Oh Rwanda.
I have to apologize for my lack of blogs this month. As I briefly stated in my post with the Kenya video, though we have had extreme amounts of down time this month, I have been so unmotivated to write about anything.
And there is so much to write about.
Rwanda is by far one of my favorite countries. I don’t know if it’s the sheer beauty of this place, the fact that this is the cleanest African nation I have ever been to (not that I’ve been to many), or the fact that people here are so friendly, so happy and so generous. It’s probably all three mixed together.
All I knew about Rwanda before coming was a little about the genocide that happened only 17 years ago. I had seen Hotel Rwanda and was definitely expecting a country that was still dealing with the aftermath of that. But Rwanda has recovered. They have definitely not forgotten their past, but they have made a national decision to move forward.
Like I have said before, this month has been a definite month of rest. Our ministry was very limited, maybe two or three times a week we would hike up a mountain to this village and go door-to-door or preach a half an hour sermon. Then we would walk back down the mountain and go home. The days that we did ministry, we were out for maybe two or three hours.
All that down time led to some very interesting team dynamics. We are in the capital city this month. We had plenty of freedom to go and do whatever we wanted, all day, everyday. This is a freedom that we haven’t experienced for at least two months.
It has caused us to fight to be together. Which is sooo funny, because we are living on top of each other. This is community living like I’ve never before experienced. But this month, it was really easy to be apart.
Praise the Lord that regardless of what our situations or circumstances or feelings may say, we are unified through Jesus. That sounds soo cheesy and Christian, but it’s so true. Regardless of how I’m feeling towards any one member of my team, I know that we are all thriving towards the same thing, and that keeps us together.
Of course, we’re still learning and growing, but He has shown up. One of my favorite stories from this month is my ATL day with Kelsie.
We took three pieces of paper, wrote ‘left’, ‘right’, and ‘keep going’ on them and then head out. We didn’t know where we were headed, or who we were looking for, but we just trusted the Lord to take us on an adventure. Each time we got to an intersection we pulled a piece of paper and went the direction it said…and we prayed for whomever we saw with an immediate need…and even some that we saw that didn’t have an immediate need.
After praying for two people to be healed (and not seeing the healing) and getting in a man’s face who was obviously manifesting a demon (email me about this if you want to hear more about this), we were kind of discouraged.
We decided to pull another piece of paper and when we did, it said ‘Keep Going’…we couldn’t go forward because we would run into a wall, so we decided that it was Papa God giving us an encouraging shove. So we pulled another sheet and it said go right. So we headed down the hill, pulled another sheet and it said turn left. All the left turns, however, led to people’s houses, so when we reached the bottom of the hill we tuned left. We were hoping for a street, instead we got a house.
So we knocked on the door. They answered, let us in, served us juice and we just got to talk about Jesus. It was one of my most incredible experiences. There were no significant healings or supernatural happenings, but there was great conversation and our spirits were so lifted.
We left feeling so loved by our Papa.
We have seen healings this month. I prayed for a woman after church with a paralyzed hand, and after we prayed for awhile, her hand was healed. Hallelujah! She also had a little boy with her who had a skin infection. As I was praying I felt like he was healed and just needed his skin to be washed off. The next Sunday, when I saw him, He was all better.
A woman was healed of asthma, another of broken ribs. All of us had experienced some sort of stomach issue this month, all of which were healed.
Our God is a God who heals.
We are learning so much about the power and authority that we carry being Daughters of God…but I’m saving that for my next blog.
I love you all.
You’re beautiful!
