pray also that the connections would be made between each person who accepts the gospel and a local church. The process is in place to help that happen... we just need God's grace to make sure it does.

Until tomorrow!
Amy

Hope and Sorrow

Today was another full, amazing, overwhelming day.

The prison mini-festival was our first thing! The brief history I have of this prison is that 5(?) years ago, it was taken over by a new director. They had been beating prisoners and conditions were awful. Now they have a well organized, calm system. About 2000 prisoners, men and women, came outside to hear Andrew speak and see the rest of the stuff we had planned. They wear different color uniforms: Pink means you re still awaiting trial, and orange means you have already been convicted. (or vice-versa, I'm a little confused.) In the end, over 100 inmates came forward after asking Jesus in their hearts. Then it was our job to speak with them, pray for them and hand out literature to help them get started. Talk about overwhelming. The men I prayed with were Alan, Edward, Lucien and Jean Claude. One of them was convicted for selling drugs... I don't know about the others. I never asked any of them, but the one offered that information. The director of the prison is a 32 year old woman... a genocide survivor. She was amazing. She was definitely in control, but once things got going, she really loosened up and smiled, danced with the children (some of the women inmates had children with them), and enjoyed the event. Apparently, she goes into cells if invited and counsels the inmates. Many of the guards in this prison are Christian and they are using their faith to show love to the prisoners. I don't want to make it sounds like it's all happy... but it was very striking how well cared for they were.

From there we went to the reconciliation village. I was wrong in my explanation yesterday about the reconciliation village. The proceedings I described do happen, but this is totally different. The is a village created for survivors and killers to live side by side with the specific purpose of living in forgiveness. There is an Anglican pastor who lives there. He had 6 of his family members killed by a neighbor who had been a close friend of his. After the genocide, he began to see the need to forgive him. They now live together in this village. When I speak of this reconciliation... please understand it doesn't happen overnight. One thing said over and over again today was this: Forgiveness and reconciliation don't happen without the power and love of Jesus. When we understand what he did for us, and how we deserve none of it, then we can find the strength to forgive others.

We had one of the stunt guys, Vic Murphy, with us with his BMX bike. As we walked toward the church in the area, he began to ride and do tricks. Within minutes, he had a following of children surrounding him. It was really way more fun than seeing them in the big arena with the big ramps!! We had a mini church service where they welcomed us and sang for us and Dave Lubbens, who is doing some music for the festival, sang for them. I just love the Rwandan church services!! :)

We were all on such a high after this experience, full of hope for what change is happening here. On the way back, one of our leaders remembered a memorial thre he wanted us to see. It was the site of a massacre inside a church. I believe it was Ntyarima, which I had read about, but it's all a bit confusing to follow where we are sometimes!

(This part is not be kid-friendly... use discretion!) 6,000 people died inside this one building. They had taken refuge there... and were trapped when the militia came. There were so many in there that no one could sit down and some older people died just from the heat before the militia showed up. We walked into the church and it just has clothes heaped on all the benches. It is full of all the clothes they were wearing when they died. The alter cloth appeared dirty and stained to me, but then I was told it was blood. Downstairs, in a little alcove, they had skulls and bones and a coffin of a specific woman who was raped and stuck on a post. There are so many atrocities... but it makes no sense to say anymore. I had read so many before I came. Once you've heard so many, it seems like you can't absorb any more... but to see it real.. that is different. There is just one story I DO want to tell. By chance, we met there a 23 year old man who is one of only 3 survivors of the 10,000 total that were killed there. (4000 more were outside because there was no more room inside.) He showed us the hole in the wall were he stuck his head (a relative forced him to do it so he would look dead, but was killed himself.) The blood was at least a foot deep, but he could breathe in this hole. After the massacre, the interahamwe would occasionally spray pepper into the church and kill anyone that sneezed. He was able to breathe because of the air hole. He was 8 years old. He stayed there a total of 7 days (about 3 just laying there, I believe) before he made it out of the church to a swamp nearby and was eventually rescued by the RPF.

I'm sorry to share this with you... but it was so overwhelming. It was hard to see after we were so full of hope. Tonight as we debriefed, some folks shared that they just needed to not think about the past for a bit. I feel the same way. Tomorrow we are joining a work crew in the morning that is building something. I honestly don't totally know what it is, but I'm sure it will feel good to look toward the future.

Thanks for all your emails and comments. I do read them, but don't have much time to respond. Sorry that sometimes my entries are more just stream of consiousness... but it's still all jumbled up in there and this is how I'm getting it out!! Love you all!!

Two very full days

Wow, so much to tell about in the last two days. Last night just got too late for me to write.

Sunday actually started out with a relaxed morning. After lunch we visited the Genocide memorial. It was a moving experience. Most of the history they gave was not new to me, as I've read a number of books on what happened. But in one section, they had photos of children with data about them like, age (when killed), favorite food, favorite past time, those types of things. And then it would tell how they died. For everyone's sake, I won't go into details.. but to think of each individual instead of the huge numbers killed, was much more difficult, especially considering the ages of my children.

That evening, we went to a local church where Andrew Palau gave the message.
This was the English service, so it was really nice for us to understand all of it. The worship was amazing. The musicians were great and I knew most of the songs. I took a snippet of video and if I can figure out how, I will upload it to the blog (and a few other great ones I got.)

This morning we heading out around 8:30 and went to a church called the Dream Center. They have a ministry to street children and also work with Africa New Life ministries, which is based in Portland (I think). We were supposed to help feed them breakfast, but their water situation has been inconsistent lately and it didn't arrive in time for us. Instead, we just played with them and held their hands and did a goofy job trying to communicate with them. Everyone knows how to say, "Good morning" and I got the names of many of them. The only one I remember is Kayabebe (not sure how to spell that). He claimed me early on and he basically owned me that whole time. When other kids came over he shooed them away if they got too close to me or asked for pictures. (My camera battery was wearing out and I had told him no more pictures.) Later on, he asked me to take him home to America. All he knew how to say was "America", but I got the point when he pointed to himself and then back to me. Eventually, we all went inside and spent a few minutes telling them who we were. They sang a song for us (another video clip I have) and then the Xtreme sports guys did a mini skateboard demo for them. It was a packed dirt floor...not totally even, so it was tough for them, but the kids LOVED it! (By the way, Aidan and Lucy... one of the skateboard guys, Elijah, was one of the guys we saw at the festival last year.)

Reluctantly, we all left and headed to our next stop: The Mille Collines hotel, subject of the movie, "Hotel Rwanda". It was not where they filmed the movie, so it didn't match my vision of it... and I pretty much forgot about the setting for most of my lunch. When I went to the bathroom, though, I thought about the scenes where people were hiding from the militia as they occasionally came through and wondered if someone had hid in there. After that... I really felt uncomfortable just casually eating there.

As usual, the lunch went late and it took forever to get the bill... SO we were late for our city tour with the Vice-Mayor of Media Relations or some such title like that. He showed us all the new building and projects they are working on, as well as the slums they want to rebuild. It's a remarkably clean city and the people dress very sharp. It is the dry season right now, so they were apologizing for the lack of green... but except for the very red, dusty roads, there was a lot of green. Beautiful hills (there is nothing flat here) covered with trees and bushes and some flowers. You can see that some things are drying up, but I can imagine in the rainy season it must be so lush. One place we stopped with him was the site of the killing of 10 Belgian peace-keepers. They were there to protect the Prime Minister (a woman), but lacked a mandate that allowed them to shoot the interahamwe. There are pictures of this in my slide show and you can see the walls riddles with bullet holes and other larger weapons. (I don't know enough about guns to say what they were... but they were very big holes!)

Following that tour, we stopped by the airport to get our money changed and had a bit of gelato!! A nice refreshing break in the day. By this time, I was very tired... I didn't sleep as well last night... so the ice cream perked me up a bit. In the end, we got back to the hotel around 6 or 6:30.

Each night we do a group dinner together and it's been so nice to get to know the other team members. Everyone has a different story and comes from a different part of the States... so it's fun for me as a people person to hear so many new stories!

One thing I want to mention that isn't so much about Rwanda, but that has been a good learning experience for me, is that the fact that I am white makes me stand out a lot. In the best of circumstances, I don't like to be the center of attention, but here where I am a minority it feels very uncomfortable. I am thankful though, for the chance to feel what it feels like to be a minority. It is very humbling.

Please pray for me and our team tomorrow. We are heading to a prison where Andrew is going to be preaching. All 4000 inmates will be let outside to hear what he has to say and then we may be helping out at the end to speak with inmates who want to talk to someone more about the Lord. I would be completely freaked out by this at home... but here... it is more than I think I can handle. Keep in mind that there is almost no crime here in Rwanda... most or all of these prisoners are Genocidaires... people who took part in the genocide. They are still, after 15 years, awaiting trial some of them... because there are too many to process any faster. In the afternoon, we will be heading to the reconciliation village where the neighbors conduct a court proceeding to judge who is guilty and who is not. I will tell more about this tomorrow.

I will try to do a better job of writing every night, so I don't have to write so much at once again... It took me two days, I'm sure you can't absorb it all in one sitting.

I'm here!

After 40 hrs of travel and maybe 6 hours of sleep, I arrived in Kigali on Saturday morning at 9:30 or so. I just had time for a quick shower and change of clothes and Steven arrived at the hotel to pick me up. He was delighted with the clothes, school supplies and shoes you sent. He couldn't believe I had found a laptop for him. He is very excited and I was able to show him a bit how to use it.

It's already 10:00pm here, and I still haven't slept. But I'm winding down and wanted to fill you in on the day before I start another one.

We started our outing by driving to his house. The roads here vary between dirt and pot-holes with dirt! (There are paved roads, but most of what I went on today was not!) His children greeted me with hugs and smiles. And got really silly when they saw my camera. Here I also met some other Rwandans... two widows and a widower and they told me how they suffered, but have been sustained by hope and creating family with each other.

Next we went to the women's village where I saw their sewing business. They were also waiting for me with a song, a welcome greeting. Here all the women are widows and some are infected with HIV after being raped during the genocide. They have made beautiful shirts and I believe they also died their own fabric, but am not sure. They also make baskets and hats and other crafts. There are a couple pictures of them in my slideshow. Here I was asked to share a word of encouragement. I did the best I could, but it was a lot shorter than they were used to, I think. I also was asked to pray for them before I left. Again, the camera was very popular with the kids. They liked to see the pictures of themselves.

After this, we went to another area where Steven has created a soccer league for boys, so that have something to work towards. These kids are all orphans and they can't go to school for various reasons. Here I was rewarded with dances. I videoed them and am hoping to get those posted somehow for you. (But not tonight).

Finally, we came back to the hotel (notice we never ate!) and had a bite to eat and talk. Steven really wants people to know about his situation, his 21 children, his widow's village, his orphan's league. He wants anyone who can help, to help. I wasn't able to promise him much from myself, but I assured I would share his story and the men's shirts the women made.

I thought I was going to crash then, but my Hope:Rwanda team was having dinner. It was nice to finally meet most of them. I am looking forward to getting to know them better over the next week or so. Tomorrow we will be visiting the genocide memorial.

Please pray for the team. On Monday we start pitching in on various season of service projects being done throughout the city. The LPA vision is that this would be a re-ocurring event and that the Rwandans themselves with catch the vision and have it come increasingly from within Rwandan and not from outside.

Well, that was enough for one day! I'm going to sleep!

Amy