Two Weeks

Yep. I leave two weeks from today. My heart is starting to beat a bit faster as I think more and more about the excitement of coming home, the difficulty of leaving here, and all the things that need to happen in those two weeks in between! But even as I type this I am convicted that I must not get wrapped up in the urgency of leaving. That I must thank God that I get to come back here. That I must spend even more time dwelling in Him. Hmm, that being said I think i am going to stop trying to frantically decide what needs to be done in the church office right now and just go to the church service that is happening right now! Bye!

Annoucements and Graduations

This weekend at church I enjoyed giving an announcement about the children's ministry in Kinyarwanda! I tried to memorize it in one night, but I ended up having to sort of read part of it. However, I still have parts of it running through my head. "yesu Ashimwe! Mfite intangzo nshaka kubagezaho ryere keranye na ministeri y'abana." That pharse will probably be stuck with me for the rest of my life! It was really fun to be in front of the church and try to communicate in Kinyarwanda.

Also, yesterday we had a little graduation for the Kindergartners! It was fun to ahev them sing Our God is an Awesome God, in both English and Kinyarwanda, and I am a Promise. Then I read Oh the Places You'll Go (which, it is fun to think about all teh places these little ones will go!! They have already been and come from ALL over the world and I know they will continue to spread out all over the world.) and they threw their little graduation caps made of paper bowls and construction paper...and everyone was happy. We have two more weeks of school, but I have one that will be leaving to go back to Japan tomorrow...so we wanted to have our celebration early!

There's a few happenings from the life of Alyssa!

Home

Yes, in some ways a part of home will always be in Southern California. But, as I move and invest my life in different parts of the world I am finding new temporary homes. (Of course my HOME is in heaven...something that becomes more and more real as home becomes a more relative term.)

Yesterday, after the evening service, I was standing with a group of people and then was introducing myself to the guest speaker we had. After explaining to him where I was from and how long I had been here he said, "Well, welcome to Rwanda. I hope you like our country." I just sort of smiled, but someone else immediately chimed in and said, "No, she has been here for some time. This is her home."

And it is true. As I drove down the roads today I realized that in about a month I will no longer be seeing pretty much everything that I see on a daily basis now. And I will miss these things, even for a few months.

If I haven't learned or accomplished anything else in this year, the whole year would be worthwhile just to say that I can call this place, Kigali, Rwanda, home.

Ramblings

I am going to try to blog more often, even if I don't feel like I have something really important to say. For many different reasons...partly because I just want to, partly because I think it is a good idea, and partly because I want to keep blogging more even while I am in the States for those in Rwanda that won't be with me! While I am definitely looking forward to being home this summer (a wedding to be in, a niece to be born, many exciting things!!), it is already feeling weird that I will be leaving this place in a month. I cannot imagine if I was leaving and not coming back. I am so grateful for God's clear leading that he still wants me here next year. Of course, the details of next year are slightly fuzzy, but that really doesn't worry me. Each day that passes just makes me more certain that I am supposed to be here next year.

The Kindergarteners and First Graders all went on a Field Trip today! We went to Cards from Africa and saw orphans who were being employed to design and make cards from recycled paper. The kids enjoyed touching the pulp and seeing how these people make the cards! (Well, they also enjoyed BUYING the cards quite a bit :-)

Other than that, life has been pretty normal...I am still working on my Kinyarwanda although sometimes it is pretty slow...It is helpful being in a house with a baby who is just learning to speak! Sometimes I feel like every word she is learning, I am too!!

Well, hopefully more frequent blogging will not always lead to just ramblings that aren't that enjoyable to read!

Two Families!

Last night was very fun for me because I got to be with my two families here in Rwanda! All of my family (Annie, Joel, Daniella, Nathan, Joella, Queen, and Andrew) all went over to the Wheelers (Tom, Lori, Hannah, and Zack) for dinner. It really was cool for me to be able to mix the two worlds that exist for me even here in Rwanda. We had fun eating slightly more American food, introducing the kids to legos and trying to convince everyone that the dogs weren't going to hurt them. It just reminded me once again how grateful I am to the Lord for providing me with such wonderful relationships here in Rwanda in such a short period of time...that is something I will never cease to be grateful for!!

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.