While here in Rwanda my team and I are partnered with a ministry called Successful Christian Ministries. Early in the month we spent our mornings at a preschool playing with children and teaching English. However, last Friday was the end of the school term and now we spend our mornings doing home visits. During home visits the 6 of us plus a translator walk around the village knocking on doors. Every single home we have been to has invited us in to sit down and talk. I asked our translator what it is she says to people after we knock on their door that leads them to welcome perfect strangers into their home. She said that all she says is “Hello, we are here to visit with you… Can we come in?” And the people just say yes!
When she told me that she just walks up to strangers and says can we come in I was shocked. I explained to her that in America if a group of 7 random strangers just ring your doorbell and say can I come inside your house the answer would most likely be a resounding NO, especially without any further explanation! And depending on the neighborhood they might actually call the police if you don’t get off their property fast enough. For the most part people don’t just let random strangers into their house. But the more and more homes I have gone into here I understand the American way less and less. Does everyone that knocks on your door or ask for a moment of your time actually pose an imminent threat to your life, safety, or well being the way American culture would have you believe?
I was walking with one of my teammates Denae and we started talking about the difference between the cultures. She said that she had done door to door ministry with her church youth group for 4 straight years and they have been invited into 1 home in all that time. Why is this? Is there actually a greater threat to my life in America if I allow a stranger to come into my home versus in Rwanda?
One day we did a home visit with a woman and her neighbors. We were able to spend time answering any questions they had about Jesus and the Bible and also praying with them. They next evening Denae and I were walking home from the grocery store and we saw that same woman. She was overjoyed to see us. It was just the two of us with no translator so we couldn’t understand exactly what she was saying. After a while we found someone on the street that could translate for us and we realized she was asking us to come with her right then and pray for someone else she knew.
It was nearly dark and my American brain went into overdrive. My first thought was “is this woman trying to lure us somewhere so she or someone else can harm or rob us.” In all honesty I only had about $5 in Rwandan money and a bag the chips that I had just purchased at the store so she wouldn’t have gotten very much. I talked with Denae (who seemed to have no reservations at all) and I talked to the Holy Spirit. Long story short the homeowner she wanted us to pray for was walking down the street and we talked with her for a few minutes before following her to her house. We went in her home and met her husband and two of her sons. We talked for quite a while. Her husband is an aerospace engineer and she is a lawyer and she was thrilled that we were willing to come spend time with her. She is a Christian and had brain surgery a couple of years ago and is still in recovery. We were able to pray with her and her family and we were tremendously blessed. She invited us back and the entire team will be going over to her house in a few days.
As we left this woman’s home I asked myself would I have allowed God to use me in that way if I were in America? I thought I was going to get robbed but in reality I almost robbed that family and myself of the blessing God had for us. The bottom line is that the race is almost over. I only have a little more than a month left on the field and I have a choice to make. Am I going to leave behind living a life that is interruptible? If I’m with my friends and we encounter a person who is asking us to do something that is seemly contrary to the norm of American culture in order to help them will I be willing do it? Will my friends be willing to let me?
My time on the race has been AMAZING and transformative but what of this experience am I going to take home with me? God has used me in so many ways but that has happened because I have been willing to put myself into so many situations that I normally wouldn’t have. So over the next month I will really be praying and I hope you will be too. There is so much I want to know. What parts of the life I am living now do I need to leave behind or adjust because they would legitimately put me in danger in America? What parts of the life I’m living now do I need to fight to hold on to because without them I can’t be who God wants me to be? The worst thing would be to do all of this and then get back home and go back to exactly the way things were before. But what does it really look like to live “life as missions and missions as life” the way we are taught to do on the race? I am struggling with who i was…who I am…and who I want to be…
I would love you know your thoughts. Feel free to comment below or reach out to me. Have you been on the mission field and experienced a similar conflict? How was reentry into America? Any tools or resources you can offer are greatly appreciated.
Thanks for reading.
