Counting Nails

In the moments before going to bed I was hit by another moment of cultural frustration. It hardly seems worth writing about but I personally found it actually humorous.

Our home, although a God send for sure, has less storage space than our home in America. Less than most homes in America. It does not have a garage or attic and most homes here are not built with the idea of having a washer and drier inside. So, we have our washer and drier (I still have not called an electrician) on the back porch. The washer is hooked up in a hodge-podge way with a garden hose to the water main. We commonly have to wash loads twice because our worker or a child turns the water off in the middle of the wash cycle. Sometimes the city water pressure drops in the middle of the cycle and the washer cannot hand the low pressure and shuts off.

The storage rooms we have are not big enough for my tools, the washer and dryer and most of the other items we had in our garage and shed in Tyler. These items in addition to the items that would go in an attic (Holiday decor and kid's clothing that are waiting for the next child to grow into them) won't fit in our home nor our storage. We need to get our washer off the porch and into the storage room where a plumber can hook it to the water main properly. Well the landlord was really big on the idea of paying for an additional add on storage room (sarcasm here). His exact words were, sure "you" can build more storage if you like. He'd love that, I add the storage on and he ups the rent because the property value goes up. Well my idea is to build lofts in our two storage rooms. Far less expense and I can take it apart and take the wood with me when I move.

Tomorrow is construction day and I have been sitting here calculating the board foot needed to build the frame and the size I will need to cut my plywood. I have to be careful about the plywood because the only plywood around is the material some of the shipping boxes were made from and you generally can't buy it here. As I was thinking about the frame I came to the point where you plan how to attach the frame to the walls of the building. You have to use really large nails because all walls are sun dried or furnace baked brick with sprayed concrete over them. You have to drive the nails through the wood and into the brick walls.

I realized during this process that I was beginning to acclimate to Rwandan culture. Why? Because I was counting nails.

In America you go to Lowes or Home Depot and buy a box of nails, maybe two just in case. Well here in Rwanda you plan your job and you go to one of the only hardware stores where the owner likes mzungus and I feel like she gives me a good price (I call this place Little Lowes, and it's located in a place I like to call Lowes Town because there are at least 10 hardware stores on the same block). She only sells the big nails in single units. So I have to count nails. You cannot imaging the depression that would ensue if I was about to finish and realized I was a single nail short. Driving to downtown Kigali to buy a single nail might just do me in. So, I better count my nails carefully.

Blessing to all. Hope all is well this Holiday season.

Thanksgiving

What a team. God is so good!
You butcher 'em, you fry 'em, you carve 'em.
Even girls can play horseshoes. Doesn't she look like a natural?

Well, happy Thanksgiving to all.

We had a great time for Thanksgiving dinner. As many of you know, some of the guys (David and Chris) had the idea of raising some turkeys for Thanksgiving. What a great idea. After we butchered them and they sat in my freezer for about 6 weeks it was time to find out if they were edible. As always the Robinson clan decided to go with the Cajun Fried Turkey. It wasn't easy in Rwanda. Since our container was full I had to leave our turkey frying pot and burner in the states. Turns out it didn't matter. We were able to buy a 20 liter pot at one of the stores here and since frying foods is a Rwanda past time oil, although expensive, is plentiful. After a night of prep (and someone didn't put 100% into plucking their turkey) we were able to get the oil plenty hot on one of Marty's rocket stoves. Worked like a charm. We fried two turkeys, a chicken and 4 lb of chicken quarters. Wow was it good. I do have to say that as good as the food was it was not nearly as good as the fellowship. We had the best Redneck Thanksgiving ever. Fried turkeys and horseshoes. It really is amazing that even though we are 10,000 miles away we were able to reproduce a great southern Thanksgiving right here in Rwanda. It was a blessing to all who attended. I can honestly say that it was a day that brought peace. We knew that no one else around us was celebrating or even cared what was going on but it was a short moment of peace and fun.

On the flip side, "Black Friday" brought many disappointments. Kristin was able to speak to her family last night as they were preparing for their annual trip to Wal-Mart, Kohls and so on. They were cutting out adds and planning their route. Even I was surprised by how much I missed that. I don't usually participate in the shopping but just the day of rest after Thanksgiving with family was missed. We kind of made up for it by doing some online shopping. Not quite the same. At least no one had to wake up at 4 am to stand in line at Wal-Mart. But just so we didn't miss out, Kristin had to get up at 4 am to help Samuel who was having his turn at Africa diarrhea.

After resting and cleaning up after Thanksgiving our family decided to put up our tree. It was cloudy and cool (about 68 degrees) so it almost felt cold. But no snow, no chill in the wind. Just 68 degrees, same as every other day. We pulled out all three of our Christmas bins that made it here on the container. I think we left at least 3 or 4 in Tyler that wouldn't make it on the container. This bothers us because in our unpacking we have found things like a bin of empty figurine boxes and a couple boxes with only one or two things in them. Too bad they didn't have the Christmas ornament hooks in them. That was probably one of the most frustrating things yet. We had no hooks to put our ornaments on the tree with. Fortunately Louise Koonce was able to abate the depression with a box of paper clips. We made it through. Our tree is up and at least the inside of our house looks like Christmas.

We are actually doing quite well. The kids are enjoying school and we have began to feel settled as we unpack more and more boxes.

I have met with the department heads at Kigali Health Institute and have begun to make plans to begin teaching in their nursing midwife program and their laboratory medicine program. I will teach a section of chemical pathology during the Endocrine module but as we talked, the director kept asking me if I could teach Hematology. I kept saying I wasn't as qualified to teach this as Endocrine but I could probably teach part of it. He finally told me that his Hematology instructor quit last month and they had no replacement as of yet. I conceded and agreed to teach Hematology to the second year students. Fortunately it was actually my best subject and my first choice for specialty however I was not interested in taking care of cancer patients and thus went to Endocrine. I know it is going to be hard the first couple classes but I pray and ask for prayers for it to become easier.

I am thankful for this chance to teach because it gives me and ATN (Africa Transformation Network) another opportunity to impact Rwanda and show ourselves committed in the eyes of the government. It allows me access to young men and women who will influence thousands of others in Rwanda. The best thing about Rwanda, it's alright to be a teacher and a christian. I have the chance to interact not only intellectually but spiritually with a hundred young people. I pray, as I mentioned before in my previous blogs about disciple making, that I can be constantly intentional about expressing my faith in every interaction at KHI.

The bible study going in my neighborhood has been struggling. I believe Satan is attacking it hard. The leader of the group had a death in the family after the first meeting and thus had to take the obligatory week of mourning. This happened on a Sunday and so the week lasted until the following Sunday. It prevented two meetings. However I was able to minister to the man and his wife and was actually able to have him in our home during the mourning time for encouragement. On my visit to his home to pay respects he asked me if I could read to him from my bible. I was so shocked but pleased. God uses all opportunities to reach people.

We had a successful study this past Sunday and at the end of the study one of the attendees said he was wanting to invite two of his near neighbors and have the study in his house.

I would like to ask for prayers for Lugira. He is a young man I might have mentioned before who is Rwanda-Congolese and grew up in a "church home". He loves God but stated that he has never studied the bible in this way before and never considered that you could have church outside "a church". He is doing one bible study here in Kigali but recently has expressed to me his desire to reach the displaced Congolese in the refugee camps here in Rwanda. At first I thought this was just too huge but I realized that this is just what our team has been praying for. We want to reach millions of Rwandans and we have to have Rwandans to reach Rwandans. Here is a young man who has a special skill (able to speak 5 languages and is not white). He was able to visit one of the camps and blended in perfectly. He met with the 12 pastors (there are 15,000 people in the camp) of the camp. He was actually able to get them all to meet in the same place. This was the first time that the 12 pastors of this camp have ever met together as a group. He explained to them about the concept of neighborhood groups and how neighborhood bible studies could and would produce stronger members and socially accountable groups. He explained how neighborhoods become families when they read the word of God together. The pastors were just amazed at the idea of having church outside of church. There is not a single church in the camp that has been started by a refugee. They were all started by outside, approved denominations and are full of people who simply have no where else to go on Sunday morning. He describes it as the only entertainment they get. He has been able to meet with them twice and has now asked me to train him in the details of the Disciple Making Method. He wants to teach church planting to ministers in the refugee camp!

In my mind this is huge and it is overwhelming. However, God has no limits and Lugira is motivated. Please pray for me and my team as we try to train this young man and that God is in this. It is easy for projects like this, especially this size, to fizzle but this is because of the doubt in our hearts. Pray that we will believe in God's mighty hand and that we will allow God to show himself mighty. Please pray that Lugira is also honest and open. In Africa it is especially hard to identify those who would take advantage of you. It is hard to read them when you don't understand their language or their culture. I have prayed about this repeatedly and I know others here have been praying as well. I went as far as asking one of the Rwandans who works at ATN to go to the camp with him. The report from this was favorable and so please pray for his integrity.

I hope you all know that I pray for you often. Many of those who read this blog I know by name and pray for by name and others I simply lift you up in prayer to the Lord and ask him to reveal you to me. I praise God for each of you and ask Him to bless you and open your hearts and show you a new way to love Him and share Him.

I ask for your prayers, for the men mentioned above and for my family. We are having our first Thanksgiving and Christmas in Africa and that has already been hard. We are blessed by all those who have given themselves in pray and who have supported our family financially. We thank God for all of those who put food on our table. We ask you also to pray for the kids school. The semester is almost over and we have yet to raise the money for next semester. We pray and ask God to lift up those who are able to provide for our family in this way. This school is a blessing because it has allowed our kids to adjust to being in Rwanda. Each kid has a class that is a mix of American, European, Asian and African students. Aaron is the only mzungu kid in his class. All the others are African. This has made their adjustment much easier. Kristin and I are blessed because we don't have to home school them right now. We realize that it would be near impossible to do language and adjust to our own surroundings, in addition to getting our house set up, if our kids where home all day every day. The cost of the next semester is $6000 and we are praying for those who have the heart to share this expense with us and contribute as you feel capable.

Blessings to all of you.

Brian

Bible Study Day 1 and a bonus

Well I'll start with the bonus. Today we received a package from the Phillip Woodward family. What a blessing. Such great people. My kids were overjoyed by the Hershey's assorted chocolate and the chocolate chips. I know I will benefit from these as well when the cookies were made. However it was the 6 pack of Dr. Pepper 12 ounce bottles that drew my immediate attention. This gift, added to Sylvia's previous package containing my most favorite candy bar, Reese's peanut butter cups made for such a pleasant evening. It just doesn't matter to me that I won't go to sleep until about 2am. Now I will say that life does not revolve around such things but I can also say that it is very close.

Well onto the Bible study tonight.

I know it sounds odd but we don't start with prayer. We assume everyone has a different idea of who God is and what church and bible study are so we start on an even playing field and we organize the study in a way that does not preconceived or offensive ideas into the study. Now I don't mean offensive in a "Offend them by being religious" but rather by being sensitive that many have been hurt (some physically) by churches and are not ready for diving in to church routine.

The first series of questions ask of everyone at the study are about learning to share and confide in each other and setting the stage for prayer and intercession. We can refer to it as the discover part of the study. We want to discover things about each other and we want to discover facts about God. We first ask, "Is there anything you are concerned about or worried about this week. This allows people to interact with issues in their lives that are bothering them without feeling too vulnerable and begins to set the stage for the idea of praying later. This question is followed up by "How can this group help you in this issue?" This begins to lay the foundation of ministering to one another.

After this time we begin our study by asking someone to read from our first scripture which is Genesis 1:1-24. Creation of all things except man. (that is our next session)

Once we read we ask everyone to just simply write or say a simple summary of the passage in their own words. We want them to be able to do this because when it comes time to share with others in our daily walk we can remember our synopsis easier than memorizing 25 versus of scripture.

After everyone is given the chance to summarize we then ask, "What does this passage say about who God is"? In this passage we want every to begin with a basic, and similar understanding of the fact that God created all things. He created all things "Good" and that God had an organized plan for his creation. Later we will see in the next study that God created all this for man.

We then ask, "What does this passage say about man"? This study is more about God and less about who we are because we want each person at the study to have a single foundation for going forward. It generally does not matter who you are, if you believe in a god, you believe he created the world. Once the stage is set and we agree that God created all things and is all powerful then we move to the fact that he created man to be good and he created us in such a way as to have a personal and deep relationship with everyone of us.

The next section is the obedience section.

The next question in the study is, "What now?" "How does this passage make me different tomorrow than I was yesterday. How will I act differently tomorrow after having read this"? The answers vary but tonight it seemed that the main theme from those at the study was that God is powerful and good, he created all things and he created them good. Therefore we must respect what he has done, respect his creation and treat it as a gift.

The last part is the sharing part.

We ask, "who will you share this with during the next week"? Can you share it with a co-worker or a neighbor this week? Can you share it with your family or a friend. And even deeper, "Could you organize a similar study in your home or at your workplace using this scripture?"

We next ask about neighbors. In sharing with your neighbors can you find out how they are doing? Do they have a need that either you or this group can help with. We want them to make a connection between sharing the word of God and acts of service. These form the foundation of true worship and form the basis for building Godly communities.

Next week we give them an opportunity to report on their attempts of sharing and to give feedback on how they or we as a group can help someone in their neighborhood.

I continue to challenge and pray that some of those reading my blog will consider following this pattern of study in their neighborhoods. I want to tell each of you that before coming to Africa I was mislead by Satan into believing that I was not qualified to teach the bible to others. I am not the kind of person that can easily memorize chapters and chapters of scripture. But I know now that prayer and living a life that is transparent and using conversation that is always intentional in motive is the key. Pray every day for someone to notice when you say, "God has been good to me today". Everyone notices it when I say it because no one expects a Mzungu (white person) to say something like that in Kinyarwanda. Their eyes almost bug out and they stop what they are doing. Then, as David Lipscomb once said, "Love them until they ask you why". Speaking and living with spiritual intent always gets someone's attention. If it is someone who "hates" churchy people or "those God people" then guess what, now you have something to talk to them about. They would love to tell you all the things wrong with church. But at least they are opening the door for you to talk about God.

There are plenty of preprinted bible studies out there and on the internet. If you would like a PDF of the one we are using please email me at awillingspirit@gmail.com. I would love to share it with you. However, if you pick one from the internet or you just make up your own, remember this: If the study does not end with the question, "Who are you going to share this with" then you're not making disciples. Disciples share the word.

God has given us all the ability to share His word in some way or the other. Some are more fluid and obvious than others but just as sharing comes in many forms so does receiving. Your style of sharing will find someone. Just be intentional about using it.

Bless you all. We pray for so many of you daily.

Prayer requests:

Continued peace in our new environment