God Moment Memoirs

So before we go on safari...we have a few more things to share about my time in Rwanda. Since every minute of this trip, from planning, preparation, and participation served as an education for me I thought I'd pass on some of the important things. I mean, if anyone is actually reading along. Are you? I've never blogged before and have decided it's a strange world that I'm not sure I belong in!! There's all this quick scrolling and clicking around and scanning (I'm so guilty of all of this!). Being on this end of it makes me appreciate the people putting their hearts out there and wondering if anyone is paying attention. Well, if you are...leave me a comment! Let's start a conversation and see if we can begin a little revolution of community and love and support for my new found circle of precious Rwandan friends. Their heart wrenching stories, precious smiles, sweet laughter, contagious joy, fearless devotion, and tender voices have changed everything ab...

OUR FIRST HELLO Almost every day of our trip we traveled in to the villages and areas of the city to visit the children and women we sponsor. I'm pretty sure there aren't words that can capture the feeling of this experience, but maybe between my feeble description and the pictures we all shared you can get a glimpse of the wonder. I'm so grateful that Africa New Life makes this a priority for the trip because it took me out of the realm of being just a distant observer. When you cross the threshold in to a person's home, especially in a culture so full of hospitality and respect, you immediately feel like you are part of their lives, of their experience. We're so good at antiseptic standoffishness here in the states. We don't like to get our hands dirty or actually feel the pain of anothers experience. It's so much easier for us to just sit home, take selfies, post our endless, meaningless opines about whatever the media feeds us, and maybe send a che...

What a fun day! I thought after the last post about the horror of the genocide, I would share some stories from the adventure we had living the life of a Rwandan village woman, well, for a few hours at least! We left early and headed west in our coaster, out of the city and through the beautiful countryside of Rwanda. Little by little the shops and crowds and swarms of motorbikes thinned out and we were surrounded by flowers and rivers and green hills. And everywhere people working, digging, building, farming, all alone and in groups, it amazed me to see the labor of just living. I thought about how much time we waste here doing mindless things, how much sitting and watching we do, while the hours slip by. But for these, the work doesn't end, there is no easy way to provide food and shelter, it's all hard, endless work. After 2 hours of driving, we were ready to find out what a sip of that reality tasted like. This is their website  https://azizilife.com  and it's full ...

I had every intention of posting all throughout my trip and obviously that didn't go so well, you know what they say about good intentions! Our wifi was spotty and our schedule was packed so what little free time I had, I needed just to process my responses to the things we were seeing and feeling. The word "overwhelming" seems inadequate and overused but it's the only one I have right now. So today I find myself trying to sort through my pictures, notes, journal entries and devotions and I'm sure this is going to take lots of time. Which is fine because this trip has changed me in ways I have yet to fully discover and I am not willing to let any of it slip away. I know that sounds great, the whole intentions thing again, and I also know that it's probably impossible to assimilate completely all that I experienced but this is the rawness of where I sit today. I figure if you're following along, maybe you want to feel all the feels with me. New Life Chu...