Asking for Prayers and Begging for Answers

Internet here, I've learned, even with a wireless modem is nothing to rely on. So bare with me as I'm eager to blog more than I am allowed. (due to both time and internet connection)

Saturday was quite the day. to preface this story, two weekends ago I woke up- went out into the family room where my host brother, Bruce, and our house girl, Benita, were watching T.V. and just had time to sit down before the front doors (which lead right into the family room) burts open with a frantic woman bussling about the house, she was moaning and muttering words in Kinyarwanda and no one was saying a thing. I sat there in amusement waiting for someone to either introduce me or kick this loonie out. After the woman had wanered into the near hallway, the house girl looked at Bruce and they burst out laughing as I sit in the dark on the couch between them, Benita nudged Bruce, muttered some words and pointed to me, she doesn't speak English but i'm assuming it was something along the lines of, "Explain to her!" Bruce just looked at me with confusion on where to start and finally got out the words, "That's my Aunt, She's just crazy..." I didn't ask quetsions, trust me... you wouldn't have either, and that was really that. Now back to THIS Saturday, I woke up around 8:30- still feeling kind of sick and slow but I wanted to get out of bed to wash off my germs with a bath. I could hear my host mom in the family room so I opened my door to ask her for bath water (bath water in which the domestic workers bring from the back yard- but my lack of Kinyarwanda leaves for an inability to ask for it myself), I was quick to discover we had company. My mom introduced me to her sister-in-law and then explained to me that we have no water yet today. I was, not happy to admit, less than enthused to carry on an awkward, four sentence, forced conversation with a complete stranger so I moseyed on back to my room and lay in bed. My host mom knocked on my door a short half hour later and told me breakfast was ready, she has been asking the workers to make SOUP for breakfast lately since I've been sick (something new, but a wonderful remedy) as I went out to the table I saw the newly introduced Aunt was joining us. I knew that most of my host fathers family was killed in the genocide, but what I didn't know what was I was about to face this morning at breakfast.

Mom was getting ready for church so it was just me, Aunt Janet and Paula at the table. As usual I had lots of food thrown at me with no idea how to prepare it or properly eat. Aagain, I wasn't in the mood to fake it or ask so I sat and only touched my soup. It was silent. Aunt Janet then spoke, "You don't like Mangos?" pointing to the Mango sitting on the plate in front of me. Well, i've learned here in Rwanda that I LOVE Mangos, my host mom buys them for me and I eat them up. I told Aunt Janet that I love mangos, just don't know how to cut it...so Janet shot up, grabed a knife and taught me. She did half of it then made me show her what I learned with the other half. I immediatley felt remorsful for having avoided her earlier in the morning, and apologized to God in silent prayer for being so selfish. Then the conversations started...Aunt Janet was speaking to Paula in Kinyarwanda and I sat at the end of the table having conversations with myself in my head. Then Janet looked down at me and explained...she was telling Paula about her experience during the genocide, it was something Paula had never been told before- and obviously, me either. Janet was a VERY very thin lady, almost purely bones with thinned hair and a seemingly young, yet prematurly aged face. Janet told me that she was approached during the genocide to be killed, they wanted her dead but didn't want to waste their bullets or machettes on her so they appointed a lady to perform witchcraft. Janet didn't talk much about the process but spoke up much about the aftermath. She told me that she's a Christian and never thought much of witch craft or it's abilities to over come her, howver, after her experience and after she was rescued and in safe quarters she couldn't sleep. She couldn't sleep for days, weeks, then months, then years. Janet did not sleep for three years and seven months after she was first approached during the genocide. She lost function of her legs, couldn't hold up her head, didn't eat and obvoiusly, wasn't sleeping. She lay in bed and awaited death. Janet said she asked the Lord, begged the Lord to kill her. She said she cursed the day she was born, her mother for giving birth to her and the Lord for creating her. She hated her neighbors who came to bath and feed her for keeping her alive and she didn't talk to ANYONE. Well, then Janet told me, God doesn't kill and God has a plan for us all. I told her, Amen! I told her God must have BIG plans for her upon her recovery. Janet told me that she sees the lady around town often, the one who taunted her with witch craft and she told me that she still dreams at night images of the lady casting spells on her and taunting her in her sleep. Wow, and I thought I had enemies? I glanced over and Paula, with her jaw hanging half open, she looked at me and said, "I never knew, all I knew was that Janet used to be so pretty..." Well, Janet is still beautiful, I'm sure what Paula meant was that those sleepless years took a toll on Janet, physically. Well, I reassured Janet that she was going to do great things with her future- especially having such a daunting past, and that I would pray for her continuous improvement and ask the Lord to keep her close and safe. Janet thanked me so much and then said I have someone else who might need your prayers more. She then spoke up about the "Crazy" Aunt, the one who came over two weeks ago. She was held captive during the genocide as well, she didn't explain her situation or give me any details of her experiences...what she did tell me, though, was to pray for her. She explained how after the genocide, the refugees who returned back to Rwanda questioned those who survived the genocide without being killed. Those who stayed in Rwanda and lived through it all wern't to be trusted. Janet exlained that people thought they must have somehow took part in it to stay alive and that they were killers, murders themselves. Aunt Janets surviving sister met refugee after the genocide, fell in love and got married. However, this mans parents fell into the stereotyping of surviving Rwandans from the genocide. They thought she was a killer and so they first shunned her. Then they started to harrass her, then they began to taunt her and abuse her. Then the convinced their son she was a trator, a murderer and a liar. So they got him to take the couples two young babies and leave her. The family took her money, took her house and took her husband and children from her. The husband now lives in New York City, the babies live in Uganda with his sister and the parents live in Rwanda to taunt this poor woman every day of her life. She says that prayers help, only momentarily, until one of them finds her again and abuses her physically or mentally. Again I looked at Paula in disbelief....this was so much information for my heart and head to wrap around... I want the family to stop calling her crazy. She's not crazy, she's NORMAL! We all sat there in silence until Mom came out almost immediatley after Aunt Janets last words and said, "Elizabeth, Waters Ready!" I had pleanty to soak up so I left the table and shuffled to the bathroom.

Everyday after school Paula and I take two taxis home. One from school to town and then one from town to home. In town there is a lot of poverty, I know what you're thinking, isn't there poverty in all of Rwanda? Well, yes...but it's what I see in town that I take home with me each night. There are many women covered in clay laying on the sidewalks with their babies (dirty also) laying under umbrellas and above blankets crying because their hungry, hot and miserable, there's a blind woman who always stands at the same spot with her hands held out asking for money, and a man without legs who often sits just adjacent to the buses staring at everyone who walks past him like a slap in the face. I pray a lot about the things I see in town, God tells us that he is the poor person begging for money in the street...I know I can't save theese people by giving them some momeny, but I can't just walk past God every day on my way home and turn the other shoulder knowing I've never had to face poverty, hard times or much if any extreme sacrifice. So please, I'm asking for lots of prayers this week for those who I see in town, I see God in all of them and I think- I KNOW I'm in this position for a reason...please pray.

If you want to know what I'm learning here and what God is teaching me I'll leave you with this...I'm learning not to feel sorry for myself. I'm learning that when my warm shower water goes cold and I wonder why It coudln't have stayed hot for five more seconds that I'm one of thee most selfish human beings in this world. I've learned that when I have to stop on my way somewhere to get gas, and it's a HUGE inconvience for me and extremely out of my way, i'm learning- it's not. Most people in Rwanda don't have cars, and some people don't even have legs...I'm learning never to use the expression, "I'm starving!" because if you've never seen someone- really truly starving, you might think you were...but let me be the fist to tell you, you're not! I've seen starving babies who's corse black hair is whispy, white and cotton-like because they only get fed when there's money. God doens't put us in situations we can't handle, which is teaching me that I'm currently living in a country with some of Gods toughest soldiers, and I have to love all of them for that. I'm weak, i'm self-ish and I'm EXTREMELY fortunate...but I'm also human- and a lover of God, that's what I'm learning.