Sunday at St. Ettienne's

Day 4 Sunday This was our last day in the capital of Kigali. Being Sunday, it was our day of rest. We began the day by attending church at St. Ettienne's Cathedral. Unbeknownst to us, today was the dedication of the church's new parking lot. They had been raising money for over a year, and they had an all-out dedication service for it. We sat in white plastic lawn chairs on the parking lot under huge tents and had a three and a half hour service. Sitting among the congregation of St. Ettienne's, I had the same reaction this year that I did last year. The congregation of that church is extremely wealthy; foreigners, expats, diplomats, and the upper crust of the community attend this church. To go from yesterday's mountain communities that welcomed us into their church which had no electricity and only a few windows, whose congregation applauded and cheered when some of their families were given goats, whose little kids wore soiled and torn tshirts and hadn't bathed in months...to go from that to a community in the same region, just a car ride away, that spent $50,000 on a new parking lot and showed up to church in their fancy clothes, impeccable hair, and shiny cars...the disparity of the two extremes in Rwanda startled me. I judged those rich Rwandan Christians; in my heart I disapproved and I condemned and I judged. I thought, "How can you Rwandans sit there in all that wealth and enjoy your privileged excess when all around you there is extreme poverty and need?"  And then, of course, you know what comes next. It washed over me in a wave of sickness that it happens exactly like that in our own community back home. I think we're just better at segregating the poverty and keeping it out of sight from our normal daily routine. Which, in many ways, is even worse. The ghetto urban poverty, the destitute families in rural areas, the homeless... We have them too, but yet I show up at Brookwood every Sunday freshly showered in clean clothes with a stomach full of hot food. I didn't have to walk or take the bus to church. My church will have a floor, not red dirt or clay or gravel.  We will have air conditioning. My kids will be taken care of by people who were background-checked, and we will be taught to worship God with state of the art technology that will instantly engage and affect all of us. We will discuss and sometimes even argue about where to eat lunch, because we don't want to have to wait in line somewhere, heaven forbid. It's so easy to forget that the rest of the world is not living on this same plane of comfort. God created me and He placed me in America...He is the one who created me to be a middle-class white American, so I don't feel guilty about my privileged place in this world. I just need to not lose sight of the responsibility that comes with this extreme privilege.  I need to remember that I live in a country where I will probably never be homeless, even if I run into really bad financial times. My kids will never know hunger, and even if I were to make poor decisions or unforeseen circumstances took our money, my kids would still have food and shelter. They will never know the fear of wondering where they will sleep the next night. I live in a country that will help me provide for myself if I work hard enough for it. Blessed, blessed, blessed. My prayer tonight is that I raise my children to see this privileged life for the blessing that it is, and to concentrate on how to use our resources wisely in helping others. I thank God, too, for being at a church that focuses on ministries that help both our local community (2nd Saturday, The Hub, Purchased, Yellow House, Sewing Ministry, etc) and foreign missions too.  So, with a grateful heart, we spent the rest of the day packing and cleaning up, preparing to leave the guest house in the morning.  We will visit a coffee cupping lab in the morning (so important in the process because this is part of what gives the farmers their dignity, when the cupping lab rates and reviews their crops). Then to the genocide museum, and then the long drive to Musanze, a district on the border of Uganda. Please pray for those in our team who will visit the Genocide Museum tomorrow. Kris and I will not go back into it- I don't know if I ever will again...it's so emotional that it's a one-time-only visit for us. But it's necessary to experience it at least once in order to understand what the reconciliation effort entails that is going on in Rwanda (and that Land of a Thousand Hills aids in). It's an impact event, a life-changing visit. You come out of that museum a changed person, so please pray for them tomorrow. We have to finish packing, so for now, enjoy your Sunday...may it be full of realized blessings!