"God is alive and God is Real!"

Every day in my class we start with prayer. We share prayer requests and pray together in various ways, and on this day nothing was really unusual. I asked for them to raise their hand if they had a prayer request and each of them shared their various problems one by one. "I have a headache." (Everyone has had a headache for at least a few weeks now :-)!) "My mom is sick...My grandma is sick...I have a mosquito bite (another common one)..etc etc etc." One little boy raised his hand and shared with the class that he had a stomach ache. Again, this is a fairly normal prayer request for a bunch of 5 and six year olds living in Africa! Well, as soon as the prayer was over, this little boy shouts out--"I have something very exciting to share! I have been healed! My stomach feels better! God has healed my stomach."

This in and of itself was a pretty amazing moment, but later at lunch the story continued. I was on lunch duty so I was sitting under the one tree where I could see the majority of the playground. This little boy comes over and sits near me and quietly says, "My stomach is starting to hurt again..." We talked for a few minutes about what we could do about that...he quickly suggested that he could of course pray and that he was sure God would heal him again.

(You should know that every day in class we also read a Bible story and then I just let them ask questions. A few weeks ago we had been specifically talking about the fact that God was alive.)

So after a few more minutes of quietly playing by me, he just looks up at me and declares, "But Miss Holladay, I just realized, God is real and God is alive! The class was right--God is real and God is alive!"

I was fairly stunned, but I just looked at him and asked him when he realized that. He quickly replied, "I realized it today. I realized it when God healed me today!"

It was a fairly incredible moment of remembering what child like faith really does look like.

Oh, and if you happen to be reading this when it is still Thanksgiving--Happy Thanksgiving. I am thanking God right now for the faith of this little boy and the way it pointed me to God!!

A long delayed post!

It has definitely been MUCH too long since I have updated my blog. Oh my...I would really like to get better at this. Just as much for my sake than anyone else’s. So, since I am trying to update you on a few months of life I am hoping that “a picture’s worth a thousand words” will prove to be true. (OK, some of the pictures I don't have right now...I will add them later.)

1. 1. I bought a car! Yes...I have become that American who moves to a foreign country and buys a car. But I haven’t regretted for one minute that I bought it. I am glad that I experienced trying to get around without a car for a few months, but it has really really positively affected life. And I am able to bless the family I am living with through it as well...It is a stick shift, so learning to drive manual on the back, bumpy, dirt roads of Rwanda with my Rwandan friends(Andrew, full time at the church, was my "driving examiner" and Mushi, also very involved at church, was my "driving instructor"--they are in the picture to the right) will be an experience I will never forget. Here is a picture of me, my car, and some friends time at the church and getting ready to go to a wedding!

2. 2. Yes, I have enjoyed attending a few Rwandan weddings. (They have a few different ceremonies...one of them is basically like a dowry ceremony where the two families bargain the price for the Bride—in these days it is almost like a play--it is very interesting!) At one of the ceremonies my hand in marriage was actually promised to another family (all in good fun, don’t worry)!! Here is a picture of me(dressed in traditional Rwandan clothes) sitting in a little hut before one of the ceremonies.

3. 3. Teaching is still going well. It has its challenges, but I am really am grateful for the opportunity to both teach and learn from these little ones. I won’t post a picture of all the kids on this site, but they are pretty cute. Since I can’t show you them, I will just quote a few of the things that they have said. (In Kindergarten I really could quote EVERYTHING they say...but I will try to remember a few of the good ones.) On the first day of school I was explaining about bathroom emergencies, and one little girl half raised her hand and half shouted out, “But an emergency is when someone is coming to your house and is trying to kill you.” Umm, ok...you are right...that is an emergency...let me think of a different way to explain this. (For the most part, most of the kids really feel like American kids...but every once in awhile something will happen like that and I will remember what vast backgrounds these children have). All of them are always saying hilarious little comments that I can’t remember right now. And then during Bible time they say some of the cutest and most profound things. My favorite so far is when one little girl said, “But, Miss Holladay, how come I always feel Jesus knocking on my heart asking if he can come in and talking with me.” What a beautiful picture of faith and how Christ pursues us. Here is a picture of me in my classroom .

4. 4. My church, Divine Destiny Church (DDC), has planted a church in the eastern province and I have visited a few times. I absolutely love going there. Here is a picture with two of my friends (Queen, who is one of the sisters in the family I live with, and Immanuel who is full time at the church)--we are drinking milk from traditional Rwandan "glasses."

5. 5. I am still loving teaching Sunday School. Sometimes I still feel at a loss about the best way to do Sunday School here but I love singing songs with them and trying to teach through translation sometimes. Here is a picture of me singing Our God is an Awesome God with them in Kinyarwanda!

6. 6. I still absolutely love living with my family. Here is a picture of all of us. They truly feel like family...I can’t tell you what a blessing it is to have such great family and friends here.

Umm, ok...I could keep going. But if a picture really is worth a thousand words, plus all the words I have written I really better stop soon.

I am SO grateful to God for saving Jaime’s (my cousin-in-law...is that what she is called??) life. It was very very difficult for me to be so far from home, especially in the first week or so of this crisis. But God had faithfully reminded me that He knew all of this in advance and that He called me to Rwanda in spite of the fact that at points I just felt like I should get on a plane and be home to support my family. What a great God we serve. It has been neat to be able to pray with people for Jaime and rejoice over the miracles in more than one language!

I also feel very blessed because my mom and dad and Luke will be visiting in about a week!! It will be great to show them my life here and just be with them in this place that has become home.

Ok...I am now going to try to update more often so you don’t have to read another novel!