More Blessed to Give

I can count on one hand the number of times I have truly felt that I was standing on Holy Ground, sharing the air around me with the very real presence of the Holy Spirit. I felt it as I stood by the bedside of my mom the night she died, when I could feel God's arms around me just as vividly as if it had been my earthly father holding me. A few other times, too, when my world was shattered, His presence filled the room around me and held me up with His comfort.

However, the morning that we arrived at Pastor Ildephonse's community in Bukonya, the Holy Spirit wasn't waiting there to give comfort or peace...He was there to celebrate and fellowship with us.

We knew that we had good things in store for the people of Bukonya, and as we hiked up yet another mountain trail towards this village we had yet to visit, we were excited about the prospect of delivering everything we had planned. Suddenly, the sound of children's voices singing in the Kenyarwandan native tongue reached us, and as we crested the hilltop, the church and school coming into view, a group of children stood formally grouped like a choir, singing their hearts out. That's when it started for me...tears welled up in me as I realized how long they must have practiced, rehearsed, gathered in giggling groups as they waited for the visitors to come. Three girls broke from the choir and danced out in front, arms moving in the traditional Rwandan native dance. They wore skirts they had made themselves, tassels cut along the bright green hem. Their eyes shone as they danced for us, huge, shy grins on their faces, and we clapped along to the songs. And with that, we were introduced to Pastor Ildephonse's Bukonya.

There was a saying we had while on the trip: "T...I...A." It stands for "this is Africa," and we said it every time something happened that we didn't expect or couldn't control- reservations lost, appointments not kept, a herd of cattle in the road with nobody around to move them- that kind of thing. TIA. When a Rwandan said to us that something would take 10 minutes, we immediately blocked out an hour and sat down to wait. TIA.

So when Pastor Ildephonse walked up to our group and formally handed us a hand-written itenerary for the day's visit, along with the start and end time for each item, we were stunned. He had 10 hand-written copies made (no Office Max around to run off 10 copies, so if you want copies of anything, you write it yourself). It may be that you had to be there with us as he handed us this itenerary for you to grasp the significance of the fact that he took the time to do this, but believe me, that gesture meant a lot and said a lot about this pastor.

He gestured for us to go into the church. Standing in the middle of the trail, the church was on our left, the courtyard was straight ahead with the school buildings immediately past that, and the orphan dorms and Pastor's parsonage were on our right. Into the church we went, and as we stepped in, I actually gasped. The Holy Spirit was alive in that place...the air was thick with His presence...that's the only way to describe it. He was there and waiting for us expectantly. I looked at Kris, and he already had tears in his eyes. The church itself is huge, made of red brick, and has many windows throughout the building. Natural light is important, because there is no electricity in that building. We sat on a few benches brought in...they have not yet been able to afford seats in the church, so the congregants literally sit on the cement floor when they come to worship God.

The first order of business was the two wheelchairs that supporters of The Well and Brookwood provided. A young man named Immanuel, 17 years old, had been seated near a wall close to us. As the wheelchairs were brought in to the church and the plastic was torn off, they called him over to us. He had to slither over to us like a snake on his back because his legs didn't work. As it was explained to him that this wheelchair was for him, and he began to look back and forth between the pastor and the wheelchair, his face lit up. I don't think he fully comprehended what was happening until they put him in the wheelchair and explained it was his to keep. We were all crying by that point, but then we learned more. Because it is not in keeping with their culture to carry invalids from place to place, Immanuel has been forced to be largely immobile. This means he had to stop his education in 2nd grade...there was no way for him to get to school. He has no parents, and nobody else would take the time to carry him from class to class. This wheelchair does more than just give him a way around...it gives him back his dignity, and it will allow him to continue his education. LOTH agreed on the spot to pay for him to continue his education, and he will begin with 3rd grade lessons when school resumes. A whole life changed.

Then the second wheelchair was presented. There was a young mother there with two children, both of whom had deformed arms and legs. Pacifique (his mom called him Paci) was put into the wheelchair, and although he was so little that it swallowed him, his mom knew he'd grow into it quickly. For now, it's big enough for both brothers to fit into it. This will now enable the brothers to attend school as well. Lives changed forever. As if that wasn't enough, I was trying to keep my composure; then I saw Saidi. I wrote about this in an earlier blog, but Saidi, an ex-RPF machine gun front-line fighter, battle-hardened, had turned away from the group and was wiping away tears that were FLOWING down his face. He stood by Kris and patted Kris on the back as the mom put Paci in his chair for the first time. "God bless you," he said softly to Kris, and continued to cry. I felt like if I turned my head fast enough, I could get a glimpse of the Holy Spirit there grinning at us.

So...the tears were flowing, and then in walked a group of the orphans that would be staying in the new orphan dorm being built. Rwanda as a whole discourages "orphanages," feeling in part that having orphanages can discourage the community from taking responsibility for these children. Very few children actually sleep on the street; they are taken in by others to sleep, at least for one night, in a crowded front room or porch with several other orphans. Those who are lucky are taken in by "Good Samaritans," adults who live in a house and agree to look after orphans who will live there with them. This is similar to our foster parent system. We saw an example of what happens to those who aren't so lucky. Behind one of the houses on one of our journeys into a village there was a pig-pen, made with poles loosely tied together and banana leaves on top for a makeshift roof. Orphans who had not been taken in by a Good Samaritan often lived in a shelter like this one.

So the timing couldn't have been better when contributions from Ashley Ridge Church in South Carolina and money raised from The Well's tip jar were donated to LOTH right before our trip. An idea to build an orphan dormitory (not an orphanage, but a dorm for 12 orphans to live under the watchful eye of the pastor himself) was approved, and we were able to help fund it. The dorm is directly across from the church, and right next to the parsonage and the school, so the orphans don't have to travel far to get to the main places they need to go.

(this is the orphan dorm under construction)

Going from a pig-pen to a brick dorm with a real roof overhead was a blessing for these kids, and as we were standing there, trying to recover from the wheelchair giving, in they walked. The orphans who would get to live in the dorm. And they were each carrying something - a ball wrapped in wrapping paper. It hit me again...they must have been so excited, picking out the paper, wrapping the balls, getting ready to walk in to present these to us...God was drawing us to them and them to us like magnets. They wanted us to have their version of a soccer ball to take back to America. To make these balls, they take a bundle of trash and wrap it into a ball using banana leaves as the outer layer, and then tie it with twine. And they had made one for each of us.

Then, one of them, a little girl named Florentine, stepped forward. Again, with hand-written copies for each of us, she had written us a thank-you letter in English for what the dorm would mean to her and to all of them. She then, with a trembling and shy voice, stood in front of us and read it to us in English. What courage!!! But when she was done, she threw her arms around several of us, saying, "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!"

Good. Grief. Yep, we could forget about the tears drying up. I don't think we were even trying to wipe our faces by that point.

Right on the heels of that, the goats were brought in to the church and given to the orphans. The pastor had decided that these goats (again, bought by Brookwood and The Well) would be specifically for the orphans. They each took the ropes of some of the goats, huge grins on the orphans' faces.

Did it stop there? NO! This was Bukonya, and supporters of The Well, you've been doing a lot of "Drinking Coffee, Doing Good", so of course there was more! Pastor Ildephonse then stood in our midst inside of the church, ready to give a speech, but Manny, our interpreter, brought Kris and me up to him. Manny explained to him that it was our church and our coffee shop that was responsible for building his house, the home he and his wife will forever own themselves. This man I'd already heard so much about, that I'd witnessed be so quiet and reserved and formal, preferring to stand on the outside and watch from afar, listened quietly at first as the interpreter began to talk. But I can tell you the exact moment the interpreter told him our people had provided the house for him, because his face EXPLODED into the widest grin I'd ever seen, his eyes lit up, he exclaimed something I didn't understand, and then he THREW himself into Kris' arms. They hugged for what seemed to be a lifetime, and then they touched foreheads and time seemed to freeze as they stood there together, foreheads together, Kris crying, Pastor beaming.

That moment will be burned into my memory forever. It was the meeting, finally, of someone we had long prayed for, invested in, and admired. For me, the trip could have stopped right there in that church.

Pastor had his itenerary, though, so on we went to the next place. We were brought into the parsonage (not the house we helped build, but the parsonage that stays on the land with the church). Pastor and his wife had moved chairs and benches along the wall in their front room, and we sat with the front door open for air and light as they fed us refreshments. Glass-bottle cokes and fantas (Kris was careful to not choose orange!), freshly gathered and boiled eggs, peanuts that had been roasting in the sun, and fresh fruit. We fellowshipped and grinned at the children who crowded the doorway for a glimpse at the visitors.

After that, we were able to teach in this school as well, singing songs with the kids in the classrooms (it's so funny to me that they all knew the Hokey-Pokey!), writing words to Jesus Loves Me on the chalkboard, and answering their many questions.

We were scheduled to end our day at the house Brookwood built for Pastor Ildephonse, on the top of the mountain not far away. But first, we had two detours to make. Last year, our trip leader, Karen, had connected with a child named Fidelity, a young girl who was first in her class at Bukonya. LOTH was able to raise money to pay for her school fees at a secondary school known for being one of the best in the country. We stopped by to surprise her, and when she saw Karen, it was like she was seeing her mother. She flew into Karen's arms, crying, and clung to Karen the whole time we were there. In just a year she had gone from knowing almost no English to speaking it almost fluently. This is yet another example of their drive to succeed, their desire to use all the resources they're given to the fullest.

Our second stop was to see an orphan named Jeanette. Jeannette's legs were hacked off by a machete during one of the outbreaks of violence which occurred after the genocide, as rebels lashed out against the newly peaceful government. We were there to measure Jeannette for a possibility of her being fitted for prosthetics later on. Most of the group stepped out while Karen measured her, but a few of us stayed to help. I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach when Karen pulled Jeanette's pants legs up. I've seen all sorts of deformities, but it was something altogether different to see the blunt, precise way that the legs just ended. I looked at her sweet little face, and for the hundredth time that day, I had to wipe away my tears.

Finally, we headed to the top of Bukonya to Pastor's new home. Only a very small percentage of Rwandans actually own their own home. Most are forced to rent and can be forced out at any time. Pastor had never asked anything for himself, and when things were given to him, he usually gave them away. Finally, though, LOTH persuaded him that he had to have a house. He was giving shelter to orphans, to workers, to people who needed him, and his own home was falling apart around him.

In the summer of 2010, Brookwood's VBS raised money for an orphan home that helped to house a brother and sister, and the rest of that money, combined with Brookwood's Challenge Week offerings, built Pastor's home. A home nobody can drag him away from. A home he can use to offer shelter to others. A home he can one day retire in with his wife. Built by the young people of Brookwood. All this was going through my head as I hiked up the mountain and the house came into view. The only thing that would have made that moment better was if I had every child, every teenager, every worker from Brookwood with me on that hike to experience what we were feeling. This moment belonged to all of them!

(below is a picture of Pastor's home with Pastor's wife, Pastor, me, and Kris)

Again, refreshments were waiting for us, and we were served by Pastor and his wife, people who have spent a lifetime serving others. What a humble moment for me. He showed us all around, so proud of everything...he has already started a crop of beans and other plants in his garden behind the house, he's built a fence defining his front yard with roses growing in between the poles of the fence, and everywhere you look, the Rwandan mountains rise up on the horizon.

I stood in his front yard as the sun set, listening to the children giggling all around, Pastor talking quietly to some of the visitors, and the far-off sound of African birds settling in for the night. I wanted to soak it all up and to never forget it. Never, never in my life, have I understood so fully the meaning of "it is more blessed to give than to receive." How many lives were changed that day? We will never know the fully far-reaching effects of the wheelchairs, the goats, the dorms, the soccer balls, the dresses Ashley Ridge brought. More than that, though, I suspect that our visits to the classrooms, our hands offered freely to the children, the games we played with them, and the love that passed between us will mean even more.

What more does God have in store for us? I can't wait to see. I've seen what God can do when we all band together and decide to sacrifice a little for His kingdom. And that was just our first visit to Rwanda, the Land of a Thousand Hills. I'm homesick already to be back.