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.