A Rwandan Thanksgiving

Oh to be a tree. What do I mean by this? Well, just to add to the abnormality of spending Thanksgiving in Rwanda and having chicken instead of turkey, no cranberry sauce or pumpkin pie and it being over 80 degrees...my fellow students and I created our own tradition and dressed like trees. Our "Wear a Tree Outfit Day" to be commemorated and recognized on every Thanksgiving for the rest of our lives. Well, maybe that's stretching it a little, but at least i hope every year for the rest of my life, I'll at least remember that one time I spent Thanksgiving in Rwanda, Africa and my 12 fellow classmates and I dressed in the colors green, brown, tan and any other leafy colors to try out best to resemble trees. This epic day is marked and remembered by the photo shoot beautifully representing our "treeness".

AND it wouldn't be a proper holiday without the typical family portrait...awkward smiles, head tilts, hand placements and of course, a crying baby....

Being the Love

So Eric Robbins, (my pastor from Sacred Journey Church in Kirkland, WA where I attend regularly during the school-year) has been doing a series of sermons at church entitled "Feel the Love." I have been listening regularly to the podcasts from the church so I can still try to be connected to them even though I'm here in East Africa.  This series is about how as Christians, we are to "be" Love. He emailed me and asked me if I could write about how I am being the Love while here in Africa.  I just thought I would share a few of my thoughts about how I view myself as "being" Love while here (you can listen to the podcast at: http://www.sacredjourneychurch.com/messages/112308.mp3) :  

How am I sharing or being the Love while here in Africa.  How am I sharing or being the Love?  Maybe I am when I'm playing soccer with some kids on the street or changing diapers at an orphanage.  Maybe.  Surely that is showing Love...but how am I being Love?  Seems like I should have an easy answer or tear-jerking example of this since I am in Africa, but I seriously wrestled with this question for a long time.  Do I even know what it is to 'be' the Love? I first asked myself what it is that motivates me to love.  I hoped it wasn't just to take the stereotypical National Geographic pictures of half-starved, naked, scabies children with snot running down their faces in the middle of a garbage heap.  The child would provide me a great photo opportunity to who my friends and family how 'hard' life is in Africa and how much I am 'suffering' for God...but in that moment would I have been love to that child or been simply declaring my love of self?  Could I be so ignorant as to only see the filth and scabies and not recognize the beauty of the creation made by a loving Father? I would like to say no.

I am currently in Rwanda and will be for the next 5 weeks studying about issues surrounding the genocide hat happened here in 1994.  Prior to this trip, my knowledge of this ethnic massacre was limited to what I saw in the movie 'Hotel Rwanda' since the event took place when I was only 8 and all I cared about were Barbies and 'Little House on the Prairie'.  Of course when this happened, I don't think many Americans realized the severity of this situation in Rwanda either.  Not with all the media directing its attention on much more important issues...like the OJ Simpson trial.  Talk about a reality check.  It's easy to deny reality, until perhaps you find yourself one day having a cup of tea with one of the survivors.  You can still see the pain in his eyes as he struggles to retell his stories, even after 14 years.  He was only 10 years old when this 'ethnic cleansing' took place and he vividly recalls an instance when he witnessed two of his Tutsi neighbors get slaughtered by machetes as he hid in the bushes...fearing for his own life.  And that is just one of the stories.

What is it to be Love? 1 John 4.8 says, "He who does not love does not know God, for God is love."  So if I understand this correctly, if God is love, then being Love to others is being Christ to them in a sense.  Everyday I have the opportunity to be Christ in every situation whether I'm in Africa or in Montesano, Washington.  I have just as many, if not more, chances to put this into practice at home.  I have to make it a daily conscious effort.  It doesn't matter whether I love on neglected children, listen to a genocide victim, obey my parents, or simply smile at a stranger.  If I am choosing to be like Christ, then I am choosing to be the Love.  I am being Love.