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.