Being 'helpful'

I think one of the highlights for all of us on the team was working together with members of Gesanga to build a house. The community leaders work very closely with Food for the Hungry to identify the people with the most needs. They identified a widow named Anne Marie as having inadequate housing for herself and her five children (four her own, and one adopted). One of the neat things that FFH does with visiting teams is that they add on an additional sum to the cost of the trip for a community project. So the eleven of us basically bought the land and the labor for this home to be built, and then got to work building the home alongside people from the community.

The first day we got to the work site, I was eager to be effective, and wanted to make the best use of the time. Ernest (I can't wait to tell you more about Ernest, the Director of the Child Development Program, and translator for us for most of the trip) demonstrated how to make a mortar ball by pulling and rolling up mud to be taken to the bricklayers. I jumped right in and began rolling a ball, but when I tried to pick it up, it fell apart. I put my little snowball sized mortar ball in the pan, and then tried to lift a brick up to the scaffolding. My arms got as high as my shoulders and then stopped. Two Rwandan men came on each side of me to push my arms and the brick I was holding up onto the scaffolding.

I walked over to Ernest and asked, "How helpful am I when it takes two men to help me help them?" He laughed and pointed down the street and said, "This is how you are helping." Up the street came about fifteen people from the community to watch us, work with us, and laugh at us the rest of the morning. Later I read this quote at the FH office, and it helped me further process this experience...

"If you have come to help me you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together. - Aboriginal activists group, Queensland, 1970s

from northlandposter.com

Reflections of Rwanda

(This is from Kristin who was on the trip with us. She attended one of the Art Music Justice Concerts and sponsored a child that night. She is insightful, and it was great to have her on the trip with us.)

My calloused heart shattered Pieces of Gisanga reflected Open arms Running to embrace Innocence traced in each hand Grace bestowed Through a smile A love bound By eternity Honor given To unworthy vessel

As I step in the courtyard area, little arms of perfection run to embrace me. The calluses of my heart begin to peel away, layer by layer. A friend reminded me of a similar scenario in the Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis. Aslan has to peel the layers of Eustace's dragon skin for him to become a boy again, The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off(Lewis 474-475). Eustace could only be useful for Aslan's purposes only after the layers of dragon skin were peeled off. The Lord broke me in that moment. A little girl who only knew me as her sponsor loved me unabashedly. A solitary chair was placed in the small barren room. The chair was for me. I was the honored guest. I had done no worthy deed to receive such honor. All of sudden my thoughts were flooded with God's grace. I had never understood before and now I had seen it firsthand. God, just like this little girl's family has given me the reserved seat of honor. Nothing I could do would give me the right to this beloved seat and yet God is motioning me to sit. His grace is so undeserved and so beautiful. Broken and callous free I am becoming.

Right To The Heart- Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world

Eventually I will introduce you to the team, and to the Food for the Hungry staff that we met, but I don’t want to wait too long to share a special story from our visit.

On the seventh day of our trip I got to accompany one of the girls on our team to visit her sponsored child. Another friend and I were manning cameras so that she would be free to meet the family. This visit was unique because the father of the sponsored boy had invited his grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, and even their local pastor. In Rwanda it is polite to invite a visitor to pass the night. When the father ended his welcome speech by asking us to pass the night with them, the family broke into laughter together at the thought of these Muzungo’s (white people) spending the night with their family member.

The boy was shy at first, but when his younger siblings came in the room, he proudly shepherded them in front of the camera, and kept saying their names over again - a good big brother. Heather had brought some crayons and paper and other small gifts for the boy, and he drew a picture for her to take home. The family prayed for Heather, and she prayed for them as well.

At the end of our visit, our interpreter, Andrew, asked the boy to sing a song. He sang a song in Kenyarwandan, and then began a melody I recognized, “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world.” At the end of his song, Andrew turned to me and began to explain what the song was about. “I know this song, Andrew, my children sing it, and I sang it when I was a child,” I said. Andrew lit up, and explained to the group that I was a singer and was going to sing with the boy, each in our own languages.

It is hard to describe the backdrop for this duet, and this is a moment when I wish you could have been there with me. We are in a mud brick house with no furniture, crowded together with a tight knit family. There is the stress of cultural difference, the surprise of commonality, and the simple reality of ‘all the children of the world’... and there is a boy with a sweet high voice. It was akin to pictures of Earth from space, to sing this song that I have sung since I was a child with this small boy from Rwanda.