The Land of A Thousand Hills

What happens when you impulsively buy a chicken and then get attached to it? In this case, you end up having to kill the chicken and eat it for dinner. Yes, poor Logan is dead. He was a very good chicken and he made me laugh many times. Sadly though, after having him for a couple weeks I was informed by my leaders that they didn't think our landlord would want a chicken living here and told me I needed to kill it. I know that it was my original plan when I bought the chicken but I'm an animal lover and since I didn't do the deed right away and waited, I grew fond of him. Killing him was really hard, after I did it I definitely cried. But if I'm going to be a meat eater, I think it's good to experience first-hand the process that occurs in order for me to actually be able to eat meat. I had to keep reminding myself that God gave us animals to eat. I don't think this will be something I will ever repeat in my life unless I have to, but I suppose it is good to know that I am able to if necessary.

I haven't blogged for a few weeks so I'll try and catch you up on what we've been doing. One of the weeks we worked in an orphanage in the morning and then in the afternoons we went to the community. At the orphanage we split into two groups and each took turns playing with the kids and washing clothes. Almost all of the children at the orphanage were mentally handicapped or disabled. There were a number of children who couldn't stand by themselves and were confined to laying down and waiting for someone to pick them up. These children especially constantly had flies on them, in their mouth, on their eyes. Some would have mini "fits", randomly kicking and jerking their legs and arms. One little child, he must have been around 1 1/2 years old, would behave completely fine and normal, but every now and then he too would have a mini "fit" and start crying and saying "Mama! Mama!". It broke my heart.


At the community one of our team members Courtney taught the women how to crochet hats. (I've learned as well) The women picked it up so quickly! One woman in the course of two weeks has made seven hats already! While they were being taught that, our guys joined with the few men in the community and started helping them build new toilets. (basically latrines) We also built them an improvised "faucets" which they could use to wash their hands. I and several of the other girls taught the women and children proper hygiene and hand-washing. We had all the children practice thouroghly cleaning their hands and getting rid of the dirt under their nails. When we came again later in the day and all the children ran up they were so clean! While we were gone the women had given their children baths and made sure that their hands were clean. Before this we had never seen the children clean, they were always so dirty. It was so awesome seeing the immediate results of our teaching! Since then while they are still sometimes dirty, they are generally so much cleaner!

The kids showing off their clean hands!

This school we've been teaching at for the past two weeks is called Excella School, it's a private Christian school from nursery to grade 6. The first day we were there we split up in groups of 2 or 3 and each had a class that we were going to work with. We expected to just observe the classes and help out the teachers but when we showed up to the classes the teachers just handed it over to us and left! We were at a loss about what to teach them but we improvised to the best of our ability. The students all called us "Teacher" so I was "Teacher Bethany". I worked mostly with the older classes, grades 5 and 6 which I loved. While I enjoy younger kids, their classes were almost too much for me to handle. It's hard to deal with 30 hyper five year olds who only speak English as a second language! The first week was very uncoordinated for us, but the second week went so much better. Although it's a Christian school we found through talking with many of the kids that their view of salvation was very works based. We've grown confident in teaching them and were able to share about the gospel, teaching them things like the fruits of the spirit, forgiveness of sins, and faith and works. We've had such a great response from the students and even were able to lead many of them to Christ. After one class Ben and I had 19 students get down on their knees and accept Jesus! I'll be honest, I teared up a little bit. I'm praying for them that this declaration will be the foundation of a life-long relationship with the Lord. We've come across some situations where it seems that we aren't really doing anything of value but each time God has totally shown up and blessed our work.

Teaching the girls some ballet

One day several grade 6 girls came up to me and asked me if I would teach them ballet later that day when I would be teaching their class. I told them I wasn't sure what we'd be doing but it was a possibility (I didn't actually think that it was going to happen). But when we showed up to where their class was having PE outside all the girls were waiting for me and hopped up off the ground excited to learn ballet! Mind you, I haven't done ballet in YEARS but since they were so excited I couldn't say no. I explained to them that they had to give me a minute to "remember", luckily I was able to recall a few ballet moves and was able to teach them. It ended up being a lot of fun. It's been such a joy working with these kids and getting to know them. It will be so hard saying goodbye to them.

A beautiful Rwandan sunrise

Two Sundays ago we went to a small (but very packed) church service in town that lasted 6 hours! The pastor is very prophetic and filled with the holy spirit. He had come to our house before and ministered to us, prophesying over each of our team members and it was astonishing how spot on he was. During the church service he had people who were visiting for the first time stand up and then he would call out things about their lives. He told one woman that God revealed to him that she was seeing two men, neither of whom were her husband (he even specified one of the mens names) and told her that she needed to turn back to God or things would not go well for her. He did this for around 6 different people and each time you could tell what he was saying was true. Around three hours of the service was spent with worship and dancing... a lot of dancing! Their choirs would get up and sing and dance a traditional African dance. I don't know how to explain what this dancing looked like but it was so energetic and amazing to watch! Part of the way through the pastor called up us Muzungu's (White People) to dance on stage. We weren't prepared at all but we went up anyways and attempted to dance their African dance with them. We got videos of that which I will hopefully be able to share when I get back. Also while we were there the pastor got a word from God that Ben was supposed to preach. Luckily God had prepared Ben in advance because he had a sermon ready! He did so well and you could see that he has the gift of preaching!

Last Sunday was a long, long day. The night before our leader told us that we would be going to a village church and that we needed to be prepared to do worship and have someone give their testimony and preach. Guess who was called to preach? Me! When I thought of what I would preach on the thing that came to mind was the mission call. I didn't really know what I would say besides a few Bible verses and some notes I had but I trusted that God would give me the words to speak. So Sunday morning we left the house at 6:30 a.m. and for an hour took two different bus rides to get out of the city. The last bus dropped us off on the side of the road where we hired biciclyists (not motorcycles!) to take us several miles down a dirt road that winded throughout the hills. They dropped us off at the bottom of a hill (more like a mountain to me!) where we were to begin our ascent. Yep, we had a lot of hiking yet to do! One of my team members estimated that we hiked up 15,000 feet, either way it took us almost two hours of hiking to make it to the church. I'm not a physically fit person in general, but on top of that I was also sick with a bad cough/cold. It was definitely a struggle for me hiking up that dirt path in the hot sun. Much of that time was spent in prayer, half praying that I would just make it up the mountain and the other half that I would be able to effectively preach and that God would give me the words to say once I got there! Somehow, God gave me the strength to make it up the hill. When we got to the church I was still wondering if He would also give me the words. I was so nervous getting up to preach but I knew that God had brought me up to that church for a reason. And as always God came through. My sermon went really well and God did give me the words to say when I myself really had nothing to give.Afterwards the pastor said that my message was just what they needed to hear and that God had been telling them some of the same things. I can't tell you how happy I was to hear him say that. God is so good! On the way back down I was able to focus more on the scenery and oh, is God not the most amazing artist in the universe? Rwanda is so absolutely beautiful, pictures don't do it justice at all!

Thank you everyone for your continued prayers and support. We have a little less than five weeks left here in Rwanda. On February 14th our team will be heading to Burundi to do some hospital ministry. Please take a look at the website to check out what we will be doing there. http://compassiondtskona.wordpress.com/
After we get back from Burundi we will be heading out of Kigali and going to a village for a week, and then after a couple days we'll be on our way back to the states! Please be praying that God will use us mightily in the time we have left here and that we will be bringing God's light wherever we go and be equipped to set the captives free (spiritually, emotionally, and physically!).

Love you all!

Bethany

Muraho from Rwanda!

Rwanda, the land of a thousand hills. It is so mind-boggling to me that I am finally here, thousands of miles away from home on a completely different continent. I am in Africa! It is so absolutely beautiful here, the way the bright orange and blues of the buildings mesh into the lush green hillsides. Our home here is so much nicer than we had anticipated. There are 8 of us living in this house (7 that makes up our team plus our Rwandan translator Amable) with 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms! I made a video that gives a tour of the house so you can get a better idea but the internet here is really slow, hopefully I will be able to upload it at some point. Rwanda is usually a very safe country but our house has extra security in that we are surrounded by walls and to get in you have to go through a gate. Every door (even cupboards!) in our house has a key that locks it. The thing though, about the walls in our backyard is that when you climb up and look over them you are greeted with poverty. Our neighbors on the other side of the wall live in dirt floor homes and cook their meals outside over a fire. It is so humbling, and the fact is that if we hadn't climbed up to look over the wall we could easily still be living unaware in the luxury of our home. It makes me feel guilty but grateful at the same time. It is such a strange mix of emotions.

Our team is still getting used to the time change (we traveled at least over 40 hours to get here) and the culture difference but I'd say we're doing pretty well. We're starting to get the hang of cooking our own food and taking taxis around. Surprisingly things aren't cheaper here like you would think, in fact prices are a lot more like that in Hawaii so we have to be consciencious of how we spend our money. It's a great learning experience. The one thing that I wish I had brought was nicer clothes. Everyone here dresses so nice, especially in church! Coming to Kona I only brought one nice dress as the style in Hawaii is very casual. I've picked up a couple things since then but I definitely feel lacking in the fashion department here.

Almost everywhere we go we are constantly stared at. It is so hard for me because even in America I hate being the center of attention. I dislike crowds because of the fact that strangers I don't know are looking at me. Here, there is no avoiding it. In church yesterday I was stared at by a particular girl for most of the service, no smile, just staring. I don't know how to react to that. I smiled and got no response so I just tried to ignore it. It's something that I'll just have to get used to living here though, as many people have never seen a white person before. I'm told some children may even cry! I do hope that doesn't happen though.

We went to the Kigali Genocide Memorial the other day. Over 250,000 genocide victims are buried there. I felt such a heaviness being there and going through the museum. It's so hard to fathom that something so terrible and horrifying could happen, but I thank God for the great work He has done in this country restoring it and for the strength He has given Rwandans.

This week it is planned that we will be doing door-to-door ministry visiting people in their homes. I am so glad that we have our wonderful translator Amable with us as the majority of people here don't speak English but Kinyarwandan. I made some flash cards of words in Kinyarwadan before we came which was helpful but I am eager to learn more. We are told that we will have times put aside for Amable to teach us the language and I am very thankful!

In our bathroom we have a small window and in the mornings when we're getting ready we can hear the children that live next to us singing. It is one of my favorite things of being here, I could listen to them all day. There is just something so precious about hearing children sing!

We will typically be doing ministry Tuesday through Sunday and only have Monday off to go downtown to an internet cafe. I don't have my own laptop so I have to borrow one of my teamates, so we'll see how it works out but I am hoping I will be able to write updates each week. Please continue to keep us in your prayers, they are so appreciated! :)

Blessings,

Bethany