A Penny in my Pocket

Some of you might know the Jana Alayra song, “A Penny in my Pocket.”

A penny in my pocket; a dollar in my shoe

When I give them all to Jesus; there’s nothing he can’t do

To feed a hungry neighbor; Give shelter from the cold

Take a wounded heart; And make it whole

Oh, we are one family; Oh, in the Son of God you see

Yes, he’s calling us to be; His arms of love, His arms of love

We are his arms of love; We are his arms of love

Well, these children from all around the world that have become one family, shot up their hands as soon as the song was over and had MUCH to share. Here are some of the things they said:

“Every year, when the year is beginning again, we invite a lot of kids who have no mommy or daddy to come into our house and I get to serve them food and drink and we had someone who did funny things come and make us laugh.”

“I saw a boy the other day and I told my dad to give him food but he didn’t want to, so I told him to give him money, but he didn’t want to.”

“We have visitors that are sleeping in our house right now!”

“The other day, my dad’s friend came over to our house, and she had two kids with her who had no mommy or daddy and no food. And that’s what she does. She takes care of and feeds all the kids who need it.”

“The other day I saw a boy and he asked me for money and I said, “sorry, I don’t have any money.” And my mom was up in the salon. But my brother was by me and I talked to him for a long time and he was so kind because he gave me money to give to the boy.”

“In the genocide, my dad is a doctor, and he just went around and helped people and saved their lives.”

And they continued…It was a bit different than singing it at Saddleback in Orange County! These aren’t just words to these children; this is normal everyday life that they experience.

Later in the day, one of my students asked “why did God not give Rwanda money?” Now, I have to admit it wasn’t quite that articulate. Partly because it can be hard to understand her with her accent. And partly because she was trying to explain what she had seen in her country and couldn’t understand why Rwanda was different. About half the class resonated well and also understood the heart of her question immediately. Another student immediately asked, “yah, why did God choose to give money to only some countries, to only a very few?”

So, yes, I was attempting to facilitate a discussion about the different economies of the world and the role God plays in that with my Kindergarten class!!

Yesterday

I need to blog more often about my normal days because sometimes things happen that are not so normal and I forget. And other times it might be helpful to just read about a normal day! So…yesterday. Yesterday was umuganda (the last Saturday morning of every month all shops are closed and no one can be driving, so that everyone can do community work) so I woke up to the sound of the man walking around with a microphone or bullhorn or something telling me that I should wake up and go to Umuganda! Well, many people have different theories about whether or not muzungus should go to umuganda (they shouldn’t—it’s distracting to the other workers, they should—it builds community, it doesn’t matter); but, I didn’t go. So I woke up and just had a slow morning…cleaning my room, washing a few things, playing with the kids…then I went and bought a few things so that I could bake with our new toaster oven from my mom! After baking banana bread and banana chocolate chip (thanks for sending the chocolate chips!!) muffins, I hung out with the kids some because Annie was out shopping. I then enjoyed having the time to warm plenty of hot water to bathe with, dry my hair, iron my clothes…and get everything ready for church the next morning! Right after that, Andrew (who was at our house enjoying the freshly baked things and a movie) told me that someone in our church was very sick and needed to be taken to the hospital. So, I threw on some clothes and we hopped in the car to go pick up this guy. He was very sick (unable to walk, moaning in the back of my car, bad stomach pains…) so his brother and a member of the worship team were also in the back of my car helping him while andrew was in the front explaining the health insurance in Rwanda that costs 2 dollars a year and gives the benefit of paying only 10 percent of whatever your hospital bill is (as long as it is a government hospital, which of course is not the highest quality hospital in Rwanda). When we arrived at the hospital, Andrew was dealing with all the paperwork, so I was talking in broken English and a little Kinyarwanda with the member of the worship team. I see him pretty much every day, but I really knew very little about his life. He was telling me about how his father died during the genocide, and his mother died a year later. He grew up living on the streets, from about age 7-14. From then on, I am not sure all the different places he has been living. I just know now he lives with a few other people in a small room the church owns. It was a reminder that even though life feels very normal here, the people I am friends with and am sharing in life with have had very different experiences than me. Around 11:30pm or so we were on our way home and Andrew and I talked about the end of the world…He was telling me about an article he read that talked about the uniting of nations and people wanting to insert chips into our foreheads and certain barcodes that had 666 ingrained in them…and I explained how I thought you had to be careful when you read things about end times because there are so many different opinions. Then, we all went home and went to bed so we could be up for church the next morning! I have to step back sometimes to take in the things that are so radically different than how I have grown up. Living here makes those things seem more “normal”--sometimes I miss even noticing them.