For the past nine years, I have been sponsoring a girl in Rwanda. Knowing that she lives here is one of the big reasons why I chose a route that includes Rwanda. For probably at least a year, since before I knew I was doing the Race, I’ve been praying to someday have the chance to meet her.
I tried to do things the proper way; I really did. Before leaving for the Race, I e-mailed the office for the organization through which I sponsor her. They said eight weeks was the amount of notice needed for a visit, but they might be able to pull it off with four weeks notice. However, Racers rarely know anything that far in advance. I thought maybe I could e-mail them our free days as soon as I arrived in Rwanda, and perhaps they could set up a visit for the end of the month. So at the first opportunity for Wifi, about a week after we arrived in Rwanda, I filled out the visit request form on the website. It gave them about three weeks’ notice.
It wasn’t enough.
The office e-mailed me back within a few days and said a visit would not be possible. However, I was welcome to drop off a gift at the country office and they would make sure that my child would receive it. The address for the office was included at the end of the e-mail.
My next thought: Maybe I can just show up at the office and talk them into letting me visit my child.
So, I showed the address to my pastor/host here in Rwanda, who is a gallant hero in this story, and he recognized the street name. This past Monday, he drove me to the street, which is about 10 minutes from the house, and asked a few moto (motorcycle taxi) drivers if they knew where the office was located exactly. Eventually, we found it.
We entered the building and climbed up the stairs to the second floor, where we were greeted by a receptionist. I explained my predicament/request, and she told me that unfortunately the two tour managers who would be able to help me were out of the office, and their supervisor was in a meeting. She asked me to leave my contact information. So I wrote down my name and my pastor’s phone number, and we left.
And here is where my search becomes really unofficial. I had a letter from my sponsored child’s center director, which had been mailed to all the sponsors for children in that project. I brought the letter along on the Race, thinking it might be useful in finding my child, should I need to go rogue. It had her name on it, the name of the student center, and the name of the center director. I showed this letter to my pastor soon after arriving in Rwanda. He looked at the name of the student center and said, “This is not the first time I am hearing that name.” But he couldn’t place where he’d heard or seen it.
And then, he remembered.
The name of the center, he said, was actually the name of a town that he’d seen on a road he’d traveled before. It was about 30 minutes beyond his church – an hour from the house. I thought, Cool! I’ll try to call the country office again and see if someone can take me there – and if they can’t, I’ll ask if it’s ok if my pastor takes me. So I tried calling on Tuesday, but the phone number didn’t work. I thought, Ok, I’ll take a moto up to the office tomorrow and try talking to them in person.
So then it was Wednesday. Instead of doing door-to-door ministry on Wednesday, we stay at the church for a time of focused prayer and Bible reading. After this wrapped up, my pastor called me over. “I think we go to ___ today,” he said.
“Oh?” I said.
“Yes. I think they don’t have school on Friday, so we go today. We go around 2, 2:30. We meet your daughter, and then we come back for church.”
So I threw my plan out the window, and set off on an adventure.
My pastor, my whole team and I piled into the truck after lunch and started driving in the direction where my pastor said the town was located. I took my letter along. Our plan was to get to the town and start asking people if they knew where this center was located.
When we arrived in the town on the letter, the feeling was a bit surreal. I was in her town! We stopped to ask some moto drivers if the knew anything about the student center. They didn’t. Any one of those drivers could be her brother, I thought.
We stopped across the street outside of a store and asked some more people. They didn’t know anything either, but one of them directed us to a secondary school. Several excited little kids came over to the truck to greet the muzungus.
At the school, there were two teachers standing outside, and no one else to be seen. Pastor and I got out of the truck and approached them, me with letter in hand. We greeted the teachers and explained what we were trying to do. The teachers didn’t recognize the name of the student center – but they did know the name of the center director. The pointed us in the direction of the church where they knew he worked.
After stopping at someone’s front porch to confirm which building was the church, we drove to a large building with a blue roof. Parking in the yard, pastor and I approached a woman who obviously worked there. She confirmed that yes, this was the place; but the center director was in a meeting. She thought maybe the people at the primary school across the street could help us. It seemed like a bit of a long shot, since my child is 17, but no more than a long shot than anything else we’d done.
So pastor, Hannah, and I walked across the street, asked some kids where the head teacher was, and went into his office. He welcomed us warmly. I explained that I had been sponsoring a child for nine years and was hoping to meet her, and this was her name, and could he help?
“I can take you to her house,” was the reply.
What?!
So this wonderful head teacher, whose name I can’t even remember, got on the phone and called my child’s family, and got into the truck with us and took us to her house. Her house!
A young woman opened the door. It wasn’t my child. But it was her sister! She invited us in, and we sat in their living room. Her living room! And then, the bombshell: The sister explained to the head teacher and pastor that my child wasn’t there. She was away at school. In the same town where my pastor lives. Where we had just come from. We had driven right past her school twice a day, five days a week, for the past two weeks!
But I was sitting in her living room, which was awesome. With her sister, which was even cooler. And then, I met her mom. And that made everything worth it.
Her mom gave me a giant hug. She got out some photo albums and showed me some pictures of my child. She showed me a picture of me, with my siblings – one that I had sent to my child in 2006. It was the coolest. After visiting for a short while, we took some pictures together, and then we left.
You think this is the end. But it’s not. Because when we left, we left with my child’s phone number.
Pastor called her on Wednesday night, after we arrived back home. “Here,” he said, passing the phone to me. “It’s your daughter.”
I took the phone. “Hello?” And I heard her voice! I didn’t know what she was saying, really, and the fact that there was a giant, extremely loud thunderstorm happening didn’t help matters, but I was talking to her! I handed the phone back to pastor, explaining that we were having a hard time understanding each other. He spoke some fast Kinyarwanda into the phone and hung up. “You meet her tomorrow morning at eight o’clock in the parking lot by the ATM.”
Later that evening, we read a text message from the country office stating that a visit would be impossible.
Whoops.
I met her Thursday morning. She showed up in the parking lot with her aunt, and I knew right away that it was her. She was shy, but gave me a big hug, like her mom. She was shorter than I pictured, only a bit taller than me. She was beautiful. I showed her the pictures I’d taken at her house, with her family. Communicating was hard, but we were ok. Then her aunt announced that she was going to work, and that “my daughter” could stay with me.
I took her into a store nearby and bought her a few snacks, because I didn’t know what else to do. Then the good Lord gave me some good sense and I asked if she’d like to show me around her school, which was nearby. She agreed. Once on her campus, we started walking around, and she started opening up. I realized with some relief that she knew a lot more English than she seemed to at first. She introduced me to a few of her friends and showed me the little kids’ classrooms. She showed me the room filled with wooden desks and benches and where a chalkboard covers the whole front wall, where she studies computer science with nine other girls and twenty boys. She explained that she’ll be going back to her hometown tomorrow for break. I thought, how cool is it that things worked out the way they did, and I got to see her home and her family and her school. If things had happened any other way, I probably would have seen only one or the other.
The whole visit took about 45 minutes. Was it worth all that hassle?
Absolutely, yes.
Maybe God’s been pursuing you for a long time. Maybe you haven’t even realized it. Maybe He’s about to surprise you. And when He finds you, will He think you were worth all that hassle?
Absolutely, yes.
You can count on it.
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I want to thank everyone at home who prayed that I would be able to meet my child. Without prayer, it never would have happened. Also, I still feel a little guilty about going rogue. So if you’re looking to meet your sponsored child, please go about it the official way…or at least, try.
And if you’ve never thought about sponsoring a child, please do it. It might seem like a sacrifice, but you won’t even miss the money. Trust me, I’ve been sponsoring my child since I was 19 and jobless. It’s entirely possible. And it will truly make a difference in a child’s life. I’ve seen it. It will make a difference in your life, too.
Here are some great child sponsorship organizations. I won’t tell you which one I use, because I’m still trying to not get in trouble. 🙂
Compassion International
http://www.compassion.com/
Holt International
http://holtinternational.org/
Unified in Mission (the co-president of this organization is a personal friend of our team)
http://unifiedinmission.org/
World Vision
http://www.wvi.org/
