When my arms are short

One of my biggest struggles as a follower of Christ is trusting God to continue the good work he has entrusted me to do when my arms are too short to do it anymore.  Here’s the thing… my arms are only too short because God didn’t make them longer.  Ok, so I think my metaphor stopped making sense… or maybe it never did make sense to you! 

Being in Rwanda is great.  This is exactly where I’m supposed to be; God has made that clear.  But sometimes I wish I had the supernatural gift of being in 2 places at once!  Yeah, I know what you’re thinking.  Landon perfected that dream on the movie “A Walk to Remember” when he had Mandy Moore straddle the state line.  Genius.  Well, Landon, that’s not exactly what I meant.  I’ve been to the border of Rwanda and Uganda… but I haven’t been able to get to the border of Rwanda and Bloomington, IN.  That is a bit harder to come by.  For 5 years, my heart was in Bloomington; more specifically at Bloomington High School North.  Shout out to the Cougars!  I gained relationships at that school that have seriously enriched my life and have taught me a lot about God’s grace, love, and patience.  I have watched God work in the lives of so many high school kids at North, and through that, my perspective on life and ministry has been shaped.  Getting back to my main point.  I have a really hard time hearing about my btown friends’ struggles when I can’t do much more than pray for them when I’m so used to BEING there for them.  I can’t quite reach out to them with my short African bound arms like I want to.  Email, skype, facebook… you guys are wonderful and everything, but you don’t compare to spending some quality time with friends in the flesh.  I think about some of Paul’s letters and how he expressed his longing to be with the letter receivers.  I understand those feelings for the first time in my life.  Somehow, he was able to communicate his compassion and also speak truth to his friend in Christ through a letter.  Not even an email where you can use to express emotion!  I’ve asked God how I can continue ministry in Bloomington with the kids I’ve build relationships with and you know what he’s told me to do every time I’ve asked?  “Micki, PRAY.”  No email I send or skype chat I partake in will transform anyone’s life.  I accept that.  Even if I was as good of a writer as Paul, as far as speaking clearly and lovingly, my words could only pierce a heart, not change it.  Prayer is asking expectantly for God to barge in and place His arms where mine can’t reach.  This isn’t just about geography.  I’m just more aware of my helplessness being so far away, but I know that I’ve felt helpless even being in the same room as someone I care about whose struggles I can’t fix. 

I think God is teaching me a valuable lesson about trusting in Him especially when I can’t DO the hands on aspects of ministry… because let’s be serious; How on earth would I be able to balance ministry in Bloomington, IN and Kigali even if I could be in 2 places at once?!  It’s a good thing God doesn’t need to use me to accomplish His will.  I’m glad he uses me anyway! 

A lot can happen in a week

A lot has happened in this last week.  With Thanksgiving brought joy and sadness for me along with a satisfied appetite.  I was able to get the best of both worlds, eating a huge delicious meal with my friends here, AND getting to be a part or the Thanksgiving party back home via skype.  No, skype isn’t as good as being there physically, but I’m grateful I was able to see my family and talk with them!  Praise God!  Honestly, the holidays seem a bit irrelevant while being away from family.  I am a creature of habit, and although I don’t really want traditions or what I consider normal to define a holiday such as Thanksgiving, it’s hard to break that mold.  But this Thanksgiving I was reminded of the many blessings I do have, and humbled by the fact that I often forget that they are blessings and begin to think I’m entitled to them or something ridiculous like that. 

This weekend, I was also reminded of the sacrifices we are called to make while following Jesus.  I know that what Jesus offers outweighs the things he asks us to give up, but at times my heart vaguely remembers the gravity of Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice.  If anyone understands sacrifice, it would be the innocent guy who died a cruel death to take my place in hell, the punishment I deserved.  Now that I’ve just said that, I see my small sacrifices for God as being really really petty.  One sacrifice I’ve been feeling lately is being away from my family while both my sisters are going to have babies within the next few months!  I know God doesn’t scoff at my grief over not being there for such a joyous time… in fact I’m sure he mourns with me.

Sunday, I made the decision to donate blood for the first time in my life.  Up until a couple years ago, I never even considered giving blood because I was scared of needles and thought of it as being kind of… eh too selfless.  I couldn’t come up with any good reason for not doing it.  I was just chicken.  But since I’m in Africa, I knew that it will be years before I would be able to donate blood in the states.  So when this opportunity arose, I thought, “Hmm, let’s be too selfless today”.  It definitely was not as painful or awkward as I thought it would be.  It was a little sickening seeing my dark red blood filling one of those plastic sacks to the fullest capacity.  I actually just cringed imagining it again.  Afterward, my friend Jennifer and I both had slight relapses of weaknesses and hot flashes, but nothing too serious.  Here’s a picture of us taking a breather on the stretchers after giving blood. 

Tuesday of this week I took 20 teenagers on a field trip to the Rwandan Art Museum about 2 hours away from Kigali.  Ok, let me first mention that I felt completely inadequate to lead this trip.  I could list off all the reasons I felt this way, but maybe you could guess.  I was able to bring 3 adult chaperones with me, which helped, A LOT.  Most people think chaperones are asked to go on field trips to help direct the kids, but let me tell you they are more there for the teacher’s sanity than anything else.  When 20 kids go running around a museum, it’s nice to have somebody to glance over to and shrug your shoulders with, because let’s face it; you can’t stop kids from being kids, especially on a field trip!   But seriously, the trip went really well!  The 2 hour bus drive there went fairly quick and we first visited the National Museum of Rwanda where the kids did the running around.  Then, we stopped at a local ice cream parlor and ate ice cream and lunch.  Next we drove to the main event… the place with all the Rwandese art.  I had prepared a scavenger hunt for the kids to find certain kinds of paintings/sculpture/artwork and gave a prize to those who found the most.  I wasn’t entirely sure how effective this method of motivation would go, but turns out, they loved it.  After about 15 minutes I went around snatching the scavenger hunt papers from kids and some kids ran away from me!  I thought it was hilarious how seriously they were taking it.    So I guess the moral of that story is although you may not always feel adequate, God knows better than you what you are capable of with His help.  Because you know I was praying through the whole day!

Moving on to Wednesday!  This is where I get to talk about how God is making it plain as day that YoungLife will get started at the beginning of next semester!  Woohoo!  At Campaigners a week ago, an answered prayer revealed itself when 3 kids… ahem THREE KIDS offered their houses as a place to host club!  I’ve gone up and down with believing God will provide the perfect location to host club… I’m pretty sure it doesn’t get much more perfect than at kids’ houses.  I also asked our campaigner kids about possibilities of them actually being leaders… coming to planning meetings, putting together games, skits, talks etc.  The response I got gave me chills.  Not only did God provide locations, he provided committed leaders who love God and love the students at KICS!  Halleluiah!  It’s even better that these leaders go to school with the kids we hope show up to club.  This week at Campaigners, we talked about prayer.  None of this excitement about YoungLife will amount to anything if we don’t come to God about it.  If we don’t pray about it, are we allowing God to move?  Or are we just trying to build it ourselves?… which would turn into YoungLife being about us and not God.  To hear these kids pray about YoungLife getting started (and not only that but for their friends to be influenced by Christ’s presence at YL) made me realize that I can take zero credit for starting this ministry at KICS.  God keeps confirming the fact that these kids need to know Jesus on a more personal level by continuously blessing our minuscule efforts to get YL started.  It’s like if you were planning to paint a masterpiece but didn’t have access to any supplies and you had little confidence in your painting abilities.  Oh but then, while you have almost given up on your dream to paint, somebody gives you all the supplies you need and also gives you lessons.  Before you know it you are painting like a pro.  How can you give yourself the credit when if you weren’t given the supplies or the training, you would not have had the opportunity to accomplish anything as magnificent?  And if you didn’t accept the supplies or the training, you’d be a complete fool!  The art teacher in me couldn’t resist the analogy.  In case it was a little fuzzy, God is the supplier of the art materials and training… and I’d be a fool to not take advantage of the way he has equipped us to start YoungLife here in Rwanda.  

Let the pruning begin

God is working wonders on my heart in ways that I'm not sure I knew existed.  I feel like I've been going through things that are familiar struggles.  So, although they are hard, I've already seen God take me through these same storms before.  Therefore, I know I will come out stronger and encompassing more faith because of it, so I rejoice!  God has urged me lately to spend more time with Him and less time on things that have become pretty big distractions in my life.  So, I've set a part one evening a week to be with Him and to leave all my work at school and all my troubled thoughts with Jesus.  I've only done this twice, but I have already seen God respond by speaking truth into my heart and I'm so thankful! 

Last night at bible study, we went over John 15, talking about how Jesus is the vine and we are the branches.  An analogy was mentioned about why you would prune a tree.  One type of pruning is to cut off the new branches because they will require many nutrients which will be taken from the branches that are already bearing fruit.  Another type of pruning is to cut off really big branches that look like they have potential to bear fruit, but are blocking the light from coming into the tree (which feeds the tree through photosynthesis) and not allowing birds to nest and eat all the insects that will inadvertently feast on the tree.  (This was all explained by a guy who helps people grow coffee trees.)  I had never really thought about the practical reasons to prune a tree before, but it all kind of clicked.  Like the tree, sometimes there are things in my life that seem like they have potential to be good, but all they end up doing is blocking the light and not producing any fruit!  God calls us to cut these things off before “insects” start to make a home in our “trees”.  It’s never easy.  When a coffee farmer has to cut off a huge branch that looks like it has potential to grow coffee beans, I’m sure they aren’t singing praises of joy… because they can’t see the ultimate outcome of this painful act and for all they know, they just threw away precious produce.  But after pruning many trees, it might start to get easier to be confident that the tree will later grow more fruit because of it.  In the same way, that is why I am more confident that God will use this time of pruning to help me grow into a more fruitful follower of Christ. 

YOUNGLIFE TRAINING… buckle your seatbelts

This has been an extraordinary week.  I really got to know the heart of God more this week… and more about why the heart of God brought me here to Rwanda.  I have had the privilege of helping to train about 25 younglife leaders that will be serving the local youth community in Kigali.  They met everyday for a week from 10am-6pm to go through the same training material it took me a whole semester to go through when I trained to become a YL leader in Bloomington.  INTENSE!  I spent all of Monday with these kids (ages 15-22) and then the rest of the week I came after school or during one of my breaks.  In such a short amount of time, I saw what an impact this training had on these young adults’ faith.  I am more sold about the mission of YoungLife than I have ever been.  To see the same principle applied to a totally different culture confirms that YL hits the core of what people need on the head.  Jesus and deep meaningful relationships.  By the end of the week, the general response from these newly enlightened young adults was gratitude that they were given the opportunity to learn and be stretched in their faith in this way.  It is such a unique opportunity considering the general consensus of churches around here.  It is nearly impossible to find a church here with sound biblical teaching coming from the pastor.  Most of the local church pastors are not even trained and they go about preaching things that don’t entirely match up with what the Bible says.  Therefore, the validity of what they preach is questionable.  This is in the works of changing as there is a Bible college here that is training loads of pastors as we speak!  Praise God for that! and for getting YoungLife started here only 2 years ago to create more and more followers of Christ! 

YoungLife is SO meant to be in Rwanda.  Rwandans are generally private people.  They don’t talk about their feelings and rarely share anything deep about their life with others.  For instance, it is shocking to have a Rwandan share anything about their experience with the genocide of 94.  And you know ALL of them were affected by it one way or another.  During the training, of course they were challenged to break that cultural boundary and care for these kids by offering them a deep meaningful relationship.  God is bigger than cultural normalcy! 

God keeps surprising me in the ways he has shown his love for me in Rwanda.  I have to admit,  this last month has been especially hard.  I haven’t been able to update my blog until now because I literally didn’t have anything positive to say.  I was resentful of the fact that I felt trapped here when the symptoms of homesickness were creeping in.  I’ve been here over 3 months, and I’ve been told that’s about the time when you realize you aren’t on vacation and you won’t be going “home” anytime soon.  It was true for me!  I’ve also had a really busy few weeks which helped and hindered my attitude.  It helped get my mind off missing home, but also overwhelmed me and I again started forgetting my mission and purpose for me being here.  How quickly I can forget!  Thankfully, through this training, God has opened my heart up to see the amazing opportunities out there that He has planned specifically for me to take advantage of!  I was able to share my heart and passion for youth ministry with these kids and through that, it’s like God was reigniting my passion I had forgotten about while I wallowing in negativity and self pity.  Seriously, every where I turn, God has been there first, and instead of continuing to walk in front of me, he turns around and walks through it again with me.  I’m reminded of this time and time again when there’s no way to explain the events of my life except through God’s reign over it. 

Rwandan Dancers

This is a video of the entertainment provided at an ice cream social that I went to this weekend.  It’s only one of many dances they performed.  They were awesome and very dramatic! Check out their facial expressions and the bells attached to their ankles :)

Lake Bunyonyi Getaway

I just came back home from a weekend trip to Lake Bunyonyi in Kabale Uganda.  First of all, you should know that traveling anywhere in Africa is quite the effort, especially when going over a border.  I feel like I can travel anywhere as long as I’m with a group of people… it doesn’t even matter if none of us are knowledgeable of how to get there!  A group of five of us got bus tickets to take us to Kabale.  The bus was great and big and we were in the front seats, which made for a much more enjoyable ride.  It was only 1.5 hours to the border where we had to get out of the bus and go through immigration.  We had to get a stamp to get out of Rwanda and then physically walk across the border to pay for our visa and get a stamp into Uganda.  Then we had to exchange Rwanda Francs for Uganda Shillings, which should’ve been more thought out before we started bargaining with random dudes on the street trying to make a deal.  But, it worked out all right and we hopped back on the bus to get dropped off 5 kilometers down the road to Kabale, just to have to find a taxi to take us to the lake.   After we got to the lake, we took a motorboat to our little resort called Byoona Amagara.  Luxurious.  We stayed in the deluxe geo-dome and it was amazing.

   

It was out in the open, each bed having a mosquito net so we didn’t swallow bugs in the night or get mosquito bites, of course.  As soon as we got there, we all fell asleep and stayed asleep for hours!  After all the traveling and this being our first long weekend in a while, we were totally exhausted.  Even though we were presumably directly on the equator, the weather was quite chilly!  We wore sweatpants with socks majority of the time!  It stormed almost the whole first day, which was fine with us because all we wanted to do was nap and read our books anyway. 

We had an outdoor shower, which if you ask me, was one of the highlights of the accommodations.   It was really awesome to be outside and get to see the spectacular view of the lake while showering.  The first shower I took, it started to get really windy and it seemed I might get a second shower before I finished with my first one!  I hurried to finish up so I could stay warm from the solar powered heated shower!  The second shower wasn’t that dramatic.  I had the sun beaming down on me and it was glorious. 

We took a couple canoes out on the lake for a few hours, which turned into the wind taking us far away from the dock and us paddling against the wind to get back.  The canoes are hollowed out trees basically; pretty vintage :)  My friend, Hannah, and I rowed zigzag back because we had a pretty difficult time steering… we blamed it on the wind, but as much as I hate to admit it, I think we were partly to blame as well. 

This short trip was very much needed after 10 weeks of school slipping out from under us and 8 more to go before Christmas break.  I knew being a first year teacher would be a lot of work and a lot of preparation and a lot of brain power.  After going and going and going, it was nice to get away and spend time focusing on rest and reflecting on how awesome and good God is.  It’s so easy to get zoned in on what I have to get done rather than why I am doing it.  Day in and day out, I’m whipping out lesson plans, grading papers, preparing power points, practicing art projects, etc etc etc.  If I just focus on these things, I’m reminded that I’m really not built to be an art teacher.  I love art and I love kids, but my passion is not for these kids to love art, rather it’s for them to love Jesus.  I’m built to be a minister of the truth, an example of God’s love, an ambassador for Christ.  When I don’t bring that to the forefront of my lesson planning, I get bogged down by details instead of inspired by the real purpose behind it.  I needed this weekend getaway to refresh my perspective and to build my confidence in traveling outside Rwanda!  

Dysfunctional Day

You know how there are days that just don’t seem to go as planned?  Without them, life would be too predictable and boring; but with them, I have to wonder if I somehow need them as a reality check.  Yesterday, my day started off a bit backwards.  The night before I sent an email response to one of my friends and instead of just replying to her, I hit reply all.  It went out to a bunch of people, some I knew, some I didn’t.  Let’s just say that email was only meant for a few people’s eyes… not 50.  So, I started my day with embarrassment when I learned of this mistake. 

I should have know it wasn’t going to be a normal day when I punctured my lip while washing my face in the morning.  I guess I have an abnormally long pinky nail because while I was vigorously scrubbing my face, it struck my upper lip and instantly started bleeding.  Seriously, I’ve never washed my face hard enough to injure myself!  I spit out the blood and bravely went on with the day.

On Fridays I have duty during Chai Break (recess for the whole school).  Another teacher and I have made a tradition of choreographing an interpretive dance by making up a move to add to it every Friday at Chai and performing it to see if the students would notice how great of dancers we are.  Well, this Friday, we didn’t make up a new move because after the first leap off of a ledge, I toppled over and wiped out in front of 100 students who all just stopped and stared as I lay on the ground laughing with total embarrassment, avoiding all eye contact with anyone around me.  I became even more embarrassed when I realized blood was dripping from my elbow as a result of my tumble.  I see elementary kids in the office all the time nursing wounds from falling while they are playing during recess.  I never thought, as an adult teacher, I would need the same doctoring :)  My pride was definitely knocked down as I went on with the rest of the school day, acting as if I didn’t just make a huge fool out of myself in front of all of my secondary students.   At least my students now know that I’m human!  I’m sure they thought I had superhuman powers to always do the right thing and never get hurt before this incident, right? 

Nothing too dysfunctional happened the rest of my time at school, besides the fact that I was still dealing with the aftermath of my crash landing.  But then, a bunch of friends and I went out to dinner at this really nice Chinese restaurant called Zen.  We walked there and, although it was further away than we thought, we made it there without any problems.  But when we got there, we realized we were a bit underdressed.  Most restaurants I’ve been to in Rwanda have been more fancy than one would expect, but this one was especially nice.  As we were dining, I saw a guy that is in our bible study eating dinner with a woman… and so under my breath I thought I whispered something about how we should yell his name awkwardly, since it seemed he might have been on a date.  Yeah, I didn’t need to carry through with the rest of that because he heard me scheming, looked over and waved at us.  Oops!  Turns out, since all restaurants are outdoors, sound travels quite a bit easier.  

If that wasn’t enough, we ordered sweet and sour chicken to eat… and although it was delicious, I would not say it was sweet and sour.  One thing you need to know about restaurants in Rwanda is you can never actually see what you are eating.  The rooms are normally lit by a few candles on the table and no overhead lights.  It’s actually a blessing, because I would not be adventurous if I saw everything I was eating all the time.  But this time around, it would have been nice to see if I was about to eat a chili pepper so I could have avoided having fire erupting in my mouth for about 5 minutes after what I thought was just another bite of chicken.  My lips and tongue were useless for that duration of time, so it’s a good thing I was almost finished eating by that time. 

The last dysfunctional thing that happened to put the icing on the cake occurred right before we left Zen.  We were walking to get out of the way of cars leaving the parking lot and I tripped over a bowed drain that was conveniently sticking up about 8 inches off the ground.  At that point I decided I needed to go home and remove myself from any more potentially embarrassing situations. 

I’m not going to say it was a bad day.  Because, it wasn’t!  A part of me feels like for some reason, I needed to be reminded of the fact that I am a mess!  Wait, no.  I already knew that.  Maybe it was to reveal to the people around me that I’m a mess….  Or maybe, I just needed to be humbled 6 times yesterday!  “Ok, I get it, God.  I need you.”   I probably won’t struggle with pride for awhile now, thanks to this marvelous dysfunctional day.

Crippled by Fear

I'm starting to realize how much fear really does control my life. Ok, so it's not like I ever thought I was particularly brave or anything, but I just didn't think I let fear be my god! I act upon fear more than I act upon the Spirit. Fear makes rash decisions like, "No, I shouldn't go out of my way to talk kinyarwanda to these people because I will sound stupid and I won't know what else to say if they ask me more questions". How much more love could I show to them if I tried harder to speak their language? Fear makes me do stupid things like ignore intimidating situations with disciplining students because I am too scared to confront them about it for fear they will be upset with me.   How much more love would I show them if I was firm in showing them where they’ve crossed the line so that they learn, in the long run, how to treat people and how to be responsible?  Fear also doesn’t allow me to experience the freedom of expressing my struggles to my brothers and sisters in Christ.  What if they won’t understand?  What if they never think of me the same?  What if? What if?? What if???    If I allowed myself to be more vulnerable with people who cared about me, wouldn’t I also be allowing God to change the ugly parts of me as well?

God says we should fear Him. I've struggled with this in the past because what kind of God wants us to be scared of Him? But I understand more fully that fearing God is the opposite of fearing what people think. It's generally one or the other. When I make a decision, is it to please God? or to please the people around me? If it's for the people around me, is it for my benefit? or for theirs?  To fear God is to fear his opinion and his power more than the opinion and power of the world around you.  In a lot of ways, the fear of God in a general sense has lessened significantly in churches over the centuries.  Now, God is seen primarily as our Father and Friend… which he certainly is.  But, He is also completely Holy and Sovereign and Just.  God’s wrath still exists even though, nowadays, we only like to talk about the rainbows and cotton candy version of God.  His grace did not come without a price.  His wrath fell on one person for all time.  Come on, you know who I’m referring to, right?  Ok, I will say it.  JESUS.  Before Jesus, remember all the times God wiped people out?  He brought on epidemics to people just like us, naive and ignorant of the consequences of our rash decisions based in fear.  It’s the same God, he hasn’t changed.  So why do I/we place our concerns on what people think of us and how we are perceived when God’s opinion and knowledge is what really counts?   I am mulling or that question this week.  If I am living for God, I should strive to be lead by the Spirit of God rather than by fear that cripples me.  

God says, “Be strong and courageous!” He says that because He knows the impact fear has on us.  He isn’t oblivious to the things that influence us in our decisions.  That is why he emphasizes, “Be strong and very courageous!  Do not be afraid or discouraged.  For the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9 

Young Life in Rwanda

Today was a great day.  First thing this morning, I finally received a care package my parents sent me!  It was glorious :)  It was filled with some really good junk food... "all of my favorite things" according to my loving parents.  I was so excited to have gotten mail from loved ones! The excitement carried on into the rest of my day.  My students were great!  Lessons went awesome!  Today was also my sister's birthday! WAHOOOO! And today we started Campaigners! 

I was excited about a lot of things today, as you can tell by all my exclamations, but maybe the most exciting part of my day was sharing the vision of Young Life with 4 senior girls at KICS.  I take that back.  The most exciting part was hearing the response from these 4 seniors girls after sharing the vision of Young Life with them!  They are already leaders at KICS being seniors and solid Christian women.  But with Young Life club waiting to be started, they have a new focus in gaining relationships with their peers for the purpose of sharing Christ's love through YL.  I was amazed at the maturity of these girls and at the way their eyes twinkled at the thought of being disciples of Christ at their school.  Not that they weren't already disciples... but now this new vision adds a twinge of accountability and teamwork to the mix.  It's one thing to follow Jesus on your own, for your own purposes.  It's another thing to follow Jesus with a mindset and goal to introduce a specific group of people to Him.  My faith strengthened abundantly when I became a Young Life leader because I couldn't just slack on my relationship with God since I was partnering with Him to bring others to the way, the truth, and the life! 

Sometimes I wonder if God brought me to Rwanda to teach art.... or to start YoungLife at KICS.  I mean, it's God, so I pretty sure he brought me here to do both :)  but I know that my heart beats a tad faster at the thought of God using Young Life to bring kids to Jesus in Rwanda. 

Teaching Update

Teaching at KICS has been a real privilege.  Although at the beginning of this journey, I thought I might be diagnosed as crazy to try to start my teaching career in Africa.  However, it turns out I couldn’t have picked a better location to begin my adulthood.  The teaching staff is brilliant; full of people who are here to serve God and serve kids.  They are also the reason I have transitioned so well to this foreign place.  I’ve made better friends than I ever thought possible at this stage of the game.  If I left Rwanda tomorrow, I would miss my friends here so much!  It’s crazy how quickly you can bond with people when you share the same experiences 24/7.  The mission of this school directly matches my heart for God and kids equally.  I feel so supported here by the administration and have pretty much been given free reign with what I teach and how I teach. 

Here are some student artwork that has been done the most recently:

6th Grade:

    

4th Grade:

5th Grade:

3rd Grade:

 

7th- 9th Grade:

12th Grade: