The last 10 days.
Another mammoth post. Hopefully the last of this kind. Enjoy.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
The Samaritan’s Purse team left today. I would have liked to be on that plane home to Ireland and hear what they were talking about. Their time at the orphanage drove home the disconnect that can happen when a team jumps into something like this. Tristan and I cringed a bit as we watched them do skits of simple bible stories, ignorant of the fact that most of the orphans they are teaching know the Bible better then them. Or that these kids become adults in the evening as they worship and pray the night away. Or that a few days after they left most of the toys they brought were set aside for the ubiquitous soccer ball.
They played with the same kids as I, and yet they missed so much. Just another feel good short-term missions trip.
I do not wish to offend. They did wonderful work. Short-term trips have their place – my own short-termer is a big reason I’m here. It just makes me wonder what I missed in Mexico.
Thursday, August 13 – Sunday, August 16, 2009 (Rwanda - Uganda)
This was pretty short notice – Tristan worked in Uganda for six months in 2004 and he wanted to visit some old friends. And I…well, if you’re in this part of the world you might as well make the most of it.
We hop on a travel bus early Thursday morning and travel the 10 hours to Mbarara, Uganda. It usually takes closer to 12. The stretch of road from Kigali to the Uganda border follows a winding valley, and our driver manages to drive it how I would feel is about the safe limit for an Audi A6 with good tires. Our top-heavy Greyhound-sized (but built like a school bus) vehicle is bottoming out the suspension on one side on most turns as it leans over (and sometimes the back tires are squealing). Most of the passengers seem unconcerned (perhaps blissfully unaware?), but Tristan and I are pretty familiar with physics and the fact that if we lose control there is little chance of us climbing out of the wreckage alive (later confirmed by stories from our Ugandan friends). For anyone who prayed for my safety on this particular day, my sincerest thanks. I owe you one. We take another bus company back.
Friday is spent taking a look at one of the water projects that ACTS (the NGO Tristan worked for) is working on – interesting stuff. They are doing good work.
I take a good, geeky look at their master sheet of flow rate, head, and pipe diameter calculations for the project:
Saturday we are already on the road again, this time to Kigali where we hope to take a look at the genocide memorial. Our bus is two hours late and then takes two hours longer than we thought it would (it took some other route), and we make it into town too late to see the memorial (or anything of Kigali, for that matter). We do stick around at the memorial to watch a presentation of the movie “Sometimes in April”, a film about the genocide, and hear a personal testimony of a survivor.
I am frustrated my lack of emotional capacity. I cannot fathom what has happened as I look over a city that 15 years ago stood in ruins with half its inhabitants slaughtered by the other half. Rwanda has done a good of job of rebuilding its country – Kigali is a bustling city with little evidence on the outside of what happened in ’94. Only the knowledge that almost every person in the country has experienced the death of someone dear to them leaves me with a weird feeling inside. I remember a similar feeling when walking through the streets of East Berlin (although, yes, the Wall cost a great deal less lives).
Sunday we hop on a bus at 6:30 to Bujumbura (the only one running that day – but we want to make it back for church at New Hope in the evening). We pass through the picturesque hilly countryside of Rwanda as many people are out on the road on their way to church. Scenes from last night’s movie play back in my head.
It is beautiful here. The landscape is beautiful. The people are beautiful. I’d rather be hiking through it with my camera then whisking by in a glass-enclosed bus. This trip (including Burundi/Congo) has seen many fleeting moments of beauty that never have the chance to make their way on to film – they remain ever the more vividly in my mind’s eye instead. I find it is often better that way.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Today I started working with Isaac (a guy from Steinbeck, Manitoba, who is here for two years with his wife and 11-year old son) on maintenance projects that need to be done – right now we’re at the primary campus of the King’s School. I believe the plan is for me to work with him for the rest of my time here. Work during the day, chill at the orphanage in the evening. Perfect. It is good to do something that feels somewhat useful.
I went to Isaac’s house for lunch. Have salad for the first time in a month. It is good. It is refreshing to talk with some Muzungus, and talk English at my regular speed.
The kids are off the wall when I return at 6. I don’t know what got into them.
There is a TV here with a few channels. We watch ‘just for laughs’. A touch of America. That show is funny. My kind of humor.
Completely unrelated to that show, these kids laugh a lot. All the time. I wish I knew what they were saying.
I am going to miss this. The simplicity of it all. Of life. Of fellowshipping even with little verbal contact. Of laughter. Of hugging. and holding. and throwing children in the air. Of smiling. Of worshiping. and praying. Of learning.
Of being.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
When I got back to New Hope this evening the kids are practicing some songs that they will be performing at the church next Sunday.
(I wish I had better word than ‘kids’ or ‘children’, for many of them are teenagers (and a few are older than myself). And in the spiritual sense, none of them are kids. But I don’t like the word ‘orphans’. It reminds me too much of some World Vision picture of a starving child.)
Towards the end of practice a passing thunderstorm knocks out the power (it gets really dark when the power goes out). Reuben says something (I wonder what) and one of the girls starts a song. And then we break out in praying in tongues, half the people kneeling or walking around with hands uplifted.
It is one of those moments that you wish you could keep ingrained in your memory for the rest of your life, because this is how worship should be like. I am sorry when the power comes back on.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Sometimes you experience these things which in the moment feel quite normal, and only later when sharing with others do you realize how it is, well…not particularly normal at all. This trip has been a lot of that.
As I write this I am lying on my bed before heading to bed, sharing my bedroom with two Congolese men who manage the orphanage there (they have come down for meetings with Reuben). I am listening to the hymn ‘I Surrender All’ with the younger of the two because he had started humming it to himself while he lay in bed. He is very eager to learn English because he wants to go to America to go to Bible School. His partner (a man of around 60) is lying in the bunk across the room, snoring. In fact, I have a photo of him when we were up in Marungu. Here he is watching a particular kite fly:
I eat meals in a small room adjacent to my bedroom. Cazungu always eats with me (one of the orphans here, but at 24, is in charge of managing a lot of the daily tasks) as he can speak English, and Chantel (another orphan here, I assume is maybe 16) is in charge of serving the food. Sometimes one of the Mommas (or some of the older kids) join us. It’s a fluid kind of thing.
The gender roles here has taken some getting used to. Women are responsible for preparing and serving the food (actually, women just generally do most of the work while the men seem to do a lot of sitting around), and being a visitor I most certainly am not allowed to do anything. Chantel’s servanthood (and her joy in doing it) is humbling – who am I to receive this kind of service?
They just started their evening devotions. Last night Cazungu asked me if I would lead one. He wanted me to share tonight, actually – I told him I’d do it next week. I will need to think of something…
I think I may start to stay up late with these guys. I’m close enough to the end that I can postpone any necessary sleep to some long plane ride.
Yes. Yes, I think I will do that.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
The Samaritan’s Purse team left today. I would have liked to be on that plane home to Ireland and hear what they were talking about. Their time at the orphanage drove home the disconnect that can happen when a team jumps into something like this. Tristan and I cringed a bit as we watched them do skits of simple bible stories, ignorant of the fact that most of the orphans they are teaching know the Bible better then them. Or that these kids become adults in the evening as they worship and pray the night away. Or that a few days after they left most of the toys they brought were set aside for the ubiquitous soccer ball.
They played with the same kids as I, and yet they missed so much. Just another feel good short-term missions trip.
I do not wish to offend. They did wonderful work. Short-term trips have their place – my own short-termer is a big reason I’m here. It just makes me wonder what I missed in Mexico.
Thursday, August 13 – Sunday, August 16, 2009 (Rwanda - Uganda)
This was pretty short notice – Tristan worked in Uganda for six months in 2004 and he wanted to visit some old friends. And I…well, if you’re in this part of the world you might as well make the most of it.
We hop on a travel bus early Thursday morning and travel the 10 hours to Mbarara, Uganda. It usually takes closer to 12. The stretch of road from Kigali to the Uganda border follows a winding valley, and our driver manages to drive it how I would feel is about the safe limit for an Audi A6 with good tires. Our top-heavy Greyhound-sized (but built like a school bus) vehicle is bottoming out the suspension on one side on most turns as it leans over (and sometimes the back tires are squealing). Most of the passengers seem unconcerned (perhaps blissfully unaware?), but Tristan and I are pretty familiar with physics and the fact that if we lose control there is little chance of us climbing out of the wreckage alive (later confirmed by stories from our Ugandan friends). For anyone who prayed for my safety on this particular day, my sincerest thanks. I owe you one. We take another bus company back.
Friday is spent taking a look at one of the water projects that ACTS (the NGO Tristan worked for) is working on – interesting stuff. They are doing good work.
I take a good, geeky look at their master sheet of flow rate, head, and pipe diameter calculations for the project:
Saturday we are already on the road again, this time to Kigali where we hope to take a look at the genocide memorial. Our bus is two hours late and then takes two hours longer than we thought it would (it took some other route), and we make it into town too late to see the memorial (or anything of Kigali, for that matter). We do stick around at the memorial to watch a presentation of the movie “Sometimes in April”, a film about the genocide, and hear a personal testimony of a survivor.
I am frustrated my lack of emotional capacity. I cannot fathom what has happened as I look over a city that 15 years ago stood in ruins with half its inhabitants slaughtered by the other half. Rwanda has done a good of job of rebuilding its country – Kigali is a bustling city with little evidence on the outside of what happened in ’94. Only the knowledge that almost every person in the country has experienced the death of someone dear to them leaves me with a weird feeling inside. I remember a similar feeling when walking through the streets of East Berlin (although, yes, the Wall cost a great deal less lives).
Sunday we hop on a bus at 6:30 to Bujumbura (the only one running that day – but we want to make it back for church at New Hope in the evening). We pass through the picturesque hilly countryside of Rwanda as many people are out on the road on their way to church. Scenes from last night’s movie play back in my head.
It is beautiful here. The landscape is beautiful. The people are beautiful. I’d rather be hiking through it with my camera then whisking by in a glass-enclosed bus. This trip (including Burundi/Congo) has seen many fleeting moments of beauty that never have the chance to make their way on to film – they remain ever the more vividly in my mind’s eye instead. I find it is often better that way.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Today I started working with Isaac (a guy from Steinbeck, Manitoba, who is here for two years with his wife and 11-year old son) on maintenance projects that need to be done – right now we’re at the primary campus of the King’s School. I believe the plan is for me to work with him for the rest of my time here. Work during the day, chill at the orphanage in the evening. Perfect. It is good to do something that feels somewhat useful.
I went to Isaac’s house for lunch. Have salad for the first time in a month. It is good. It is refreshing to talk with some Muzungus, and talk English at my regular speed.
The kids are off the wall when I return at 6. I don’t know what got into them.
There is a TV here with a few channels. We watch ‘just for laughs’. A touch of America. That show is funny. My kind of humor.
Completely unrelated to that show, these kids laugh a lot. All the time. I wish I knew what they were saying.
I am going to miss this. The simplicity of it all. Of life. Of fellowshipping even with little verbal contact. Of laughter. Of hugging. and holding. and throwing children in the air. Of smiling. Of worshiping. and praying. Of learning.
Of being.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
When I got back to New Hope this evening the kids are practicing some songs that they will be performing at the church next Sunday.
(I wish I had better word than ‘kids’ or ‘children’, for many of them are teenagers (and a few are older than myself). And in the spiritual sense, none of them are kids. But I don’t like the word ‘orphans’. It reminds me too much of some World Vision picture of a starving child.)
Towards the end of practice a passing thunderstorm knocks out the power (it gets really dark when the power goes out). Reuben says something (I wonder what) and one of the girls starts a song. And then we break out in praying in tongues, half the people kneeling or walking around with hands uplifted.
It is one of those moments that you wish you could keep ingrained in your memory for the rest of your life, because this is how worship should be like. I am sorry when the power comes back on.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Sometimes you experience these things which in the moment feel quite normal, and only later when sharing with others do you realize how it is, well…not particularly normal at all. This trip has been a lot of that.
As I write this I am lying on my bed before heading to bed, sharing my bedroom with two Congolese men who manage the orphanage there (they have come down for meetings with Reuben). I am listening to the hymn ‘I Surrender All’ with the younger of the two because he had started humming it to himself while he lay in bed. He is very eager to learn English because he wants to go to America to go to Bible School. His partner (a man of around 60) is lying in the bunk across the room, snoring. In fact, I have a photo of him when we were up in Marungu. Here he is watching a particular kite fly:
I eat meals in a small room adjacent to my bedroom. Cazungu always eats with me (one of the orphans here, but at 24, is in charge of managing a lot of the daily tasks) as he can speak English, and Chantel (another orphan here, I assume is maybe 16) is in charge of serving the food. Sometimes one of the Mommas (or some of the older kids) join us. It’s a fluid kind of thing.
The gender roles here has taken some getting used to. Women are responsible for preparing and serving the food (actually, women just generally do most of the work while the men seem to do a lot of sitting around), and being a visitor I most certainly am not allowed to do anything. Chantel’s servanthood (and her joy in doing it) is humbling – who am I to receive this kind of service?
They just started their evening devotions. Last night Cazungu asked me if I would lead one. He wanted me to share tonight, actually – I told him I’d do it next week. I will need to think of something…
I think I may start to stay up late with these guys. I’m close enough to the end that I can postpone any necessary sleep to some long plane ride.
Yes. Yes, I think I will do that.
posted by thomassanz at
3:17 AM
1 Comments:
Thanks so much for writing, Thomas. It is never too long...
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