Discipleship

I have blogged a couple of times on discipleship. I have come to Rwanda to be a disciple maker. I am so thankful for the moments God gives me to grow as a person and a parent. This week he spoke to me in a simple and quiet way that allowed me to change my daily routine and hopefully to change the lives of my children.

Marty (one of my teammates) and I were having lunch with another missionary in Rwanda this week. The funny thing is we were meeting to discuss how we could incorporate our Discovery Bible Study into his ministry even though he had been in Africa longer than both of us together. He has had the deep desire for quite a long time to change his ministry from a church planting ministry and to actually start discipling people. I would guess he is a man in his 50s and he is the son of missionaries. As we sat and talked he shared his desire to bring people to a far deeper relationship with God and commented on how planting churches fell short of this. He said to us, "I woke up one day and realized that even though my parents were missionaries, I was never discipled". Now he did not mean he was did not see the word of God lived out in his home or the lives of his parents. What he meant was that his parents never took him along side of themselves and with intentional words told him how to live and have a deeper relationship with God. I was struck by this and have been thinking about it all week. It is so common to say that we influence people for Christ by the way we live. "We can win more souls by being a good example than by opening our mouths". I'm sure I've said this and before this week I might have agreed to some extent but as I watch my children grow and learn about Christ in their school and on the mission field I have to say, "Hog wash". There is plenty said in the Bible about living right and being a good example but let's not confuse people. Let's not allow them to simply watch us and assume we are good people. Even many non christians "act right". We should not let the world confuse us with them and we should not let our children be confused by this concept. When Jesus "discipled" his disciples he did not just walk around and act nice. He invited them into his dwelling place. He brought them along side of himself and he spoke to them with wisdom only he could have. I must do this for my children. I have read the Bible to them nightly for as long as they can remember but that is not discipling them either. Teaching application is discipling. Discipling is imparting wisdom and confessing our mistakes and letting them walk the trails of faith with us so that they will have a map by which to navigate when I am longer around .

I am now afraid of another thing in my life. That my son will sit down some day with a missionary 15 years younger than himself and confess that he was never discipled by his parents. This was God speaking to me and praise to Him that on that day I had ears to hear.

Just remember, when you put your kids in bed at night or when you sit at the table to eat, pray, read and share. Don't let them make the mistake of thinking that you're simply "a good person". Let's remind them that there is more to being a disciple than acting like one.

For a great example of how to disciple your kids read Deuteronomy 6:4

⁴ Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. ⁵ Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

Blessing to all. We give thanks to God daily for so many of you who love and support us.

What's in a NUMB3R

Disclaimer: For those who can speak Kinyarwanda and take time to read my blog (a very small population I'm sure) the spelling and correctness of the Kinyarwanda words in this post are not guaranteed. As with all things, I will accept some gentle ridicule but be gentle.

We have recommitted ourselves to language now that the holiday season has come and gone. We are hitting it hard and we began our year with review of numbers and then new material on saying dates and time. By the time we got to saying the Month, day and year sequentially you could see steam coming out of Kristin's ears and her head was spinning around.

In Kinyarwanda they are very literal in the naming of their days and months. They don't use the traditional Roman roots as we do.

Here are some examples of numbers

1=rimwe

2=kabiri

3=gatatu

4=kane

5=gatanu

...

10 icumi

11-19 is logical, thus 11 is 10 and 1 (icumi na rimwe)

when you get to twenty it gets a little more complicated in that it follows the nomenclature for the teens rather than the 30s and 40s. 20 is makumyabiri. Broken down that is makum ya biri (pretty much means double ten). To say 30 or 40 you use Mirongo itatu and Mirongo ine (sort of means 3 in the tens place and 4 in the tens place)

When you use numbers in a sentence the "prefix" changes. For example. We have four kids so we say tufite (we have) abana (children plural) bane (four). However if you are talking about chairs you say "tufite inhebe (chair) ine (four). The numbers change prefixes with each class of nouns, of which there are 10.

Now you get to days of the week. The week starts on Monday rather than Sunday so:

Monday=Kuwa mbere (literally means first day)

Tuesday=Kuwa kabiri (second day)

and so on.

Months

January=mu kwa mbere (first month)

February=mu kwa kabiri (second month)

Time:

The day starts at 7 am rather than midnight.

7am is Samoya

8 am is Sambiri (second hour)

9 am is Satatu (third hour)

this holds true all the way to 6 pm which is Sacumi nebyiri (12th our) at which time you change back to Samoya (7 o'clock) but add zu mugoroba or literally 7 o'clock in the evening.

So when someone tells me what time they want to meet I have to count up from 7 am on my fingers in order to figure out when I need to arrive and then I have to ask them to repeat it so that I make sure they didn't say mugoroba. I did have a guy show up in the morning to meet me because I did not say mugoroba (at night). Oh well, you live and learn and thrive on the graciousness of others.

Now for that which sent my wife into orbit. We were having a very slow conversation in Kinyarwanda with our teacher and he asked us what our plans were for the coming year. Madelyn's birth day is January 22, 2010. So you say.

Madelyna afite (Madeyln, she has) umunsi mukuru (a special day) mukwa mbere (January) macumyabiri na kabiri (twenty and 2), ibihumbi (thousand plural) bibiri (2) na cumi (and 10). (Madelyn has a birthday (special day) on January twenty second, two thousand ten).

All in all it isn't too bad. It is all perspective. When they learn english I'm certain it is similar frustration. I often hear someone quote me the price of something incorrectly by interchanging one hundred for one thousand. There is pattern and logic to it and that defines the Kinyawanda language. It strives to be somewhat poetic and very logical.

We need prayers for language. We feel we are doing better each day but we need the prayers so that we can give our daily time up to God. We are not capable of organizing our own time each day and if we try we end up giving it to Satan and doing those things which get us nowhere. Only when we give our time to God do we suddenly find ourselves wanting to study and focus on the purpose of our time here: Give the word of God to the people of Rwanda in their own language.