Walking along the edge

Being that our lives are in Africa, you can imagine that this would be true. We kind of live on the edge. Even at the moment I have a fever of an unknown origin that may be for all I know Swine Flu along with all the other symptoms. Too bad there isn’t anyone to check for it here, or I might make the news and get quarantined like all the Mexicans in Hong Kong. Last November we had all the symptoms of SARS (hysterical I know). The high fever lasted for five days, I lost ten pounds, that I didn’t gain back and our whole family had it within four days. We quarantined ourselves that time. Of course no one was there in Togo that could verify it. Not that I am trying to make the news or anything, but sometimes the edginess of life here kind of seeks you out.

There are other times that you seek it. Call us crazy, nuts, whatever, it is pretty fun to be chased on foot by a bull elephant, and live to tell about it. Holding a crocodile by the tail can be rather low key at the moment until later you realize how quick that moment could have changed. Of course driving here is the real kicker. Every time you sit behind the wheel, it is as if God calls out an extra angel or two.

Then there is life for your kids. One such game park occasion that I have a wonderful picture of is that of three of my sons being charged by an elephant while they just stood there with a pea shooter toting park ranger. He did stop, by the way, but in the picture it looks as though it could go either way. Then there is the risk of sickness for them. Me, I don’t mind malaria so much for myself (my number of cases has been in the double digits now for years) but it is pretty scary when those unexplained fevers, body aches, and chills hit your child broadside on a day or night that you can’t get a test.

There is their future to consider. What will they do one day? Where will they live? What language will they speak? Who will they marry? Will they go to college or tour the world (especially since we have vicariously trained them to travel on a dime, adapt to cultures as they go along and learn languages on the spot).

Then, there are the real tests. There are the attacks from people motivated by spirits of division, greed, deceit, and whatever else is dark and light absorbing. Often it is in the shadows, undermining us and our work. Sometimes it is petty, but when twenty petty things occur in one day, especially after a real good one, you begin to see it as an attack. Then there are the blatant frontal attacks that can even come from those who claim the spirit of Christ. Those are scary and bewildering.

You are beginning to get the picture. Satan hates us being here. He will take any opportunity to hurt us physically, spiritually, or emotionally in order to get us to leave, especially if we are bent on spreading the peace, joy, grace, truth, and love of Jesus. I want to take this a step further, though. It is you, as well, who walk along the edge, at least I hope you are. It is you as well that the enemy hates and wants to destroy. For you have made a series of decisions that have put a very large target on your back and price on your head. The enemy hates everyone he cannot control. So, every day that we grow further from his grasp because of the deepening submission to the Holy Spirit we get a little closer to the edge.

I like the edge. When I am aware of the edge, I walk carefully and I pray a lot. I take advantage of opportunities and live a fulfilling life. I long for His Word. More than anything, though, it makes me want to go home to be with Him. He is King of the edge walkers.

Be at peace. Enjoy the journey. Persevere in the times of trouble. Focus on Jesus!

John 16:3 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

 

Settling and loving it!

Louise has done it. She has made the house a home. We have had a “homeless” feeling since packing up last November. Now, though, at the end of April (five and a half short months later) it is looking like home.
Louise, of course, gets all the credit. It helps when you marry an artist with a practical side and a real gift for interior design and space management. She can turn a dump into a palace on a non-existing budget. She threw some light colored chocolate’ish paint on the walls, forced me to arrange furniture with her, and shazam! We have a house that has become a home.
Today, I even got to set up my carpentry tools in the back room. What a comforting feeling to arrange all my hand tools on the wall. Tonight I came in from working on the shop and she was in the kitchen cooking spaghetti, candles were giving a soft glow to the living room and dining room, the boys were doing a four-player game of battlefront II on the x-box and I stopped dead in my tracks. It was so homey. It was so comforting and normal feeling. We were settling in.
Dangerous, though, I know. Settling so often means complacency is right around the corner.
Isn’t that what so often happens? The crisis passes, the comfort and peace arrives, the daring rescue by God’s hand becomes a ‘remember when’, and we drift off and begin to fall, again.
Well, I can promise to try not to. I can promise to seek Him in my comfortable and homey setting. I can hope for it to be a refuge and place of refreshing and recharging in between ministering. But, I will sure have to purpose to do so.
As for now, I am just so thankful to have a house that God has allowed us to enjoy as a home, for now.
Thank you for all your prayers for us. Please continue to pray that even with all the “settling in”, we somehow are able to reject complacency and stay connected to Jesus.
Blessings

 

African field trips

Well, as you might expect they are different. Today I chaperoned Tucker’s field trip to none other than the nearest game park. Not your zoo variety, mind you, but the real deal where you are looking for a leopard in every overhanging tree and a giraffe, elephant, cheetah, or whatever in every opening space. We did in fact see hippos, an elephant, cape buffalo, giraffes, and …. (you get the picture). Still, though, I personally love that as one of those freebies from living in Africa. Especially since I got to observe him interacting with his teachers and classmates. It was deeply pleasing when he walked up to the game guides and greeted them. His momma taught him right! Tomorrow, the younger ones go to the National Museum of Rwanda and they get to see where the King used to live and all that good stuff. Too bad for me that Murphy gets to be the parent for that trip.

 

Tomorrow is …

Christmas, no that won’t work. Anniversary, no it’s the first time for something of this magnitude, although it is the 19th anniversary of my and Louise’s first date.
How about Happy Container Day!
The last needed signature was given today. I actually watched and then they did the verification of contents. Pretty impressive. It only took five weeks!!
So, tomorrow morning we will wake up go to container jail and watch our stuff / junk (after eleven years of use in Togo) be loaded onto local transport trucks and brought to our house! It will be a great day of much needed closure and one that will allow us to put away the chairs made from banana leaves that we’ve been sitting on. Yes, I know, it sounds wonderfully exotic, but it is not so easy on the buns.
So, wish us Happy Container Day and thank God with us that he had mercy and is allowing us a sense of home with the presence in our house of our stuff.

 

No clapping allowed

We were out beyond Nyanza, Rwanda in a small village with over sixty genocide orphans and some really neat things were going on.  I started to clap after a choral had sang some songs.  Charles, my good friend and founder of Xtra Mile ministries, leaned over and said, “You can’t clap during the time of mourning.”

I was dumbfounded.  It made sense because of the aims of this time in Rwanda of remembering the victims from the genocide, but it kind of became like that moment when you were laughing in church and your mom reached over and thumped you telling you with that look that this was unacceptable and then it was impossible to stop.  I wanted to clap.  Here were orphans of the genocide standing before me having seen their parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and siblings hacked to death before their very eyes singing beautiful songs of healing and God’s mercy.  I wanted to clap, but no, I obeyed the rules and didn’t.

You can, though.  You aren’t here right now.  Clap for these brave young men and women who have continued on.  Many of them are outperforming their peers in school and are having to fulfill all family roles for each other while bearing the physical and emotional scars of the tragedy of fifteen years past.  They have bad days, don’t get me wrong, but they still know how to smile, sing, pray, and be thankful for life even in all their confusion and trauma.

It was a great Easter weekend and although I am tire of hearing, reading, writing, and speaking Ikinyarwanda, it seems I was able to cross a threshold of sorts and am finally, after three months more comfortable.  I was able to preach and give devotionals through the weekend without translation and was so thankful to God that he has made me able to speak other languages in order to share his love.  That is definitely not worth clapping about though.

My heart was broken yet again as we visited the worst of all the memorials as I have been told.  This memorial near Nyamagabe was a technical school where around fifty thousand were killed and later the French soldiers of Operation Turqouise played volleyball by the still open mass graves.  You can see a sight with many photos from it, but I warn you it is very graphic and disturbing.  http://homepage.mac.com/stevesimonphoto/Murambi%20Memorial/index.html

We met with those orphans on Easter Sunday and I definitely wanted to clap for them.  By God’s grace they have come so far in the last fifteen years, but they bear the telling signs of the journey in their tired looks and solemnity.  They smiled, though, as I stumbled through my sermon, even encouraging me with amens and thank yous.  They smiled when we handed out T-shirts, calculators, and dictionaries for those who performed well in school and they smiled as we ate a meager lunch of one meat pie, two pieces of bread and a soda of their choice.

So, as you pray for Rwanda and those scarred by the genocide, please remember the orphans here and lift them up so they can hear the applause of heaven.

 

Somali pirates and containers

I think I would have preferred Somali pirates to have captured our container ship than for it to have arrived a month ago.

It would have been much more exciting.  It would have also been a justified and understandable wait for our children.  “Sorry, son, no, that’s all the clothes we have right now, the rest are with the pirates.”  I would say.  They would have dreams at night of Captain Hook riding around on Tanner’s bicycle on the poop deck (why is it called a poop deck anyway?).  They could be jealous of the Somalis getting to play X-box Battlefront II.

But, no, instead all of our things are in a warehouse that we pass the neighborhood of almost every day.  Our teammate Murphy has worked nonstop in negotiations to free our goods, but there is always one more document needed (for four weeks or so).  The worst thing is that we actually touched and saw every piece of it.  Yes, it was almost more than we could bear.  We had to verify its contents when it was unloaded by customs and placed in the warehouse.  You could smell Togo when the container was opened and there was even a wisp of Togo air and warmth that wafted from the interior as the doors swung wide to reveal our stuff, that we could touch but not have.

The boys, though, have done very well.  This has definitely helped them to pray more.  They have even begun to use phrases such as ‘not what I want, but what You (God) want is more important.’  Yesterday, there was a glimmer of hope in the morning that it would be released and we gathered for prayer.  They were more thankful to God for all the things he has provided in the interim than woeful for the stuff so close and yet so far away.  Good stuff for mom and dad who are more frustrated from the lack of closure and beginning to sweat the storage we will have to pay the government.

But, we are hopeful.  I mean how many more documents can they possibly ask for?  The dossier is getting rather full as it is.  It has also been an invaluable lesson for our family of how our lives don’t consist in the abundance of our possessions (especially when our abundance lies in the hands of others).  We have all grown to enjoy the simplicity of the banana leaf chairs for our living room, the patio furniture for our dining room and the mattresses being on the floor which has ushered in some phenomenal pillow fights and wrestling.

I believe, though, that we would all trade the simplicity for the ecstasy of getting our stuff.  This of course would all be followed by the guilt of having so much and then giving some of it away to ease our consciences.

Until then, I’ll just watch Pirates of the Caribbean a few more times and imagine Captain Jack Sparrow cranking up my table saw to repair the deck.

 

Nyamata Memorial cont…

I wanted to tell a little more.

As you enter the church compound. You gaze upon a well manicured lawn and a rustic brick building. Things change immediately as you reach the porch of the entrance. You enter through the original gate that had to be pried open by the militia to reach the thousands of people huddled inside this small church. You immediately notice the clothes piled on the benches. At first I was amazed by how tattered and dirty they were. Then upon thinking about it, realized that these people had died in these clothes and the stains I was seeing were from the dried blood that was shed as they were massacred. All of the childrens’ clothes are piled at the front of the building. Most of them were killed by being swung against the walls. You then notice the discoloration on the interior of the ceiling and the various holes surrounding it. These splatterings were the result of grenades tossed in among the people there. On the table used for communion lie various weapons used by the killers. Ironic, huh? At this point I was overwhelmed to the point of despair at what I had already seen. Then we descended a set of stairs to go into the first of three crypts containing the bodies of many. One of these is that of a woman who died holding her baby. Her killers were suitors that she had rejected. It was personal. They impaled her and her baby. I stopped there and wept. Ironically I was being comforted by one with us who had lost his entire family. He stood there patting me on the back telling me that it was going to be alright. I responded with telling him how thankful I was that he had made it. We excited the building and then visited the other two crypts that resembled underground cellars. The first one contained the bodies of those they could identify. The second one contained the thousands of those that were never identified potentially because they contained entire families who had been wiped out. I stood there with Charles among the skulls and other bones and told him thank you for running away. He said, how could he not. Bizarrely, we laughed an uncomfortable but legitimate laugh originating from our thanksgiving for life.

After we walked out of the crypt for the unknowns, Charles turned to me and said, “If we will only remember what happened here, we will not continue on in hatred.” Oh that we can replace that hatred with the love of Christ!

John 13:34 says: “A new command I give you. Love one another. As I have loved you , so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.

 

Initiation

I was privileged today to make my first trip with Xtra Mile. It is a service organization working with the Africa Transformation Network here in Rwanda with the purpose of encouraging and providing services for orphans of the Rwandan genocide.

Today we went to the village of Nyamata. There we met with around fifty young men and women who, because of the genocide were the only surviving members of their various families. Many are without aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers, sisters, and especially parents.

Xtra Mile purposes to teach these young men and women how to be a supportive unit to each other along with encouraging them to take part in God’s offer to accept their place in the family of Jesus.

In today’s Mobile Family outing we handed out gifts to many as encouragement for having done well in school, held a time of counseling and sharing, enjoyed a meal together, heard God’s word, and listened to the testimony of an orphan that had survived having his legs crushed by the militias of 1994 and has now graduated from the national university. The “we” I am talking about was myself along with Charles Kabesa (founder of Xtra Mile) and older genocide orphans that accompanied us from the capital.

After we ended our scheduled program we loaded up to head for, I thought, the capital and home, but we had one more stop to make. Charles announced that we needed to visit the genocide memorial there in Nyamata. April, you see, is the month of remembrance for Rwanda and this year marks the fifteenth anniversary of that horrid event. The last thing that I wanted to do, today, was to go to that memorial. It is a catholic church positioned at the southern end of town. Over ten thousand had fled to it hoping to find a safe haven, but after a few days there this refuge became a cemetery. So, we went to the Nyamata Memorial, myself along with twelve others who had all been orphaned by and survived the genocide of Rwanda.

You can see pictures of this memorial at the following website: www.museum.gov.rw/2_museums/kigali/nyamata/pages/nyamata.htm.

I was overwhelmed to be there with those who had made it as we gazed upon the remains of those who didn’t. I can’t explain the experience as a whole, some of us, especially myself, cried quietly and I kept asking God for mercy and grace.

Afterwards when we got back to Kigali, Charles came up to me thanked me for the day and said, “Welcome to Xtra Mile.”

I guess my initiation is over.

Please pray for healing for Rwanda.

 

Back again and figuring things out!

Well, it has been quite a while since I attempted the ten minutes of musing. In fact, it’s just that I was musing so much that I didn’t have the time to actually blog it. We have landed and all the rawness that I experienced in Togo eleven and 1/2 years ago has washed over me yet again.  Sorry for the paralysis.  It is just all of the figuring out drives me not only insane, but to withdraw until the fog begins to clear.  By the way, I did learn why Rwanda is so foggy in the mornings.  It is not related to the altitude, but instead I was told by my language instructor that traditionally it was taught that it was from the frogs in the valleys smoking tobacco.   That was a freebie, and you can do with that information whatever you please.  So, here are some things that I have figured out so far.

We have a wonderful house.  The first moment we were in it Tucker exclaimed that this was the house for us, saying something like, “this is the house that God wants us to be in.”  We resisted, looked and looked, considered, and wound up just where our 13 year old and God wanted us to be, taking over the lease of Caleb and Jenny Beck, wonderful two month hosts that they were.  The most painful aspect being that the rent is 7 times what we paid in Togo!

The boys are in a great school.  That has been an interesting transition.  I can’t think of a more intense social setting nor more intimidating group of students to be thrown into the pot with than the “international” set our boys are in.  But, once again, they thrive.  Especially after the highly acclaimed performance of the 4 T’s in the school’s talent show that had them doing Tae Kwon Do routines to Kung Fu Fighting with Trevor “break-dancing” in the middle of it to bring the house down.  Would have loved a video of it, but hey, the camera was in a storage facility jail across town.

We are still in Africa.  The process of acquiring our work permits, having to leave the country for a weekend so we could get new visas on re-entry along with our goods being held hostage for over three weeks now has reminded me that we are still in a place that plays the game by a whole different set of rules and I must learn in yet another language how to wait on God and be patient.  Things work out, this I know, for my God has shown me so!  We just pray and wait and try and pray and wait and try again.  By the way, good news Africa Transformation Network now has registration with the government for the next twelve months.  Yeah!!

Our work will be different in Rwanda and yet the same.  The end result is the same as it always was and will be.  We will work to bring others into a discipled relationship with Jesus the Savior and King of all.  It is just that there are constraints on us and requirements that I never would have imagined for our work here.  We must prove ourselves to the government, even with annual accountability reports that we are benefiting the people of Rwanda.  Therein lies the function and purpose of Africa Transformation Network.  It is the vessel by which we shall share the love of God with the Rwandans.  It has lots of neat projects and wonderful works that we are using to bless the people here, make contacts for disciple training, as well as giving us a venue to grow in language and cultural understanding.

I think that the more languages you learn the easier the process becomes and the dumber you get.  That may not make sense, but that is how you feel.  “Oh, this again, been here before.  Try to say, I need to use the bathroom.  Oops, I said I want to stop a train.”  note to self.  I am such an idiot.

Have truck, will travel, and feel like a man.  Crazy isn’t it.  Since the time I was 16, I felt like a set of wheels, particularly if it included six or more cylinders and was a 4X4 added a great deal to the feeling of manliness.  For our first nine weeks here, I was pretty low.  Now, I got me a truck and things are so much better.  Thank you to all who helped and broke open piggy banks to aid in this pursuit of a vehicle.  It only cost twenty nine million, one hundred and thirty thousand francs and the locals here call it the car with the ugly face.  But, it will definitely get us there and back again.  We pledge to baby it and use it well.

These are the significant things I have figured out, there are plenty of insignificant ones, that I have no time to muse with you about and sadly I am not including any pictures today, but, I am back in the blogging business, so tell your friends and we can muse together about God’s great grace and his love that compels us to move to places like Rwanda to bless those who have been so cursed with calamity.

Peace.

 

What to do with Dad?

During our week of sickness, the boys picked to watch a few episodes of Star Wars.  Well, on the day of number 6, you know number 3 to people above twenty-five, after Darth Vader’s death, Luke’s burning of his dad started an interesting discussion.  I was lying off to the side with my 102 degree temperature, having already lost six pounds and looking rather gray skinned.  Tucker, Taylor, and Trevor were all discussing whether they could burn me when I died.  Rather morbid, yes, but, hey they are boys and I wasn’t looking too good.  Then Tanner spoke up:

“I wouldn’t burn him, I would just hang him on the wall over my desk so I could look at him everyday and remember him.”

The others chimed in about how it would begin to smell eventually.

He retorted, “No problem, I would just spray him with air freshener.”

Well, thankfully I have recovered from most of my sickness and we don’t have to worry about this right now.