As My Heart Mourns and Grows

Two weeks ago I received a text message from my friend Stephanie that reminded me this year marked the 18 year anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda.  I am guilty in admitting to you that it did not stop me in the middle of my tracks that day.  There were still meetings scheduled and classes to attend, but it only took me a few hours for that reminder to really sink in.  Sitting in a Good Friday service, I received a message that shared the darkness of that day while also explaining the hope that hides behind such darkness.  Hope is a concept I often cling to, but it was hard for me on this day.  As I remembered the Rwandese people entering a time of mourning, I begged God to tell me how it is possible that they could find hope.  How, in remembering the fear and pain of their history, could they find hope?  It is in moments like this that I realize my faith is far too easily shaken.

It is on Good Friday, though, that I am reminded I am never alone in my questioning God.  Look at the words that Jesus himself cried out on the cross: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?  We all have our moments of questions and we all experience the heart wrenching moments before we have answers.  Jesus’ words lead me to David’s words written in Psalm 22.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from saving me,

so far from the words of my groaning?

My god, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,

by night, but I find no rest.

I am poured out like water,

and all my bones are out of joint.

My heart has turned to wax;

it has melted within me.

But you, LORD, do not be far from me.

You are my strength; come quickly to help me.

I cried out to God as my heart imagined pain.  The pain of the cross.  The pain of the genocide.  The pain of the mourning.  Two thousand years ago, Christ laid down his life to save us.  Yes, us, the dust of this world who are undeserving of such love.  Yet he loved us and in spite of this love, we still live in darkness.  That is why I cry at night.  That is why there are times that the tears which flow are hard to stop.  Oh God, save us!

And He does.

For after death comes life.  After violence comes peace.  After mourning comes joy.  Turn to the words of Paul in I Corinthians and you read what I find to be some of the most powerful scripture in the Bible:

Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed–in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.  For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.  For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.  When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

WHERE, O DEATH, IS YOUR VICTORY? WHERE, O DEATH, IS YOUR STING?

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.  But thanks be to God!  He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm.  Let nothing move you.  Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

There is hope in the resurrection and for that we must be grateful.  There is pain in this world.  It is all around us and it is unavoidable.  You can not read the news or watch television or listen to the radio, but the pain still exists.  The pain is still sleeping under a bridge at night or pushing innocent children into slavery.  My heart aches everyday at school as I learn more about this world that feels as though it is crumbling around me.  But remember that there is beauty as well.  When my heart cried out for the pain of Rwanda, I remembered my friends there.  Ngoga, Marcelene, Emily, Pascasie, Maurice and so many others.  Their smiles, courage and passion have made me realize that out of pain there can still be beauty.  I learned more about hope from the people of Rwanda in ten short weeks than I have in most of my life.

I still think about Rwanda everyday and these recollections are what drive me to do my part to make the world a better place after my feet hit the floor each morning.  I do my part by taking the time to listen to a friend.  By encouraging those who feel as though they are at the end of their rope.  By recycling.  By taking a moment to appreciate the blossoms of spring.  By praying for the pain in the world and thanking God for the beauty in the world.  By spreading the hope of Christ through living a life of love.

What are the things that remind you the world is not actually so dark as it seems?  Take time to remember these things each day and thank God that out of the ashes, beauty will rise.  Remember that the pain of the cross came for a reason and the hope of the resurrection is not something to be taken for granted.  We will all be changed and the world will no longer be the same.

For God will wipe every tear from our eyes.  There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things will pass away.  

This is our hope.  Let us live it today.

It’s Time

It’s time to start writing again.  The six weeks away from this blog was far from intentional, it just happened.  After my last post, the feeling of peace that had come over me quickly left and I was thrown into the tension of a very full February and then the end of Winter Quarter.  And now here I am, feeling more unmotivated than ever in my studying and instead in the mood to write.  You are my friends, my family, my support in every step of life, and it is only fair for you to know what I am thinking.  It’s only right that you know what exactly it is that has brought me to a point of total exhaustion and unrest as spring waits just around the corner.

I love spring and the newness it brings with it.  While the grey Seattle rain continues to pour, pink blossoms emerge on trees that have been naked for months.  Mixed with the March snowfall are white petals flying in the wind and it is hard to tell what are flakes and what are flowers.  The beauty of the weeks leading up to spring is usually something that stops me in my tracks, but lately it has been terrifying me more than anything.  The coming of spring means the beginning of an end.  I graduate in less than three months.  This goal that has always been so far away, so unachievable, and so grown-up is approaching faster than I’d like it to and my life is about to undergo a huge change.

Many tears have been shed as I consider the end of this time.  As a dear friend often reminds me, though, we are ever changing beings.  Yes, some changes feel bigger than others, but we are never truly stationary.  Even when we think nothing is changing, the world around us is still changing and we are changing with it.  Life is entering a period of transition and I finally picked up Letters to a Young Poet after about three years of my sister recommending it to me.  It seems that I picked it up at exactly the right time, similarly to when I picked up A Grief Observed precisely when I needed to in Rwanda.  One passage in particular struck me, along with several others, about two weeks ago:

It seems to me that almost all our sadnesses are moments of tension, which we feel as paralysis because we no longer hear our astonished emotions living.  Because we are alone with the unfamiliar presence that has entered us; because everything we trust and are used to is for a moment taken away from us; because we stand in the midst of a transition where we cannot remain standing.

Three months before I dress up in a cap and gown and step foot off a podium and into the real world, I feel as though I am stuck.  There are days I feel completely unprepared for what is to come and there are days that I just want to be there now.  The struggle is to remain present right where I am.  It shouldn’t be a struggle, though, because where I am is so very good.  Between my home, group, school, the band, my boyfriend and my family, there is absolutely nothing that should be concerning me.  These are all things I love and they are surrounding me all the time…why would I ever want to accelerate to a time when these things are not the way they are right now?  I am experiencing a strange pull in two directions: one coaxes me out of the present and into the future while another sticks my feet in the mud and strikes me with a paralysis concerning the future.  

God is in all of this, though.  God is in our wanting and our waiting, our laughing and our crying, our fear and our joy.  God was in our past and God will be in our future, but most importantly God is in our present.  My prayer every morning is that He will walk with me through the day.  It is my prayer that the next few months will be full of life, joy, peace and excitement.  Not anticipation.  Not anxiety.  Excitement.  Because life with God is an adventure, not a dark and terrifying journey.  

Unexpected Revelations

God I look to You, I won’t be overwhelmed.

Give me vision to see things like You do.

God I look to You, You’re where my help comes from.

Give me wisdom; You know just what to do.

“God I Look to You”, Bethel

It feels like winter quarter just started this week, but the reality is that I’m going into the fifth week this week.  Two normal weeks of school, one that was full of snow days and one where I travelled to Michigan for half of it have made me feel ungrounded in my everyday routine.  And when routine disappears, I start to worry and feel scattered.  Now I find myself sitting in a church listening to some of my dearest friends practice worship music for an upcoming retreat and I have felt God’s presence more strongly than I have in quite some time.  Sun shines through the stained glass, casting shadows of a tree stripped bare of its leaves on the floor.  

Why is it that my mind begins to race as soon as I lay my head down to rest each night? Why is it that the idea of calling no longer makes me feel at ease, but instead fills me with anxiety?  Why do I fear the future when I should really just be thankful for the present?  The present is beautiful right now and I desperately wish that my fear of the uncertainty after June 9th would stop creeping into my thoughts.  I think there is only one big update of my life regarding the future right now and that is the ever prominent view in my heart that I have an unexpected desire to stay.  Always I have said “go” and now I am thinking otherwise.  A summer abroad in Rwanda gave me a taste of the world that is out there and the world I want to be a part of, but I’m not ready for it.  I know I will be ready for it in time, but that time is not now.  

God has provided so much for me in my present circumstances and I am not ready to leave them.  I have been surprised by my desire to work more closely with the church and it has come as a result of leading the Group worship service this year.  Now, more than ever, worship has become an intrinsic part of who I am and I have seen the power it holds in so many arenas.  It is a place of worship, but more than that it is a place of education.  Biblical education, yes, but it goes further than that.  It is an education that teaches us that we are all part of the greater Biblical story.  In our everyday lives, where does the love of Christ shine bright and in what places has it yet to shine?  There is a fullness of the Kingdom of God that has yet to manifest itself in our world and we have the great honor to be a part of it.  

If my being a part of the Kingdom of God means staying in Seattle for longer than I anticipated, I am okay with that.  If it means sitting in an office and doing data entry for the ultimate glory of a better Kingdom, I am okay with that as well.  If it means not yet entering the NGO world and making coffee for people in the midst of their busy lives, I am even okay with that.  In the end, my hope is simply this: that I will have a place to let the love of Christ shine simply by living my life in a way that glorifies him.  Fear of the days following June 9th is not going to help me live my life in that way.  I must once again remind myself how to rest in the hope that God has a plan and, though it may be different from my own, it will be far greater than anything I can plan on my own.

A New Year’s Letter to You

Dear Friends and Family,

It seems impossible to reiterate to you all that has happened to me in the last year.  A thousand pictures or a million words would still not be sufficient, but I’ll do my best.  It has been a year where my heart has twisted and turned through strange scenarios and amazing experiences that have lead me right to where I stand today.  Three things stand out to me among it all.

I spent the summer in Rwanda.  I long to go back.

I spend 20 hours a week planning a worship service at SPU.  It’s called Group.

I live in a house with ten women.  They are my lifeline.

These three things stand out to me because these are three things I never thought would be.  I never wanted to go to Africa.  I never wanted to live with more than four people.  I was supposed to be done leading worship.

Yet here I am, involved in these things, and I have never felt more confident that I am exactly where I am supposed to be.  It has been a year where I have seen the world turned upside down and I have realized that I can help turn it right side up again.  I began to write this summer more than I have ever written before.  The red roads of Rwanda led straight to my heart and my heart led to my fingers and my fingers typed the story of Rwanda all summer long.  I don’t know what I want to do after I graduate in June, but whatever I do, I know that I want to write.  I want to use the power of words to share the world with those who have yet to see and experience it.

Words are important, yes, but so is music.  After a huge change of heart, I filled out an application and became the coordinator of Group.  I started studying the book of Joshua and my heart was wrenched with memories of Rwanda.  Stories of Old Testament genocide reminded me of my summer and the stories I heard.  I longed for reason in it all and eventually found it.  I realized that God’s hope for the world rests in us.  In our action and our love that we are called to live, redemption and healing can come to this very broken world.  We do not deserve grace, yet we receive it, and that is exactly how we are called to live.  In grace…in love…in hope.

I am blessed and honored to experience that love everyday in the home that I live in.  Eleven women, all alumni of Fourth Hill, decided to rent an old mansion this year and live in it.  It has been a huge blessing for each of us and exactly what we needed in this final year (for most of us) of college.  It is a constant support network and I could not think of a better living situation.  Whether we are dancing in the kitchen, crying on the couch or laughing on each other’s floors, we are always there for one another.  As we all step out into this void of uncertainty ahead of us come June 9^th, it is nice to know that we are not alone.

Indeed, it has been a year of learning, but above all it has been a year of blessing and a constant realization that God is walking with me each step of the way.  I am not alone on this journey and I never will be.  I hope you realize this, too, as you step into a new year.  Thank you for your support in the past year, life would not look the way it does right now had it not been for you.

Much love and many blessings to you and Happy New Year!

Shifting Traditions

Sleeping next to the Christmas tree was a lovely thing to do this year.  It’s something I’ve never done before because sleeping under the Christmas tree meant Santa wouldn’t come.  A few years after that belief was over, I realized that sleeping under the Christmas tree meant our parents couldn’t get rid of us to put the brightly wrapped presents under the sparkling lights.  So, for twenty years I’ve slept in my room, away from the sweet smelling evergreen branches decked with Christmas ornaments collected from family history, sunday school class and various worldwide adventures.  This year, sleeping next to the Christmas tree was just one of many things I was able to do because I strayed from tradition.

For those who do not know this about me, I’m obsessed with tradition.  Doing the same thing every Christmas is important to me and I’m not really sure why.  It might be because the rest of the year is not centered around traditions, so it always comes full circle at Christmas.  It provides a certain rhythm and rest that I greatly appreciate.  This year it became equally important to leave tradition and visit my sister in Germany for the holidays.  Family is at the center of all our Christmas traditions and I wasn’t about to let her miss that most important component of Christmas tradition.  So, though this Christmas was very different, it was also similar in its own special ways.

We still watched the annual Christmas movies, Kristi baked the Christmas morning cinnamon rolls (and I ate them, as is traditional), we sang “Silent Night” at a candlelight Christmas Eve service, we listened to Michael W. Smith’s Christmas albums on repeat.  Here we were, Kristi and I and several of her similarly orphaned friends at Christmas, bringing together a combination of our own important traditions to make this day special for all of us.  I appreciate the differences in our traditions, especially as I begin to realize that this is not going to my last Christmas not at home.

Life is changing fast and it is becoming clear to me that my parent’s Greenlake home might not be the place I will be every Christmas morning for the rest of my life.  Maybe Africa is calling, or Federal Way, or Haiti, or the East Coast.  There’s a whole world beyond Seattle and I don’t believe that God is writing my story all in one place.  Eventually he may send me elsewhere and I will look back on this Christmas as the one where I realized it’s okay to stray from tradition once in a while.  It’s okay to step out uncertainly into a new place and see what awaits.  I always thought I would stay.  My memory takes me back to the day that Dad and I lay on the trampoline watching clouds go by.  I was twelve, perhaps younger, and I remember leaning against him and telling him that I was never going to leave home, that I was going to live with him and Mom forever.  Older siblings moved out and in and out again and eventually it was my turn to leave.  Those summers that I thought would be spent at home in between college years actually became long abroad adventures to Austria and Rwanda and home suddenly had a new meaning.

These past few years have been a constant exploration into the definition of “home.”  Being away from home at Christmas, but being with Kristi, has made me realize that home is where your loved ones are.  Finally that little phrase “home is where the heart is” makes perfect sense to me.  My heart is not in one place, so neither is my home.  There is a tiny bit of home here in Kandern.  There is home in Rwanda.  There is home in Seattle.  And maybe someday home will be found in another place.

This Christmas shifted away from many traditions near and dear to my heart, but that is okay.  The heart of the season isn’t wrapped up in the chex mix, the Russian nesting doll wrapping paper or the sentimental ornaments hanging on the tree.  It isn’t in the Christmas dinner, the stockings hung with climbing rope or the intricate paper snowflakes.  It’s in mother, father, brother and sister.  It’s in the love of Christ that binds us together.  It’s in the joy and love found in all these things that I remember why we celebrate Christmas in the first place.  In the words of our dear friend, Mr. Grinch:

“It came without ribbons! It came without tags! It came without packages, boxes or bags!” And he puzzled for three hours, til his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before! “Maybe Christmas,” he thought, “doesn’t come from a store.  Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more!”

Merry Christmas!

Comfort

I am currently in the Southwestern corner of Germany where I am spending Christmas with my big sister.  She is a woman I respect more than most and it is a joy to be in her part of the world.  I remember visiting this little town two years ago, about this same time, and thinking she would fit in here nicely.  I’m not going to take credit for her being here, but I do know that some words along the way about what a perfect fit she was for the missionary school in the little German town must have contributed something.  She is now in her second year of teaching at Black Forest Academy and let me tell you, she is exceptional.

Kristi has been teaching ever since she graduated college and I was able to sit in one of her classes for the first time yesterday.  I was amazed by the way she moved about the classroom with such ease.  Standing in front of the class, she somehow collects the attention of twenty sixteen-year-olds and convinces them that literature is the best thing that ever happened to them.  The kids perform skits to remind their classmates what different stories are about.  As a boy playing John Proctor in The Crucible hangs himself with a scarf and a girl tapes a red letter “A” to her sweater to represent The Scarlet Letter, I realize just what an excellent teacher Kristi is.  These students have developed a passion for books and words and stories and authors and she gets to share it with them.  What joy it must bring her to spend every day reading books with students she truly loves.

Later that day, my father and I sat in on her choir rehearsal.  Not the school choir, oh no.  She is in the town choir with a group of older German women.  The youngest by twenty years, she stands out, but she also somehow fits in.  She sings beautifully and converses entirely in German with these women.  She laughs with them and explains where they are in the music.  She has learned another language and has chosen to challenge herself by joining a town choir where English speaking is simply not going to happen.

How did she do it?  How did she get the confidence to pack up and move her life across the world?  I never thought I would be able to do that, yet as I watch her living here, I can see myself doing the same.  Not to Germany, though.  A strange realization has come across me as I realize that I would be far more comfortable moving to Rwanda than to Germany and I am trying to figure out why.

As I watch Kristi navigate this little town and converse with shopkeepers and townspeople in German, to me it looks like the most challenging thing in the world.  Yet put me back on a plane to Rwanda and I will learn the language, learn to drive a stick shift and pour my heart into that place.  How is it possible that I feel more at home in a place where I stick out more than anywhere else in the world?  Why do I feel out of place in this little German town when I fit the part so well?  With my blonde braids and my wool sweater, no one should guess that I don’t belong here.  Then I open my mouth with my English speaking and they all realize that this is not my town.  I am not a part of this world.  I have come to find that I am part of another world.  I am part of a world where it is always 80 degrees, where skirts must go below my knees and where every child walking down the street will look at me and say, “Good morning, teacher!”

If I were to choose another home, it’s strange to me that it would not be this little town.  It’s hard to believe that the snow capped Alps, the bratwurst and the countless kinds of cheeses are not the things that make my home “home”.  Home is, I am coming to find, in the heart of whatever I am doing.  Right now, home is at SPU where I lead a wonderful group of people to put on a worship service every week.  Home is in my house of ten women who pour their lives into one another.  Home is in my studies of civil society, microfinance and global health.  But perhaps someday soon home will be found in an apartment in Kigali where I continue to write the hearts of those who have stories to share.  That is where I find myself most comfortable and I think God made it that way for a reason.  Only time will tell exactly what that reason is, but for now I will be happy in the home I am still in.

Running Away

For you, the world I long to see again:

As I try to study for finals, my mind wanders out of my control.  It is running across the ocean to that world I once called home.  You’re holding onto my heart too tight, Rwanda.  I don’t want to forget you, but at times remembering you is just too hard to bear.

Do you remember the night we sang songs and danced in the living room, introducing pizza and popcorn to a dozen kids?

Do you remember when I was alone in Musanze and the power went out and I sat on the porch listening to the rain pound and watching lightning light up the sky?

I remember your dusty roads that I walked along everyday.

I remember your deep brown eyes staring at my white blonde hair.

Please don’t forget me, Rwanda.  You are still a part of me and I hope that I am still a part of you.  Perhaps we will meet again, that’s what everyone keeps saying.  I hope they are right.  Because when you find that thing that changes your life–that place, that friend, those songs, those words–you don’t just let it go.  It becomes an intrinsic part of who you are and it keeps you in its grasp.  You are in me, Rwanda, and I know that means something.  I wish I could say, “let me forget you, just for a day, so I can study for finals and stop thinking of you,” but that would be too hard.  You are too beautiful to forget, even for a moment.

Thanks

Do you know that feeling after you have experienced generosity too grand to accept?  That time when saying “thank you” never feels like quite enough, but there are no other words to express how you’re feeling?  That’s how I feel after this year.  Immense gratitude is due to so many and there are memories captured in my heart that will never be able to escape.  It has been a year of great change, growth, and exploration far and wide.

I found myself staring out a window on Wednesday night as the rain began to pour down while the rest of my former group staff was in the kitchen preparing a Thanksgiving Eve feast to enjoy together.  As I stared out the window, tears began to build up in my eyes as I remembered the precious joy we all experienced in the last year.  We did this a year ago, as staff members trudged through the snow with their various dishes to enjoy a meal together before we parted our separate ways.  We parted our ways again last June as we strummed the last chords of a song and heard Brian say those traditional end-of-service words, “go in peace.”  At that point I had no idea what the Lord had in store for me for the next six months of my life.  It wasn’t long after that moment that I bid farewell to my house of five and boarded a plane to Kigali, Rwanda.

How to I begin to say thanks to Rwanda?  Rwanda changed me in ways I am still discovering.  It opened my eyes to a whole new world and I experienced things that are difficult to put down in words.  While you were reading my blog posts that were my desperate attempt to show you the world I was living in, I was beginning to reshape how I think, how I believe and how I live.  I thank God for the smiles on the faces of children in the refugee camp.  I thank God for Esther and Grace.  I thank God for the dusty roads, the long bus rides, the patchwork green hills, my co-workers and the generosity of everyone I encountered.  I thank God for their willingness and excitement to share their country with me, a lanky blonde 21 year old from America.

The summer would have been impossible without my adoptive parents, Phil and Becca Smith.  Everyday I was in Rwanda, I thanked God for them.  Mornings with smoothies made from the old fruit salad, driving to work with Papa Phil, returning home to lay my head in Mama Becca’s lap while we watched Iranze play his little guitar and sing songs about the umusambi birds in the backyard.  They were exactly what I needed as I spent my first significant amount of time abroad and away from my family.  They were my family and they treated me like their daughter and I could have asked for nothing better.  I count myself blessed to have spent the summer with them and I will never forget the moments we shared together.

Upon returning, I embarked on an entirely new adventure: group coordinator.  I delved into a book of the Bible that once terrified me and has now proved very significant in my faith life: Joshua.  I started to read it while I was in Rwanda, but reading stories of Biblical genocide alongside stories of the Rwandan genocide was to much for me to handle.  How on earth could I possibly teach these stories to the SPU campus?  What significance do they hold in the greater story of faith?  As each week went on, I began to realize the hope that is found in the time preceding this book.  When you look at what lies beyond the horrific events of Joshua, you begin to see that there is a greater hope that Christ is calling us to.  The restoration of the world is coming, not through destruction, but through the love we live our lives in.  And that is something to be thankful for.

I am thankful for the group of people I spend fifteen hours with every week.  I am thankful that they are willing to try something new and work hard and worship together.  I am especially thankful for Bob.  He is my mentor, my advisor and my friend.  I spend a lot of time sitting in his office and asking a thousand questions.  He sits patiently as he waits for me to answer them myself, because he knows that I can.  He has helped me to shape my own beliefs in light of my summer spent in Rwanda.  He has taught me what it means to be a leader.  He has given me the confidence to lead a group of people that I, at times, feel very ill-equipped to lead.  I am thankful for him.

Honestly, it is hard for me to express just how thankful I am right now.  I am thankful for all of the moments that have brought me to where I am right here and right now.  I am thankful for the confidence that I am exactly where I am supposed to be right now.  I am living with ten of my best friends.  I am leading a worship service that has been one of the most meaningful experiences of my life.  I look at photos on my wall everyday that take me to another world, a world where there are hills as far as the eye can see and children stare at me with dark brown eyes.  I have a man who will climb mountains with me even though he’s afraid of heights and who delivers lunch to me on the busiest day of my week.  I have a family who, though we are not all in the same city, still manages to spend time together through a beautiful invention called skype.  I count myself blessed and there’s no other word more fitting than a plain and simple “Thanks.”

Right Here

I thank God for the place in which I find myself.  In this home, in these books, in this church, in these arms.  In a world where laughter meets my tears, joy meets my sorrow and hope meets growing despair.  I watch the candle flicker, flashing pieces of light on the photo that sits atop my bookshelf next to the globe.  The photo is one of seven women walking down the muddy road in Rwaza sector, bright patterned skirts poking out beneath large rainbow umbrellas.  There are a few pictures that come to mind when I think of Rwanda and this is one of them.

There is also a photo that I took on one of my walks home.  Trees line the edges, a man is walking down the road, brilliantly shining clouds are in the center and it was taken on that dusty red road that I got to know so well.  I haven’t forgotten those steps I took while I was in Rwanda.  Steps that got me home, steps that showed me what poverty looks like, steps that told me the world is huge and also so small.  There are differences, but there are similarities.  We have lessons to teach, but we have so many more lessons to learn.  I am still coming to learn where exactly the steps I took in Rwanda are taking me now.  It’s hard to take steps on the dusty roads and return to my paved streets and step into the carpeted classroom.  I long to step inside the photos on the screen, but I find myself pinned to my notebook and my chair.  Today is not the day to step into the photo of South Africa or Rwanda, today is the day to ask myself how the picture of poverty will no longer be taken.  It will no longer be taken because someday it will be gone.  But not today.  And probably not tomorrow.

There are also pictures that are only in my mind.  I hear Rwanda and I am thrown back into the mud hut in Ruhengari.  The congregation of Grace Church crammed inside one hut singing songs and drinking Fanta in celebration of a young boys’ baptism.  The beauty of community, the closeness of family and the vibrancy of Christ was so clear in that moment.  I never wanted it to end.  I wanted to listen to the rain pour on the tin roof for the rest of my life, but I had to leave.  I stepped outside of the hut, outside of the bus, outside of the plane and into the streets of my home that I am in now.  Seattle, you are still a part of my heart.  But Rwanda, you have captured part of my heart and you are not giving it back.

No, not a day goes by when I don’t recall Rwanda.  It’s impossible to forget, much more impossible than I anticipated.  I had a fear of forgetting, just like a had a fear of going.  Now I no longer have a fear of forgetting, but instead there is a fear of remembering.  Because everyday I remember is a day that my heart aches and longs to be in the place that I once called home.  Yet just as I long to be in Rwanda, I long just as strongly to be present right here, right now.  I have responsibilities, studies, friends and family to hold me to this world that I truly love.  And that is what the first sentence of this blog comes from.

I thank God for the place in which I find myself.  In this home, in these books, in this church, in these arms.

I am blessed beyond belief at this moment in my life.  Everyday I ask myself how I can possibly be so lucky.  To have a family who loves me, friends who care for one another deeply, a church that has a growing passion for the poor in the world and their community and someone so consistently at my side when the madness of life makes me want to quit…how is it possible that these worlds have collided into such a beautiful blessing?

I find myself in this home.  A house full of eleven girls is where I have made my home this year.  It is a coming together of dear friends after one long year apart and it is a grand adventure.  I have never been in the house alone before because there is always someone home.  When I open the door I hear laughter in the kitchen, tears in the basement and the busy typing of the studious ones upstairs.  I go to my room where the walls are lined with the portrait of my life.  Sheet music and group posters, family photos and words of wisdom from the greats such as Henry Nouwen, and of course the large piece of Rwandan fabric as a backdrop for the photos and notes and trinkets that made up two very exciting months of my life.

I find myself in these books.  It was hard to return to the classroom after being in what they call “the real world,” but it is also a good thing.  Every essay I read on development, every story I hear about social business, every statistic I hear about countries struggling with AIDS and every photo I see of a malnourished child make me remember why I am sitting in the desk.  Though there is part of me that wants to quit school right now and do something, the other part of me knows that sitting in the desk is good.  I have a newfound passion for all that I am learning.  I care for the subjects more deeply than I have cared about school in my whole life.

I find myself in this church.  Bethany Community Church has been my home for nearly 16 years.  Though it has grown to about eight times the size of when I arrived, it still feels very much like home to me.  I told the Kindergarten through Third grade students about Rwanda on Sunday and I realized that the heart these kids have for the world is very important.  Thousands of miles away there are children with holes in their shoes who walk three miles to school everyday and have trouble doing their homework at night because it is too dark.  Then there are these kids in the middle of Seattle who say they want to help.  This church is opening the eyes of their entire congregation to the world that is out there and the needs that we can help see met.  I am blessed to call this church home.

I find myself in these arms.  When no one else had time to listen, he asked me how I was feeling about going to Rwanda.  I told him I was scared and he heard me.  Five months later, I find myself walking down the street, my hand in his and I feel blessed.  He is a sturdy rock when the world feels like it’s spinning too fast.  As he rests his chin on the top of my head when we hug, I thank God for bringing someone so solid into my life during such a transitory season.

Undoubtedly I am blessed.  As each day goes on and overwhelming details, statistics, essays and facts run through my head, I remember that God put me here for a reason.  Right here.

In this home, in these books, in this church, in these arms.

Just A Note

Upon my return, I asked myself a question.  Do I continue blogging here or do I go back to my old blog?  They’re compartmentalized, you see.  The old blog (www.hollynadine.blogspot.com) is an insight into the past four years of my life.  The end of high school, the start of college, and the lessons I have been learning about faith, friendship and trust.  Then I started this blog as a way of sharing with you about Rwanda.  My journey of how I ended up there, the beautiful stories I was blessed to be a part of while there and the struggle I have begun to face upon my return.  So where do I go now as I begin to share about things like my home full of eleven women, the worship service I coordinate called “group” and the way my heart is being shaped and molded by the things I am studying in this final year of university?

My thoughts are staying right here on this blog because that’s the only thing I can do.  Rwanda is a part of my being now and to try to ignore that is impossible.  Everyday my heart remembers something from the dusty roads and pearly white smiles.  When I study social enterprise, civil society and global health, I am transported back to the other side of the world that I was blessed to call home for ten weeks.  As I coordinate group, the significance of diversity and global Christianity are maximized in my mind and I try very hard to bring those into our worship space.  We are all parts of one body and it is important to remember that as we worship God together.  I am looking at the world through a new lens now and the only place to continue sharing that is right here on this blog.  My thoughts now are intertwined with my Rwandan heart and if you want to continue hearing about it, by all means keep reading this blog.  I just wanted to tell you that this blog will now be less of my musings from Rwanda and more about my journey here in Seattle as I make my way through this final year of university.

Also, this is a final thank you for all of your support before, during and after my trip to Rwanda.  Truly, my journey would have been impossible without all of your love, prayer and support during this time.  Much love to all of you.