Life in the most nutshellish form of a nutshell: I live in Rwanda. I am now a teacher and a preacher. I still live with 5 girls. I miss peanut butter toast and dark chocolate more than I thought I could. No, I have not seen a lion yet. Or a rhino. I have a newfound passion for a tortilla/flat bread here called chapatti (Chuh-pot-ti). We have chipatti parties. Basically, I have not died yet.
Our first Sunday in Rwanda. None of us knew what to expect at church that morning. I had only heard rumors of the five hour long services, of the very loud music, of the passion during the sermon. I didn’t expect the 5 young girls leading worship to bring me to tears.
The girls, about 13 or 14 years old, rose to the stage and began with only their voices, lifting up a beautiful song to the heavens. It was a simple song. Only two words. They sang “Holy, Holy, Holy, Hallelujah” in a way that brought the Holy Spirit right into that cement building. The electric keyboard (the classic African church instrument) came in slowly to back up the voices, but the girls’ voices rang much stronger.
We swayed back and forth, singing out those words to our Jesus, for about 30 minutes. One song. Two words. The most beautiful sound in Africa.
There were two things specifically last week that reminded me that the people here are people, just like us, and the teenagers are teenagers, just like us, and the kids are kids, just like us. One situation was the worship song I just talked about. All of those people worshiping the same God I do, just with different songs and styles and words. Another was a conversation I had with one of my host sisters.
Our team and Natasha, 19, were sitting at a cafe getting some work done and hanging out. Natasha said that she was back from college in Uganda for winter break. She studies social work. I was asking her about her friends there and joking around, and then asked her what she wanted to do when she graduates.
“Everyone asks me that, but I really don’t know at this point. I’m just trying to get through my first year at school.”
SOUND FAMILIAR ANYONE?! To my mother, my father, my friends, and the other people in my life who had to listen to my rants about how sick I was of people asking me what I wanted to with my life during my senior year, I’m sorry, because I asked the exact same question that I so despised.
I’m pretty sure when Natasha answered me though, I just smiled. We were so similar in that aspect, and I had a flashback to all the times that I had replied with that exact same answer. Teenagers in America and teenagers in Rwanda, despite living a world away from each other, are similar in so many ways. They still dislike that dreaded question “What do you want to do with your life?” and they still worship God in powerful and real ways. We are the same. But we are different. But in the end, we are the same.
My team and I are teaching English for 3 hours a day to kids, youth and adults at a church every morning. A good friend and teammate of mine, Alex (alexandertumminello.theworldrace.org), and I teach at a tiny building in the middle of a rural-ish village outside of the main city of Kigali. I adopted the teenagers, she adopted the young kids. I mean, kids are great and all, but playing with them in Nicaragua only solidified my plans to not have children for a very, very long time. I am not a baby whisperer, that’s all I’ll say. Anyway. So I took on the teenagers, ages 13-16, who understand a lil English.
By my 5th day of teaching, they became my pride and joy.
I have about 7-10 students depending on the day, but oh do we have fun learning verbs and conjugations and “repeat please” and “how are you” and colors and “I ate” vs. “I eat”. I have never taught English before. I have never taught anything before, besides telling my brothers how to live their lives, as I obviously knew much more than they did at the age 13 (sorry Jared and Jovan, hopefully those days are over). I have never been thrown into a small room with ten pairs of bright white eyes against chocolate brown skin staring up at me, eagerly waiting for me to give them my gift of English, no materials except broken pens and wrinkled notebooks. It’s hard. It is very hard. It is also one of the most rewarding things I have done on the Race so far!
They are so different, but so similar to when I was younger, so similar to the young teenagers I see growing up in America. They still want to make me proud with what they know, they still get nervous to speak in front of the “class”, some are much better friends than others, some like school much more than others. But at the end of the day, they are all the same, we are all the same, and we are all the Lord’s. Old, young, black, white, girl or boy, we are all God’s people and need to see each other as that. We need to honor people as if they are our best friend, our brother, our daughter, because in the end, we are all the same and should see each other as that. No more divisions because of race, economic class, superiority, political party, or nationality, we are one because we are the Lord’s. It is not a game of “them” and “us”. We are one because we are the Lord’s.
People are people are people, because they are people.
God loves us because He loves us because He loves us.
If you have any question about that at all, get in contact with me, because I have a lot to tell you.
We are all the same, we are all one in God’s eyes, so let’s treat each other that way. And let’s let the most beautiful sound in Africa unite us all towards Jesus.
