New Blog site

Merry Christmas to all of you. I wanted to tell you that we have a new blog page. You can find it at awillingspirit.com

It is a work in progress and I am just learning to edit it and add pics and other content so please be patient and check up with us from time to time.

Bustling

Well, I've arrived safely back in Rwanda after my trip back for my dad's funeral. Thanks to everyone who prayed for my family. It was great to see many of you and I am very sorry for those I could not find or did not get to spend time with. We will be back in the US for our furlough around May 1, 2011.

Today is Thanksgiving day and last night Kristin and I sat on the couch and talked about how we missed being in the States for the holidays. We discussed some of the things we missed and memories of past holidays. We are so blessed to have a great family here and a great Thanksgiving day dinner and fellowship with our team.

As I reflected on what it was about Thanksgiving that really increased our "cultural fatigue" I settled on a few subtle "holiday" emotional triggers that just seem to be missing here.

1. The weather. In the Midwest, there is almost always cold weather. We certainly don't have that here. We miss the "chance of snow" on the days after Thanksgiving.

2. Changing of the leaves. It's odd to set out all of our "fall" decor with the browns, golds and deep reds but not be able to see any outside. The trees never change color here. The get dirty in the dry season but never change color.

3. The biggest thing for me this year was the "bustling". I was in the States this past week and I happened to go to Wal-Mart on the Saturday before I left, which I didn't realize at the time was the Saturday before Thanksgiving. It was crazy busy. It felt like the holidays. Now that I'm back, there is no bustling. Rwandans obviously don't celebrate American Thanksgiving, nor do the Canadians, British or other nationalities. School is in, they did make it a half day so the Americans can celebrate Thanksgiving but it's back to a full day of school tomorrow. I guess all the bustling I'm going to get this holiday is seeing all the American people I know at the local grocery yesterday afternoon buying up the last of the chickens or baking soda (which I never found).

Well, despite the lack of bustling, we are blessed and find many things to be thankful for this holiday season. Thank you again for praying for us and we would love to hear from you and have the chance to pray for you and your family this holiday season as well. Most all of you have my email address so please feel free to send us a family picture or a quick note with prayer requests or family updates. If you don't have my email address, I'm on Facebook so just look me up. I'm easy to find.

Blessings and Happy Thanksgiving.

Brian

Loss

I want to let you all know that my dad passed away today. I have so little that I can say about it right now. Certainly we will miss him very much. The kids are broken, each in their own way. Samuel lost his fishing buddy and Madda lost a guy who thought she was the best.

As I wrote in my journal last night, and those of you who knew my dad, would agree that he led a life of torment. The end of his life was plagued not just by physical pain but by an emotional pain whose source was invisible to me and much of his friends. I know that Satan tormented him badly and my father allowed it as some sort of punishment for things in his past. He rarely shared those things with others but I know they weighed on him greatly. I am thankful for his rest now and the fact that he is set free.

I pray that God will bring justice upon the wicked and send his wrath upon the enemy. I pray that the sin of this world will pass away and all be made new again. I pray that Satan will be bound forever, never to torment another soul the way he did my father.

Please pray for my family and the time we will have together. Pray that we will find peace together and that I can bring the healing of Jesus Christ to my family over the next two weeks.

Blessings.

CHE (Community Health Evangelism)

Joselyn Jelsma (CHE trainer),
Charles Kabeza (ATN administrator)
David Kimbrow
David and Felix
Heath Amos

During our time in Rwanda we have been praying for God to show us ways to interact with people in our area. Specifically those in the valley below us. Even Samuel has been saving his coins so he can go down in the valley with me to buy vegetables from some of the people we know who live there. The problem with such a place is that there is not only a language barrier but also a huge cultural barrier that is greater than just nationality. It is economic. Not even to the degree that I was used to in America but what most Americans would feel like if they went outside to get their newspaper and found Bill Gates and Donald Trump strolling down the street. Finding ways to help these wonderful people without feeling like you have caused some type of dependence that is based on money or in my case, skills is difficult.

During this past couple months as I have been praying for God to show me a way to better interact and better help those that live in the valley near me he has shown me CHE or community health evangelism.

CHE is a program that allows us to interact with community leaders and engage them in conversations about what they think their community needs rather than what we feel they need. When we put our thoughts towards fixing their problems, they also expect our money. During our CHE training we have began to develop insights into helping communities fight disease and poverty as a community team and to find dependence on each other and hopefully God in the process.

I know it sounds simple but in a cultural setting like Rwanda it is easy to get lost in the belief that in order to be effective you have to have big projects help lots of people. This training has reminded us that helping communities and saving the lost starts with one person at a time.

Please pray for our team this week as we finish our training and begin to coordinate our thoughts and ideas and especially pray for use as we ask God to show us the communities he has chosen as our CHE community. Also pray for patience. CHE is a long term project that is built on relationships. Pray that we can continue to build those basic and foundational relationships with those who live near us that are struggling to live day to day.

An Eleven Year Miracle...

Most parents know that children force us to talk about things we might not ever talk about otherwise. In 1998 we had a baby that was stillborn. We probably would rarely mention him, but our children love to bring up the subject (even to strangers! J). Even though they never knew him, our children talk about him, discuss his age, look at his pictures and talk about meeting him in heaven. And they make sure our oldest daughter understands she’s not REALLY the oldest child in our family!

Our baby in heaven is not really the subject of my blog today, but I needed to lay the foundation for you. We had 2 miscarriages, our baby that was stillborn, and then another miscarriage. The doctors ran many tests and told us to start the adoption process. You know what that means. They pretty much thought we would never have children.

During that time we were living in Hershey, PA while Brian did his Medical Residency. The small church we attended there became our family and when we grieved, they grieved with us. They cried with us, brought us meals (I told them not to, but thankfully they didn’t listen), and just carried us through that difficult time. (We love you, gracepointechurchofchrist!)

And then…

We got pregnant again.

We half-heartedly waited to give the first big chunk of money towards adoption. We fearfully attended many, many doctors appointments. We went through the anxiety of “to tell or not to tell.” (We told. We needed the prayers.) Some of our dearest friends drove an hour and a half to be there with us for the first big ultrasound. (I’ll never forget you being there in that moment, Tim and Tracy.)

And there she was on the screen.

A perfect baby girl. A strong heartbeat. All the right organs. 10 fingers. 10 toes. A sigh of relief. A few tears. And many, many prayers of thanksgiving. (I think Tracy and I jumped up and down screaming afterwards… or maybe that was about getting to go out to eat?)

We had to name her “Grace,” of course. No other name would do for such a miraculous gift from God. Undeserved on so many levels.

When Grace was born our church family rejoiced with us. You truly cannot imagine. When someone grieves with you the rejoicing is that much sweeter. She was not just our baby, she was the church’s baby. When we would arrive on Sunday morning she would disappear in the arms of a loving church family member, get passed around, reappear when it was time to eat, and then disappear again. When it was time to leave I would have to ask “Who has my baby now?” When she “talked cute noises” during the service they wanted her to stay in the auditorium so they could listen. (Sermon? What sermon?) I’m pretty sure our minister held her while he made the announcements on several occasions.

Today is the 11^th anniversary of that momentous occasion. Yes, Grace is 11 years old today. I cry as I remember the circumstances surrounding her birth, and, yet, I praise God for His gift. Grace is a joyful treasure in our family. She is a smart, beautiful girl, and her excitement and zest for life are contagious. If you know her, you know the definition of enthusiasm. Of leadership. Of generosity. She sings, she dances, and she has the longest eyelashes I’ve ever seen. She can spend 30 minutes telling you the entire plot to a movie she’s seen. She can recall the minutest biblical trivia. She’s her Mommy’s soul and her Daddy’s heart.

Happy Birthday, Grace. You are dearly loved by many people, most of all by your Mommy and Daddy. You are so amazing—we can’t wait to see how God is going to use you!

Modern Marvels by Kristin

Our neighborhood just got street signs.

It's quite exciting.

Our house is at the top of a T shaped intersection (that's our roof you can see in the picture) so one of the new signs is right in front of our house. The children had to go out and touch it and marvel at it.

Now when someone asks how to get to our house we can give them more precise directions.

Kind of.

Just so you can see what an impact having a street sign will have on us, here is a picture of our street:

You'd be surprised at the amount of vehicular traffic... :-)

Nearing the Corner

When we arrived in Rwanda our new team began to dream and pray about what God wants from us as a team. I'm not sure we initially planned to "go big" but by the time we had finished our mission and vision statements and set our long term and short term goals, we were looking at BIG. In short our goal has become the discipling of all of Rwanda. We knew from the beginning that this was an impossible task for us but we believed God was expecting us to recruit Rwandans who have a heart to see their nation changed and redeemed. For over 6 months we have been praying and recruiting prayer partners to pray Luke 10:2b. (Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.)

One clear blessing from God was his leading of a Rwandan to our team who by the nature of his previous job at a local seminary has hundreds of relationships with preachers all over Rwanda. It is through these contacts that we have been invited to so many Rwandan churches to teach our obedience bible studies.

As I mentioned in my last post we go as often as we are invited to these rural churches to teach a gospel of obedience.

In the past these training weekends were done by foreign missionaries and one or two Rwandans. However, this past week we went to our first obedience training and had 6 Rwandans and only 3 missionaries.

We are so thankful for God's faithfulness in answering our prayers to raise up workers from the Harvest.

We know that this one success does not mean our work is complete but we continue to pray for Rwandans to join our work.

We are praying in pairs for God to raise up workers from the harvest and we ask all of you to find a prayer partner who you can pray with daily for Rwandans to be raised up to carry the gospel of obedience and healing into their own land.

An update on Kingdom work

We have been blessed so much over the last couple weeks with the opportunity to visit some rural churches. During our visits to these churches we guide those members who come through the process of discovery bible study. In these sessions we hope to find people of peace who will partner with us and take our study into their village. Our prayers for these people were not only for them to be a light into their own village but because they were less than 1 mile from the border of the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) that they would be able to reach their neighbors in Congo. They can cross the boarder without a passport since they live there and the opportunity for them to reach Congo for Christ is huge.

We arrived on Friday night and the view from the church was amazing. On one side you could see lake Kivu (one of the great lakes of Africa), to the opposite side you could see an active volcano glowing red in the night and in front of us was the border of DRC less than one mile away. There is hardly a place on earth that is more beautiful but I can assure you, there are few places on earth that are as spiritually oppressed as this place.

After we arrived we began teaching DBS and prayer walking through the town. The first lesson is about obedience and how you cannot love Jesus if you do not follow his command. Since the power was out we had to stop earlier than we expected so we just went home.

The following day was Saturday and Umuganda (the day where everyone in Rwanda is "required" to work in their neighborhood). So we got there and helped them work around the church. Following lunch we began teaching again. By the time we had finished our work for umuganda and had lunch Kristin had called to say that the battery in the car was dead and that she was stuck at home. In addition one of the other wives called to say that as she was driving down our road when her brakes went out. We knew Satan was attacking so we just kept praying for our families and our work. As we finished the lessons I received a text from Kristin that said, "Grace accidently turned the guest shower all the way on instead of off and it burst. Pipe has separated from the wall. Hopefully not too hard to fix". I just kept praying. As I pondered our work and our problems at home I said to myself, "Satan, you have been hitting us hard but if you think you're going to stop this work you're going to have to try harder than that". Should not have said that. Within 5 minutes of that statement Kristin called to say that Aaron had fallen (actually been pushed) off the top bunk and hit the back of his head on the window sill and had to have stitches. She was going to have to take him to the ER in Kigali because I could not get there to suture him myself.

Well I have to say that it was hard. I wanted to come home and fix it but I couldn't. We all knew we were doing important work and we were in a battle.

The following morning, Felix, our Rwandan friend who went with us was invited back to follow up on the training. He reported to us at lunch that about 8 people from the training had come to church. One of them was a Muslim women who had gone home and told her Muslim husband that she had accepted Jesus. As you would expect, he beat her. She came back to church the following morning and said that she didn't care and that she was going to come to church and obey Jesus.

For those of you who struggle with or believe that direct spiritual warfare is "antiquated" or not real then my answer to you is that you may not actually be in the fight. The Bible warns many times about Satan and his craftiness and persecution of believers. I can give personal testimony that Satan is real and is present in the lives of believers of Jesus. We are easily distracted by his works and if not for the power of the Holy Sprit we might have missed the redemption of a lost sheep this weekend.

We all ask that you pray diligently against our common enemy and that our families will be protected as we continue to go out and make disciples in Rwanda.

A Funny Story--posted by Kristin

This semester Aaron has started attending a local nursery school. It's run by some Catholic nuns and most young children in our neighborhood attend school there. It's called "Saint Vincent de Paul" and it's about 100 yards from our gate. There are several great things about Aaron going to school there. It gives us some common ground with our neighbors, he's friends with neighborhood children (I'm telling you, he's our best missionary--everyone around here knows Aaron), and best of all--he's learning to speak Kinyarwandan! A teammate's 3 year old daughter also attends school there, so he started out with a friend.

Most of the teachers there speak some English, so even though communication is difficult, it's not impossible. That being said, here's the scenario from Friday:

The phone rings. It's the Headmistress. This is already cause for concern...

Nun: Aaron must come to get his cart.

Me: His what?

Nun: His card. He wanted it very much and we told him he could have it after school.

Me (now really confused): His card?

Nun: Yes, yes. He cried for it. He must come now if he wants it.

Me: Ok, I will send him.

It was hot that day, and I had already had my second shower of the day, so I sent Madelyn up the hill with Aaron. (maybe my first mistake?) It was his birthday, so I was guessing it was:

A. A card they made

B. A cart, like a toy?

Wrong!...

It was a cat.

A kitten to be exact.

You didn't know "cat" was pronounced "cart," did you?

Longing for Home

Sometimes I have such an intense longing for home.

It's not usually for anything in particular (except you, Mom :-), but it's usually for the "ease" of life in America. Fast food (just 'cause it's fast), the convenience of stores that have what I need, knowing where to go to get what I need, a paved road to get there, and the list goes on.

...A longing for the familiar.

...A longing for where I fit in.

...A longing for a place where I am understood.

...A longing for a place where I understand.

But...

THIS is how I should be longing for Heaven!

Oh my.

I realize I must reverse my thoughts. When I long for America now, I wonder about Heaven. I think about how much better Heaven will be than Tyler. (Is it possible? Surely there will be Andy's Frozen Custard in Heaven.) Not only are Heaven's streets paved, they are paved with gold! I won't have to go searching for what I need, BECAUSE I WON'T NEED ANYTHING! Forget "fast food"... how about "instant feast?!" And the list goes on...

A longing for the familiar... so many familiar faces I can't wait to see in Heaven.

A longing for where I fit in... where else but Heaven will I fit in with the One who created me.

A longing for a place where I am understood... in Heaven not only my language will be understood, but my heart will be understood.

A longing for a place where I understand... in Heaven I will understand the hearts and language of others.

My prayer today is that my heart will long for my home in Heaven more than any other place.

Psalm 42:1-2 "As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?"

Psalm 84:1-2 "How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty! My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God."

Phil. 3:20 "But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ..."

John 15:19b "As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world..."

And I couldn't finish up without a reference to "This world is not my home, I'm just a'passin through, my treasures are layed up somewhere beyond the blue, the angels beckon me from Heaven's open door and I can't feel at home in this world anymore!"

Just stamp my passport with a "Visitors Visa,"

Kristin

Running in Rwanda

Brian has been after me for months to post something to the blog. So. Here it is. The first post from Kristin.

I recently posted this "note" on FaceBook so I thought I would re-post it here in case you missed it.

I've had many unusual experiences while running in Rwanda.
This morning's, though, was the most interesting by far.

Commonly children run along behind me, or out onto the dirt road to greet me, and I've even had a woman run with me in her skirt and pumps so she could talk to me and practice her English. (so much for my speed)

This morning 5 boys around 8-10 years old started running along behind me. Sometimes young men run when they see me, but that's so they can make fun of me and mimic me. These younger boys just thought it would be fun to run with the crazy white lady. Well, I thought, I might as well MAKE it fun! So I ran "serpentine" (with them following), I ran around a mud puddle...and then ran around it again--they just followed right along! I threw my arms out and skidded to a stop and yelled "Hagarara!" (Stop!) They looked at me with startled eyes and I yelled "Genda!" (Go!) and went tearing off down the road. They caught on to THAT game immediately, and had the random adults along the road laughing. We even ran up a driveway and shook hands with a woman and told her "Mwaramutse" (Good morning).

I told my "followers" I would see them on Monday. What do you think--there'll be at least 10 boys next time? :-)

I must update here and tell you that I started running at 5:30am so I haven't been back to see my "followers." I'm sure the next time I run at 9am they'll all be there to greet me.

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.

Merry Christmas From Rwanda National Team

Merry Christmas to all from Rwanda.

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

Block Party

Well, we have just finished cleaning up from our party. We are so blessed with good neighbors. It was good to just sit and watch them interact and to learn about culture.

I previously said I would keep you posted about the process and progress of discovery bible.

The first and foremost task is to pray. I thank each of you who have prayed. I have also prayed that some or many of you will wish to begin your own bible study/disciple making group in your neighborhoods. Always start with prayer. You must invite the Holy Spirit before you invite the first person. We have been praying for this and have asked the Holy Spirit to be present and I can say for sure he was. The party was a bit slow getting going as most things in Rwanda are. To our surprise the food was nearly on time but the guests were at least 30 minutes late. After we got started and pushed all the kids outside we just talked about the neighborhood and the fact that somehow all the people on our street know our youngest son Aaron. I assume it is because he plays out on the street with the other neighborhood kids after school almost every day. They all seem to be drawn to him. I was thankful because one of the men present was the local veterinarian and Umudugudu leader (sort of like a city councilman for the neighborhood). One of the main issues being pushed by the central government is community development. So it was easy to get them on the subject of being good neighbors. From their it was an easy transition to "Love your neighbors as yourself". They all participated in conversation about how important neighbors were and how neighbors should watch out for each other. By the end of the night all agreed that we should meet weekly and get to know each other better and have a bible study. The Umudugudu leader volunteered to have it in his home but another person suggested they share that responsibility. So next week we will have it in at Everest's (the Umudugudu leader's) home and see how it goes.

The key here in initiating the study is to just make it clear that you are not trying to lure them to a church or towards certain beliefs or denominations. Rwandans seem to be afraid of that. We simply put it in social and political terms and explained that the principals in the bible are the foundation to being good neighbors and that even if people go to church they are not being taught to read their bibles and share it with others in an intentional way. Even Everest stated that he finds it hard to help his neighbors because he does not spend enough time with them and does not know their needs.

I am just in awe of how God works.

The first study will be on Genesis 1:1-25.

The basic layout of the study is like this:

Opening:

Ask each person

What are you thankful for the past week?

What problems do you have this week?

Is there any way this group can help you?

Read Scripture:

What does this scripture say about God?

God created all things.

God created man to be like him.

God called creation "Good".

God loves man?

What does the scripture say about man?

Man was created like God.

Man was created to be with God.

Man is intended to have a personal relationship with and communicates with God.

How will this scripture make me different than I was yesterday. Or the "I will statements".

Share section:

Who will you share this scripture with during the next week? Could you share this with another group?

Do you know anyone who needs help?

How can this group help them?

The share section is the most important. It teaches that worship is not listening but rather doing. And doing is discipling. It encourages them to use what they have read in the Word to change how they live and how they serve each other. Later the progression of scripture is intended to teach them that doing for God is doing for others and that serving each other is true worship.

Well I will keep you posted. We meet next Sunday at 6 pm. Please pray for us and our group. Most of all pray that this group will share with others and in time come to a point where they become leaders in their own studies and become disciple makers. Pray that the study will be driven and dependent on the Holy Spirit and not on us. If it is to multiply it must be by their own growth and the effort of the Holy Spirit and not because I am present.

Prayer requests

Well we're finally getting settled. My house is in order and no one is throwing up. Praise God.

With our house getting into order and all of the Robinsons well we are ready to party. Block party that is. We just wanted to ask all of you to pray about our block party. After dinner tonight we were able to get around behind our house (not easy in our area) and the people behind us to the party. This was the hardest part since we thought they didn't speak english. We went around to the house and met the two people we can see and hear from our yard. They don't speak english so we actually invited them in Kinyarwanda only to find out they were the hired help. The owner was inside and she is Ugandan thus she speaks great English.

From the looks of it we will have about 30 people in addition to our family on Saturday. Please pray that we are able to start a Discovery Bible study in our neighborhood.

Please pray for one of my bible study facilitators this week as well. He has felt a desire to gain access to some of the refugee camps and find out how he can help with ministering to them. He is going down this weekend and we will meet again afterwards to find out if there is anything we can do to access this group of people.

On a less important side but certainly an issue that is just pounding away at my cultural adjustment: I can't find my all in one printer/scanner/copier. Seems silly but little things like this really mess up your day when you are looking for just one little thing to go right. Example. Tuesday my daughter was sick and at home. I was committed to getting at least one thing done so I decided to get the stove in the kitchen. I took it out of the box and realized that it was natural gas ready and had to be converted before using propane gas. This made me nervous since this is something I would normally call someone to do if I live in the States. After getting this done I finally got ready to hook it up to the gas bottle and discovered that they are not sold or shipped with an intake adaptor to hook up the propane. I panicked. The idea of trying to find such a part in this country (or continent) is insane. I called a plumber and tried to explain that the stove needed to be fixed. Well I had to go to the airport to pick him up (he was working in the general area) and bring him back to my house. He looked at it and disappeared for almost 2 hours. In the meantime I decided that I would get the drier out. It had rained all day and the clothes on the line had been there over 24 hours. Well the drier doesn't come with a cord. Can't get one of those here either. Have to get an electrician. Oddly enough, I did the one thing I would never do in the states (convert the stove) and I couldn't do or get done the two things that would have taken an hour in the States. To make things worse we had to cancel language for the day because Kristin and Grace were sick. We discovered the next day that the lesson we were on was house hold appliances. If we would have language that day I would have been able to tell the plumber that the stove was broken in Kinyarwanda. Finding my printer would have made it a good day. But it is lost. Pray for things to go right the rest of the week. Maybe even pray for the printer to show up.

Pray for the Holy Spirit to be present at our block party.

Blessings

Update

I know many of you have been praying about our block party and we are so thankful. However we were not able to have the party today. We feel like we have been attacked in so many ways this week and as a result were unable to host our neighbors.

Just as we were making plans for our party our container was released from customs. We had just called someone to arrange for the food and the guys at customs called and informed us of the release. They told us it would be the following morning but was not until 5 pm that night. Not only was the initial truck load delayed it took a total of three trips to bring our things to our house. For the next 4 days we did nothing but sort through things and try to get organized. We had so much to put away it was astounding. The final blow was Kristin waking up sick today. We had to ask our neighbors to postpone our party until next week.

We do want to say how thankful we are to have received our container in such a short time but even in a good thing there is the sense of failure. We committed ourselves to connecting with our neighbors tonight but we just could not fight the fatigue and ensuing illness that has hit our household.

We ask for your prays for Kristin as she recovers from her illness and we ask that you pray for strength so that we can make our house at least safe to walk around in so that we can have our block party next weekend.

Pray for our efforts to reach our neighbors and make disciples in our community. I will continue to pray for each of you as you struggle in the same battle to bring discipleship to your homes and neighbors.

Blessings to all.