The Rwanda Story: creative non-fiction

Everyone I met in Rwanda for Africa New Life Ministries' 10th Anniversary celebration - Rwandan or American - has a story about how they ended up there. I'm no different.

For me, the story began when cancer ended my aunts life in 2003. She hadn't ever married and didn't have kids, and although this seemed unfortunate, I was secretly glad because it meant that she had lots of time and attention for me, as well as her other nieces and nephews. She really invested in each of us over the years.

But her impact on us didn't die along with her. After her death, we learned that she had left her estate to orphaned children in developing countries...and it was up to us nieces and nephews to find Christian organizations through which to distribute these funds.

To be honest, I didn't like this idea at the time. Not that I didn't care about orphaned kids, but...I didn't really. It just sounded like work. Uninteresting work.

But God changes people and over the next couple years, He chipped away at the idols in my heart until they lay shattered on the ground and then God constructed new passions and convictions in my heart. Suddenly the idea of having money that I HAD to give away seemed like a dream come true.

And that's how I encountered Africa New Life Ministries. We heard about the organization and then sent a small gift, along with a letter requesting more information. I was thinking newsletters. But then I got an email response asking, "we have a small musical group of Rwandan young men, could we come visit?" So these complete strangers came and stayed with us and did a small event at my church and when they left, I knew this was just the beginning.

And it was. Eventually, our church partnered with ANLM, through which 50 kids are sponsored, an orphan home was built, and two teams were sent.

At the end of the year in 2008, we learned that the trust fund should, for tax reasons, make a larger than usual donation that year. I contacted ANLM to see if there were any projects they were doing that fit the requirements of the trust fund. Turns out, a group of former street kids had been abruptly relocated from a home in Kigali to empty classrooms on the Kayonza campus. They were waiting on funds to purchase adjoining land and build a home for these boys. It wasn't a hard sell to the others in the trust fund, and the land was bought and home built.

The Umucyo Home (which means 'light', same meaning of my aunt's name, Elaine) now sits a short distance from the dining hall on the Kayonza campus. It currently houses 44 boys and a house "uncle", who gets them up early in the morning for prayer and devotional time before they go to school and work on their studies. They have dreams and a future because of what God has done for them.

This is a great story because it's one that you couldn't come up with if you wanted. God's work is so clearly seen from beginning to end.

But my favorite part about this story is that it is one of many. Being in Rwanda for the 10th Anniversary celebration meant hearing story after story after story of how God has worked in all kinds of people from all kinds of backgrounds to bring His transformational power to the people of Rwanda through Africa New Life Ministries.

The Umucyo Home has a story, but so does every other building, every other branch of ministry, every staff member, there at ANLM Rwanda. And you see them all together and it is just so undeniably God's work, that He would arrange and prepare and bring about.

What is happening there in Rwanda is beautiful. It is unexplainably beautiful. Not easy. Not quick. Not comfortable. But beautiful because it brings glory to the Only One who could write it.

with only a charcoal stove

I've spend the last two years trying to find an African cookbook. That doesn't involve those garrish spreads from the 1970's. That doesn't feature westernized versions of African dishes. That isn't for gourmet chefs with access to ingredients I've never heard of. I just wanted to know a few of the dishes that the average African -- Rwandan, all the better -- eats.

And it turns out there's a reason they don't make those cookbooks. It's because the average African eats a plate of rice (or cassava or potato or maize flour mush) and beans. And nobody wants that recipe. And even if they did, it makes for an awfully short cookbook.

Here's another reason they don't make those cookbooks:

Because this is the equivalent of a commercial kitchen. This is Mama Fils making lunch for 250 boys who live on the street. There's one charcoal stove for the beans, two for the posho, a maize-flour mush that is a staple in East Africa. The typical kitchen just has a small charcoal stove and well, no kitchen. Maybe a covering or maybe an outbuilding to store a sacks of rice or beans. A couple pots and utensils. A dishpan.

Yep. No counters. No fridge. No running water. No well-stocked spice rack. No electric knife sharpener.

And it turns out there's a limited number of dishes you prepare, given these constraints.

Added to that, when the majority of your culture is eating to survive, there's just not a lot of attention given to culinary creativity. Eating to live is a whole different activity from the dining we do that serves more as a form of entertainment than sustenance.

Of course, this isn't the story for everyone. The middle and upper class (though remember, in Rwanda 60% live below the poverty line so this middle and upper class is not by a majority) have western-style kitchens or at least more than this most basic kitchen setup.

And can I just say that I love the food in Rwanda? The food is fresh, no weird colors or additives. Starches sing the lead and proteins and vegetables are the backup. Fruit - pineapple, passionfruit, tree tomato, papaya -- rounds off a meal. I love the matoke and peanut sauce, the spiced rice, the sweet bananas, the blackened fish, the beef brocchet, and the fries, I love the fries. Or chips. Or whatever they call them. And the akabanga, the spicy pepper sauce that I was given so much of I could start my own retail store. (And I'd do well, the stuff is great.)

But I have yet to eat the beans and posho. Maybe I can get the recipe from Mama Fils and create the very first Rwandan cookbook...

was it life changing?

I don't like milk. And I really don't like whole milk. But then two weeks ago I was seated at an outdoor table in downtown Kigali, Rwanda and sipped my first African-style tea. Which led to my ordering it at every future opportunity.

Which led to me now sitting here, drinking a cup of hot milk infused with tea leaves and ginger, sweetened with a little sugar. I can't lie, this African-style tea is good...but it would be better with whole milk.

In a lot of ways, this story is a distillation of my experience with Rwanda. My tea-drinking preferences are among the more minor ways Rwanda and its people have impacted my life.

Now part of this, admittedly, is just the silly stuff you do when you love something. Kind of like how I once dated a guy that liked country music and so for those months of my life, I also liked country music. But that was worse, liking country music was a whole new level of ridiculousness. Whole milk is definitely not in that category. And of course, neither are any of the other little quirks I've acquired over my six-year relationship with Rwanda...the head nod, the headscarf I wear while working in the yard, the hand wave, the African-English grammatical constructions, and so on.

Rwanda has changed me in ways I didn't expect and has not changed me in ways I did expect. Which is pretty much true of the rest of life, right? Kids, school, marriage, career, ministry, they predictably take us to unpredictable places and those unpredictable places are where God meets us.

I thought Rwanda would give me a mission and clear purpose. I thought it would be a place where I would find something to really pour my life and energy into. I thought it would change my lifestyle -- beyond just the type of tea I drink. I thought it would lead to some radical, altruistic way of living. I thought it would be the means by which I would establish a unique identity for myself. I thought that it would be a place that I could accomplish something that I could be proud of, that would impress people. I thought it would break me in a way that others-centered living would just happen.

But it hasn't done any of these things, not yet anyway, and actually, I think that's a good thing. God is way more creative and way more authentic then pressing the Magical Rwanda Button to make me who He created me to be. In fact, to the contrary, He has painfully exposed many of these expectations for the prideful, self-centered idols that they are and has graciously not given me the second-best that life has to offer.

Rwanda has changed me where I least expected, where I least thought I wanted and needed change. I've tasted rich community and the amazing power and grace of the family of God. I've seen the ugliness of my flesh and the continual need I have of God's mercy. I've realized that poverty takes many forms and felt poverty of relationship. You can't see those things and remain unchanged.

But more than those things, God has used Rwanda to change my experience of Him. When I went to Rwanda two years ago, I went full of expectation that God had something great waiting for me there. And He did. It was Himself. I didn't expect that because I thought my relationship with Him was great. And it was, but there's always greater and so God used that time to draw me to Himself, to experience Him, in a deeper way. And that relationship touches every aspect of my life. In fact, within most of my current relationships and daily activities and ministry pursuits, I can find a thread of God via Rwanda.

So mostly Rwanda has been life changing because God is life changing. And that's a beautiful thing because God is as present here as He is there and none of us needs Rwanda or its equivalent to enter into God's presence and be changed. (And good thing too, because its a pretty expensive route to go.) Life is life changing. God has invited each of us into an adventure that will draw us to Himself and it is in that place, not sitting at a cafe in downtown Kigali, that truly changes us.