The (Rwandan) Christmas Song

I have had very few white Christmases. Though the seasonal music of my childhood spoke of ice and snow and Jack Frost, most of my Christmases have been more along the lines of a Heat Miser holiday-so I was ready to spend Christmas just south of the equator. However, this Christmas season I have been even more struck by the disparity between holiday music and the realities of Christmas in Rwanda. Finally, listening to The Christmas Song for the millionth time, I decided to re-write it to reflect my Christmas experience here with a little help from my fellow Rwanda YAGM.

The video link is below, followed by the lyrics. Hope you like it!
Noheli nziza, Merry Christmas!

The Rwandan Christmas Song by YAGM Rwanda

The (Rwandan) Christmas Song

Corncobs roasting on a charcoal fire

Mosquito netting by your nose

“Mwami Yesu” being sung by a choir

And folks wrapped in kitenge clothes

Everybody knows

Laura wearing kitenge and teaching the YAGMs
how to cook at orientation!

Kigali Chorale Christmas concert 

Adventist choir singing on Christmas Day!

Banana trees and avocado

Help to make the season bright

Motos beep, with their headlights aglow

And make it hard to sleep tonight

Banana trees and rolling hills in the
tiny village of Mumeya.

Chad and the famous head-sized avocado.

And when it comes to Christmas day

Well, you won’t find any reindeer or a sleigh

And though there won’t be a spangled tree in sight

You may see Christmas seems a little more right

Christmas Cantata in Kigali 

No trees, no stockings, no gifts but the
savior-and what a gift He is.

And so I’m offering this simple phrase

To kids from Huye to Kivu

Stunning Lake Kivu

My sweet Laura and I in Huye, Rwanda

Although it’s been said many times, many ways

Merry Christmas,

Noheli nziza,

Merry Christmas to you.

Noheli nziza from our family to yours.

Turkey and Typhoid: A Thanksgiving Story

1 Thessalonians 5:18

Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Anyone who knows us knows that my family is really close…like they-made-a-cardboard-cutout-of-me-to-cart-around-with-them-all-year-and-sometimes-they-dress-her-up-in-seasonally-appropriate-clothing close.

The picture I received from my family on Thanksgiving,
my four people plus flat Sav in a scarf.

 It’s the kind of close that makes a little sister secretly collect letters from her big sister’s family and friends to send with her to Rwanda so that when she’s feeling down, she always has a loving word from home. It’s the kind of close that makes a father and a daughter unknowingly get each other the same parting gift. It’s the kind of close that makes a family quote the live action Grinch until they are laugh-crying one day and have knock-down drag-out arguments the next. It’s weird close.

Holidays have always revolved around this, around the gift of my family and around our shared faith. Yes, there is always the classic southern Thanksgiving complete with banana pudding.  Yes, there is the annual decorating of the house with no less than 13 Christmas trees. Yes, there are the marathon Christmas Eves that keep us at church from noon to 1 a.m. I’m not saying I don’t and won’t really miss these events, I will, but what I will miss most is time with the only four people in every one of my memories of these events. My people.

So I knew the holidays were going to be tough. I was, for the first time, not really looking forward to celebrating, and just a few days before American Thanksgiving I found myself subconsciously taking inventory.

Savanna’s Pre-Thanksgiving Inventory, Take 1

What I did know I didn’t have:

 A way to watch football

 Pumpkin spice anything

Cool weather

Turkey

My family

What I didn’t know I did have: 

Typhoid fever

Yep, just a few days before Thanksgiving I made my way, disoriented, feverish, and dehydrated, to a clinic in Kigali where I was diagnosed with Typhoid Fever and immediately admitted. (Note: At the behest of a beloved mentor-who also happens to be the best storyteller I know-I have written the whole misadventure down for posterity and would love to share it, but it’s long and I won’t recount it all here.)

My Typhoid room!

My view of the outside world.

As I spent the next five days in the clinic hooked up to an IV being pumped full of fluids and antibiotics, I had a lot of time to think. Typhoid (and drugs and a significant amount of alone time) does things to a person, and I took another inventory. This one looked pretty different.

Savanna’s Pre-Thanksgiving Inventory, Take 2

What I did have (for sure):

My health

Folks from five different countries pray over me in the hospital

Friends from Rwamagana travel an hour to Kigali to visit me

A God of healing

A phone full of well-wishes from friends and teachers at RLS

Notes of love and prayer from my sending communities in the U.S.

Four people halfway around the world, in Texas, who I love more than life

What I didn’t have (anymore): 

Typhoid Fever

I want to go on record of saying that I fully acknowledge how much it sucks that it took a serious bacterial infection to make me realize just how thankful I should be on Thanksgiving. I am a (mostly) healthy, white, upper middle-class American with countless loving communities; I am privileged beyond belief-I know that. In my oversight I can only ask for grace. But I will also say that the pain of being without people we love, especially during the holidays, whether that separation is temporary or permanent, is very real. My mistake in approaching this holiday season was that I thought I was without my family, but I wasn’t, I’m not.

Banana pudding I made for part of my Rwandan family on Thanksgiving!

I have family in teachers and students at Rwamagana Lutheran School. I have family in a local baker who opened her home to me, no questions asked, so that I could wait on results from the clinic. I have family in Rwanda, in the U.S., and in YAGMs around the world who were, as my grandmother says, “praying hedges around me”. And I have family in the five other beautiful and broken and straight up weird souls that make up the YAGM Rwanda team.

Sometimes family finds you, I'm lucky to be a part of this one.

So yeah, this Thanksgiving I didn’t have turkey, but I did have Typhoid. And finally walking out of my hospital room of my own accord, breathing in the fresh air, and wondering at the bright blue Rwandan sky, I have never been more thankful. I am thankful for a strong body that can fight illnesses, for awesome medical personnel around the world, for clean water and good food, for friends that send me play-by-plays of football games (Go tigers!), for chicken when there’s no turkey, for the universality of banana pudding, for this beautiful country I get to call my temporary home, and for an ever-present God. I am thankful for my four people in Texas, and for my family, all of you, wherever you are-from Rwanda to Jerusalem to the UK to the US. 

But most of all, I am thankful that in this world that is often so dark, there is still so much to be thankful for. 

So may your heart be filled with gratitude and your life be filled with light,

 And may your holiday season be filled with just as much love... 

and a lot less bacteria.

Love,

Sav

How can I not be thankful to spend the holidays here?!

Beneath the Cross

Munsi y’umusaraba. Beneath the cross of Christ.

It is one of my favorite songs sung in the Lutheran Church of Rwanda-the bittersweet melody is folded into poignant lyrics about the human condition. My first Sunday in Rwanda the choir sang it while dancing unreservedly, arms slightly bent, looking like birds about to take off in flight. It’s a song full of promise and pain. It’s the only song that was on my heart this morning, because this morning I was devastated.

This morning I checked the news, and I learned about Paris. This morning I didn’t know what to do-so I ran. While I was running, I processed the grief threatening to crush me. The result was this:

Beneath the Cross

The bloody river flowing from beneath the cross of Christ:

Paris pierces hands and feet, Missouri cuts His side,

Syria brings jeering crowds, Burundi breaks His legs,

And the scores of silent faithful press the crown down on His head. 

Christ is bleeding, right now, today. Every time one of our neighbors bleeds, the body of Christ itself bleeds. Yes, that means every time terrorists attack Paris. But it also means every time a student of color gets a death threat in the United States, every time a Syrian refugee is met with a slammed door, every time a political protester is murdered in Burundi, every time justice and peace and equality are threatened anywhere in the world, another drop rolls down the face of the Savior. When our neighbors are dying, our God is dying. It’s not enough for the faithful to stay silent.

Munsi y’umusaraba. Beneath the cross of Christ, we cannot help but see the blood. But do we see it all? Do we see the blood in Burundi, in Beirut, in Syria, in Baghdad, in Paris, in Central and South America, in colored communities across the U.S.? As Christians, we must see. And as Christians, we cannot see and be silent. We are called to call for peace. We are called to call for love. Not just in our country and not just in western countries, but in the whole world. And though that world is often mired in evil, though it can seem bleak and dark, we are called to work for justice until at last we all walk in light together. 

Heart of the [Meat]ter

Muhire dropped the blood-soaked bag at my feet.

“Sorry it took so long,” he grinned, “we spent all day cleaning it.”

I smiled and tentatively reached for the bag. With considerable effort, I lifted it from the ground, blood droplets pooling on the pavement. No cigar-the bag was too heavy and too bloody for me to get in the house by myself. “Thank you so much!” I exclaimed, trying to both hide my alarm and breathe through my mouth.  I waved Mose over to help, said goodbye to the teachers, and turned toward the house.

Mose got the 22 lb bag to the front porch where I took over and dragged it across the living room to the kitchen-leaving a gruesome crimson trail behind me. I plopped it on the ground and peered inside. The metallic smell of raw meat slapped me full in the face, and as I quickly stepped away from the bag, I felt panic bubbling up inside my throat again. Mose, seeing my helpless face through the back door, immediately hopped to action.

Katie, Ben, and a blurry Mose cooking last week
(not raw meat night, it was just Mose and I then)

“Imyaka ni menshi, Mose”, I called in broken Kinyarwanda.  Too much meat. He chuckled as he reached into the bag with his bare hands and pulled out the first side of raw beef. Finding a knife, he expertly started hacking at the mass. “Egide?” He asked, suggesting that we take some to my landlord. I nodded enthusiastically and, as I placed the newly freed bit in a plastic bag, he hurried down the street on his bike to deliver it.

Finding myself alone in the house, I collapsed on the nearest chair. What in the world am I doing? Hands covered in raw meat? Floor fit for an Agatha Christie novel? Entire house reeking of animal blood?

 It was the teachers, I thought.

They had asked Katie and me Friday if we wanted meat. A few Muslim families in Rwamagana slaughtered cattle for the Eid and had offered beef to the teachers at RLS-free of charge. This was quite generous-meat is expensive in Rwanda, and most families only find room in their budget to eat it on special occasions. I was humbled to receive such a gift. However, when I tried to tell the teachers that 2 kilos would be enough for our household, they insisted we each take 5.

“You can share!” They said.

The site of the fateful meat discourse,
my 'desk' at work.

I can share. Suddenly remembering this sentiment, I felt a pang of guilt. The slightly overwhelming receipt of a 22 lb bag of raw meat had all but driven its purpose from my mind. My first thought had been of waste, of taking only enough for myself. My community’s first thought had been of providing for one another, of sharing.

I reflected on my reaction. My thoughts about waste management had come from a good place, but they also came from my own cultural understanding of provision. America often feels like an everyone-for-themselves type operation, yet community after community has tried to teach me a different lesson. My own parents, whose generosity to the point of ridiculousness has awed me since childhood, my home congregation, Faith, whose huge hearts send more out the doors of the church than I can sometimes fathom, my rag-tag band of friends from camp, who, having little themselves, will share their last lonely slices of bread with each other before hikes. And in Rwamagana, again, a lesson in giving, in sharing, in provision. This community provides for each other, they take care of each other…they take care of me.

It reminds me of this beautiful image of the Body of Christ painted in Acts 2: 42-44. Jesus has ascended to Heaven and suddenly this new community in Christ finds themselves let loose in the world. What do they do?

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer… All believers were together and had everything in common.”

They shared everything in common.  

In Kinyarwanda, there is a word I’ve learned that, for me, embodies this idea. The word, twese (tw-eh-s-eh) means “all of us, together”. I love this word not only because of the meaning, but because of the way it is used. For example, when someone sneezes in the US, we say “Bless you”. The response: “Thank you.” It’s very polite, nothing wrong with that. But in Rwanda when someone sneezes and you say “Urakire” (Blessings to you), the response is “twese”. Not just bless me, bless all of us together.

In Rwamagana, I have found a community like this, a community of “twese”. I have found a community whose first thought is not of scarcity and self, but of the collective bounty of Christ. To the teachers at school, this community does not just extend to themselves and their families, but to two young American women, to our night guard, to our house mama, to our landlord. To all of us, together.

Some of the teachers who helped with the meat
preparation, Victor, Dan, and Dennis!

I learned a lot the night 22 lbs of raw meat showed up on my doorstep. I learned that the smell of animal blood REALLY lingers. I learned that it takes three pots and a couple hours to accomplish the task of boiling said meat. I learned that without Mose, I would pretty much be sunk. And I learned that being a part of the community of believers means that we should receive first with thanks, and then with an immediate thought of where we can give again.

We are the Body of Christ. Let us care for one another. Let us be humble as we receive. Let us be generous as we give. Let us have everything in common.

Let us be twese, all of us, together. 

Letters to America

Pop quiz:

You are writing a letter to someone from Rwanda. How do you address it?

The question is simple enough, but it is one that I would have answered much differently last week than I would today.

 My reality check came during a Senior 6 (12^th grade) English class at Rwamagana Lutheran School. The entire 50 minute class was devoted to writing letters to English speakers: letters to apply to schools, respond to job advertisements, and accept placements. Over the course of the lesson this question arose: How do you address a letter to an American? I was surprised. I didn’t know there was more than one way to address a letter. I assumed everyone slapped a name down, followed it with a street address, city, state/province, country, and boom-done. Nope.

In addition to hanging out with them in class, I also get to help students after school!
Here I am giving guitar lessons to Johnson, an incredibly gifted musician and S3 student.

According to the students, when they address a letter to a fellow Rwandan, they list the country first and work their way down to the smallest organizational level (the cell). Street addresses are rarely included because they rarely exist. Now, with a slight prodding from the teacher, the students in the class started to debate whether or not they would need to change the way they addressed that letter if it was to an American.  “Of course you’d address it differently,” insisted Ornella, “that (points to the board) is the way Americans are most comfortable with!”

There it was. That unwelcome guest that has sidled up next to me so many times during these few short weeks in Rwanda. That elephant in the room that is all too often invisible to me while being fully visible to others. That lingering companion who jarringly makes himself known with the sudden sting of culpability. Privilege.

These students were learning how to address a letter in a way that made me, an American, most comfortable. What had I EVER learned in school to make a Rwandan more comfortable?

I remembered, then, something that the YAGM program director, Heidi, said at orientation in Chicago. She said:

“You can go all around the world, but you can never shake your U.S. passport and everything that comes with that.”

Everything that comes with that: all of the stereotypes and assumptions about you that come with that passport, all of the stereotypes and assumptions you carry because of it, all of the privilege that comes with it.

She was right. I have slowly, painfully, been discovering what an American passport means. It means that, unlike my Rwandan friends, I don’t have to be bilingual to get an education. It means that a basic knowledge of Rwandan culture wasn’t in any way a part of my secondary school curriculum. I didn’t learn how to find Rwanda on a map. It means that I never needed to know how to address a letter in any way but my country’s standard form. It means that I never considered that any other way even existed. THAT is my American privilege: the privilege to not have to know about this culture, the privilege to not have to care.

But (and there always is one). But my privilege to not care is a reality in stark opposition not only to my personal beliefs, but to the message of a God who tells us in Galatians Chapter 6, verse 2:

“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

There are verses upon verses in the Bible that talk about being called to care for one another, but this is one of my favorites. In this verse Paul, writing to a church in turmoil at Galatia, reminds the people of their call in Christ-to be in relationship. It’s not a verse that allows us to be ignorant of the burdens of others or, conversely, to feel so guilty about our privilege that we self-centeredly try to shoulder our own AND our neighbor’s burdens. Instead the verse calls us to get in the dirt with each other. We are called to walk the road together, to acknowledge the burdens we carry AND the burdens our neighbors carry-and to share the load.

My students help me bear my burden of language by writing down song lyrics they
just memorize so I can be in choir with them.  This is the Kingdom of God. 

Americans, there is a class in Rwamagana, Rwanda learning how to write letters in a way that makes you feel most comfortable. The teachers are knowledgeable and want to give their students the best chance at a bright future-the lesson is an important part of that.

But I have a letter for you, too:

My American friends,

How much we take for granted? That we can attend high school knowing only one language? That an American passport can help get us visas it would be impossible for our neighbors from other parts of the globe to get? That the average income in American households dwarfs those in the vast majority of the world?

Now-of course these privileges vary greatly even inside US borders, but, on the whole, what can we do as Americans to acknowledge the privilege our passport imparts? Can we be humble? Can we, like my Rwandan hosts, be gracious to those who take the time to try to learn our local languages? Can we be gracious to those who don’t? Can we seek out cultures to learn from in an authentic way? Can we work to understand the struggles of others? Can we bear each others’ burdens?

Can we start today?

In red, white, blue, and blessings,

Sav

Rwamagana: A Field Journal

So it's time to get real. 

After the first month (??) of living in Rwanda, I am finally settling into my home and routine for the year. I want to start exploring stories, challenges, and lessons learned from this community, but that's hard to do without giving you an idea of what my life is like day to day.

So in the interest of creating a true jumping off point and also just to appease my mother, I would like to cordially invite you to experience a day as a YAGM in Rwamagana, Rwanda:

5:45 am – You groggily half-wake to the muted shuffling of your roommate, Katie, leaving for her morning run. She’s training for a marathon…you go back to sleep. Good start.

My bed! As you can see I literally roll out of it and into the world. 

6:50 am – After a third alarm, you finally roll out of bed. You pick the first skirt/v-neck/headband combo that will pass for matching. On good days you remember to put on deodorant, but you always put on sunscreen. I repeat: always.

7:00 am –You stumble into the kitchen and start boiling water immediately. Your only thought is for coffee-some things never change. When the water is ready, you pour it over the single-cup filter perched precariously on top of your favorite mug, the one with the picture of the seductive lady. You grab last night’s leftover chapatti, two small bananas, the coffee, A Mercy by Toni Morrison, and voila! Breakfast of champions!

The seductive lady, also known as the bigger
of our two mugs.

7:35 am – You rush, last minute, to fill your school bag with things you’ll need for the day: poetry journal, water bottle, rain coat, Kinyarwanda flashcards, and head out with Katie, locking the gate behind you.

8:00 am (ish) –You complete the 1.4 mile walk to school wherein you say “Maramutse” (Good morning) NO LESS THAN 30 times as you are met with choruses of “Muzungu!” (white person), “Good afternoon”, and of course, silent stares. You enjoy this time of neighborly greetings and gazes interrupted by smiles as you wave-plus it’s a good morning workout.

Rwamagana Lutheran School, my workplace for the next year.

8:15 am – First order of business, procure that sweet morning nectar, African Tea. It’s basically milk with a side of tea wrapped in a blanket of spicy ginger. You pour yourself a plastic mug full, add sugar at will, and get to work.

8:30 am to 12:15 pm – You attend Biology, Chemistry, and Physics classes as they are offered. You help the teachers monitor the rooms, answer questions, and brainstorm ways to make their science classes more experiential.

12:15 pm – Lunch. Good, because of course you’re already hungry; that baby banana didn’t hold you over like you thought it would. Lunch consists of the following: a starch (rice, corn ugali, sweet potatoes, or matoke) and a bean/carrot/eggplant soup. Except Wednesdays which are magical fairy dust days that involve a mid-morning snack and fries for lunch. Regardless, you are thankful for the meal you’re given-Lord knows you can’t cook to save your life and these meals are warm, tasty, and free.

1:25 pm to 4:00 pm - Player’s Choice: You write the occasional poem, sit in more science classes, chat with students, help teach music classes, or fulfill your duties as a school librarian.

4:00 pm – You hang around for one of the many after-school activities (student Bible Study, rehearsal for Graduation performance, giving guitar lessons, choir practice) where you actually start getting to know students.

5:00 pm – You and Katie start the walk home, stopping by the market or a store on the way to procure an edible item you will try to make into dinner.

Our beautiful, banana tree-lined street.

5:45 pm – You’re home! You hear the incessantly aggravating yet comforting beep of the electricity meter that indicates that the power is still on. You greet the night guard, Mose, and walk in the house to find that your house mama, Mama Eric, has cleaned your clothes and folded them neatly on your made bed. You thank the good Lord for her, and question once more whether or not she is actually an angel.

6:30 pm – Dinnertime. When you’re feeling really domestic you chop up whatever is available and sauté it or boil some noodles, most days you grab a chapatti from the corner store, slice up an avocado, add some salt, and call it good. You eat dinner while chatting with Katie about something or other; luckily she’s not judgey about your shoddy cooking practices, bless her.

An impossibly nice yet severely under-utilized kitchen

7:30 pm – You walk outside and offer Mose some tea. He accepts, and you chat with him in Kinyarwanda as the water boils. He tells you about his children and you tell him about school. You suck at Kinyarwanda so there is a lot of charade-like pantomiming involved in the conversation, but you both usually get the gist. When it is ready, you hand him his tea (with two spoons of powdered milk and one spoon of sugar), and tell him good night. He reminds you to shut your window so the mosquitoes won’t get in.

8:30 pm – You are WIPED. You chat with Katie some more, change into comfy clothes, and wash your feet, red with dust, in your small bathroom. You brush your teeth using filtered water from your Nalgene and retreat to your room for the evening.

9:30 pm – You untie the mosquito net hanging above the bed and drape it around you-your nightly cocoon. You turn off the light, read or check your messages for a few minutes by head lamp, and say a prayer of thanks for another day in Rwamagana.

There aren't words for the beauty of creation in Rwamagana.

*Editor's Note: As a YAGM, schedules may change quickly and without warning. See also being invited somewhere last minute by your pastor, receiving 20 pounds of meat on your doorstep, and/or teaching classes of students how to beat box. Anything can happen. 

First(s) and Last(s)

"What will you miss most?"

 It's a question my country coordinator asked me during my interview for a placement in Rwanda. Of course, I responded with a flippant "Tex-Mex and Clemson football" (both totally true), but over the past few weeks and months I have discovered that saying goodbye to home involves a lot more missing than I thought, it involves a lot of ‘lasts’. For me, this has included but not been limited to the last time I:

         Hugged my family

         Watched a Montana sunset

         Worshiped with my home congregation

         Went fishing with my brother

         Ate sushi

         Watched a college football game that I didn’t have to wake up at 1:30 am to catch

         Played music with my sister

The list goes on. I spent weeks leading up to my departure for Rwanda mourning the loss of these things that I was doing for the ‘last time’, struggling with the idea of living without them even just for a year (yes, Clemson football matters THAT much).

I started pondering (shocking, I know) this idea of lasts and goodbyes during my first few weeks in Rwanda. As I did, a bible verse I have known most of my life found its way onto my heart. It is a story from the book of Matthew, chapter 19 in which Jesus is talking to a young man about what it takes to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. At the end of the story, after he has told the young man what he must do, Jesus tells him:

“Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or fields for my sake will inherit eternal life. So the last will be first and the first will be last.” 

Matt 19:29-30

Now, when I was younger, I was under the impression that the story was just about money and rich people and needles and camels, but sitting under my mosquito net on my bed in my new Rwandan home, it occurs to me that it could mean more.

Today I see a call in this passage; we have to leave. To live life abundantly, we have to be willing to abandon whatever is most familiar and open ourselves up to the possibility of a world that is so deliciously diverse we could wade through the differences for an eternity. As I said in my blog when I arrived in Rwanda (shameless self plug), we are called to constantly walk through new doors. So now, I want to share with you now what I have found on my journey of stepping through those doors so far.

I have discovered this: When we leave what is comfortable for the sake of love we bring pieces of the Kingdom to us here and now, and Jesus tells us that the Kingdom we bring is like this: a place where last(s) will be first(s). And first(s) will be last(s). And so on and so forth forever.

All of the lasts listed above were difficult and painful because of the love I have for those people and places, but the pain of lasts has been accompanied by the joy of firsts in Rwanda, like the first time I:

         Devoured a fresh passion fruit embarrassingly quickly

         Was awed by the splendor of LITERALLY a thousand hills

         Drank African coffee (coffee/milk/ginger/chocolate/heaven)

         Saw someone’s face light up because I [poorly] attempted to speak Kinyarwanda

         Helped make my country coordinator laugh until she cried

         Learned a song in Kinyarwanda from my friend, Ngabire

         Left the doors open all day to feel the breeze (not possible in Texas, friends)

         Attended an international soccer game with friends from 3 countries

         Made pesto by hand

         Was greeted with “Karibu”, “You are most welcome”

Proof positive that I made pesto. 

These hills.

                                   

At the national museum, the sign is written  in Kinwarywanda,
but most people say 'Karibu" which is 'Welcome" in Kiswahili!

And today, another massive first: my first day in my new home in Rwamagana. It was the first time I saw the school where I’ll work. It was the first (though certainly not the last) time I had a group of students laugh at me for trying to dance. It was the first time I met the faces that comprise the community I will work to become a part of this year. It was the first time I walked through town, the first time I ate goat brochettes, and the first time I was shocked into silence by the beauty of a star-filled rural Rwandan sky. These firsts were accompanied by a last: my last day of in-country orientation with my fellow Rwanda YAGM, whom I love dearly. 

But that's just it! That is the promise of our God - if we push ourselves through new doors, the last(s) will be first(s), and those firsts will become new ‘lasts’ we love almost too much to leave.

Yeah, These fools were hard to leave. Love them to pieces. 

 My hope for myself, for you, and for the kingdom, then, is this short blessing I wrote upon reflection on my first month here:

May you let go of lasts with peace in goodbyes,

May you always find firsts with wonder-filled eyes.

And whenever the chance is presented to you,

May you suck all the sweetness from life’s passion fruit.


Love, Sav

One Bread, One Body.

Edward, a young Rwandan member of the Lutheran Church in Kigali, leans over to me every few minutes to translate parts of the service we're attending into English. In a low voice, he tells me a short summary of what the preacher just said in Kiswahili. I’ve been in language school for two days learning Kinyarwanda, and now happen to find myself at the Lutheran Church’s monthly Kiswahili service. I don’t mind. I probably would have understood about the same amount either way (about zero).

Lutheran Church of Rwanda Kigali Parish: my church home for the next few weeks!

About two thirds of the way through the service, Edward leans over, “Communion.” he says. I appreciate his help, but this one I had on lock. I watch as the pastor breaks the bread and pours the wine, something I’ve watched my own father do most Sundays of my life. I walk up to the railing (with a slight prod from Edward and an encouraging nod from my Program Coordinator, Pastor Kate) and kneel at the altar. I receive a wafer in my hands and place it on my tongue. This is the body broken for me. I don’t need a translation to know the pastor’s words. I am the body. I know. As the tray of wine comes by, I tentatively reach for a cup. This is the blood poured out for me. I say a short prayer and walk back to my seat. I reflect, quietly, on what just happened. I just communed with a Kiswahili speaking congregation…in Kigali...in Rwanda...where I live.

And suddenly I could be anywhere. I am everywhere.

I am finally across the table from my granddaddy again. I am breaking bread with my grandmother as she hums the hymns that quietly coax me to sleep. I am at Lutheridge in an Upper Craft Lodge on a Thursday, I am at Briarwood on a Friday afternoon, I am at Flathead on a Sunday morning-the sun spilling over my face like water. I am in a circle with 74 YAGM and the communities they are serving all over the world. I’m holding the hands of all of the best friends I left in the U.S. I’m in a pew next to my sweet family, my siblings and I trying not to attract too much attention as we make each other giggle. I am home. I am here. I am in the Kingdom of God. I am in Rwanda.

And slowly I realize that I have always been here, at this same table next to my new Rwandan friends. My whole life, I have been seated beside the kind souls of Edward and Veronica and Frank, speaking Kiswahili and Kinyarwanda and English. I have been surrounded by a communion of saints who-though I could not see them-were no less present with me every other time I took communion than they are now.

LCR Kigali youth teaching YAGMs Kinyarwanda hymns at church!

The service proceeds and I continue to understand nothing. I spend a few more minutes pondering my communion experience. I feel the breeze drift lazily through the church’s open windows. I am completely at peace. As the service concludes, Edward leans over to me one last time. The theologian, Veronica, just said something in Kiswahili. “You know what she said?” he asks. He knows I don’t, but I shake my head anyways.

He smiles over at me and says “She said ‘All languages are understood in heaven.’”

All are seated at the communion table in the Kingdom. All are understood.

Amina. Amen. 

It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you.

I hear the drums echoing tonight in my headphones as I sit on a plane meant to carry three times as many passengers as it is now holding. I’m surrounded by the energetic buzz of conversations about semesters of studying abroad in Tanzania and hikes up Kilimanjaro. At times it feels so surreal.

YAGM Rwanda ready for take off in Chicago. 

The plane touches down at Kilimanjaro airport in Tanzania and slowly empties until it’s one or two others and us. Us. The four other YAGM I’m traveling with and myself. To me, our group together represents a few last shreds of familiarity. My four friends on the plane are the only knowns. Everything else is unknown. Everything we see will be seeing things we never have. Everything we do will be doing things we never have.

One of my first firsts, eating sub-Saharan food at Orientation in Chicago! This is Ethiopian! (So not what I'll be eating for the next year exactly)

 Of course I’m excited (I mean, worried that my host community won’t love my nose ring or blue hair, but still more or less excited), but I also can’t help but feel this sense of loss. This feeling has become a close companion for me over the last few weeks and months-I left a lot to be sitting on this plane. I feel like I’ve been in a constant state of ‘goodbye’ for awhile, from last hugs with friends this summer, to somehow letting go of my family, to waving goodbye to my new YAGM friends on the curb just this morning. Sitting in this seat right now is the culmination of what felt like tiny, sometimes almost unwilling steps forward. It is the result of dragging myself, time after time, away from love and security and walking in the direction of God-knows-what. I’ll just tell you right now, it took a lot.

    

Just a few of the sweet friends I left after YAGM orientation.

But sitting in this seat I remember something my dad told me the morning I left:

“If you’re going to do anything important, you gotta get out the door.”

My family: all full of their own types of wisdom.

I think it’s an important lesson. He didn’t say “If you’re going to do anything important, you have to be 100% certain all the time” or “You have to be okay and never cry in front of strangers at the airport” (whoops). You just gotta get on the plane. You gotta get out the door.

As the plane takes off again, I realize there are so many doors I have yet to walk through. I’ll walk off this plane in Rwanda. I’ll walk into the door of the compound I’ll be staying in with my fellow volunteers for orientation. After that, “Us” will become “me”. I’ll be called to walk through the door of my placement site all on my own, and I will again be called to drag myself away from the people I love to do something important: meet more people I’ll love.

My first African sunset: a view from the plane

I know I’m not alone in this. We all have doors to walk through. Maybe yours isn’t a boarding door onto a plane that takes you halfway across the world, but that’s not the point. The point is that to do important things, to meet more people we love, to be changed and shaped by the world around us, we have to step out in faith. We have to move forward. We have to drag ourselves away from what’s easy and known.

So go. The World is just waiting there for someone who is bold enough to try new things, to hear the stories of others, to speak love and justice in their offices, communities, and homes.  She’s just waiting there for someone who is willing to be uncomfortable for the sake of learning, who will lay their assumptions aside for the sake of another, someone who will be humble enough to listen to Her.

Hurry, She’s waiting there for you. 

p.s. Because you might already have it stuck in your head: 

"Africa" by Toto

p.p.s. Since I'm publishing this a day late, here's one of my first doors, the guest house in Kigali where my YAGM Rwanda friends and I will be starting this adventure. Here goes nothing!

Being 'Both'

“A scientific discovery is also a religious discovery. There is no conflict between science and religion. Our knowledge of God is made larger with every discovery we make about the world.”  

Joseph H. Taylor Jr. 

(1993 Nobel Prize Laureate-Physics)

We live in a world of conflict. The only thing you have to do to validate that statement is walk out your door. Conflict constantly surrounds us in our families, in our communities, and in ourselves. Sometimes even the things we love most can seem to be in stark contention.

I am a southerner. I was born in the deep South of the U.S.. The South is a place that I love, a place that has made me who I am, a place often vilified for its history, a place that-like other places-has been deeply entrenched in issues of  injustice. It was in this beautiful and broken place that I developed my own passion for social justice.  

Everything's bigger (and hotter) in Texas. 

I am a scientist. I am an ethicist. When I tell people my degree is in Biology and Philosophy the general response is mostly confusion. These fields seem to most people to be at two extremes, incompatible, in conflict. One based in observable fact, the other based in abstract reasoning. 

Collecting salamander samples for a Comparative Physiology lab in college 

Clemson ethics debate bowl team after regional competition

Our world tells us that we can't be 'both'. The world tells us that things can't live in contention, that differences have to divide us, that there has to be a winner and a loser, that we have to pick a lane. 

I don't believe that. I believe in a God who is the Lion and the Lamb, the Beginning and the End. I believe in a God who says "give and it will be given to you" (Luke 6:38). I believe in a God who finds strength in weakness (2 Corinth 12:10). I believe in a God of paradox. I believe that my God is big enough to encompass science and religion. I believe my God is big enough to encompass Northerners and Southerners and people halfway across the world. I believe my God is big enough to encompass everything we are, which in my experience is a whole list of identities that the world can't reconcile. 

I am a Southerner and a scientist and an ethicist and a Christian and, now, a missionary. 

Yep, I'm going to be a missionary in Rwanda. (I've finally gotten to the point, sorry it took so long but hang in there.) 

Rwanda is about the size of Maryland!

 'Missionary in Africa', now there's an emotionally charged title. But I am. I'm on a mission. I'm on a mission to discover a God of paradox, a God of 'both', a God of 'and'. I'm on a mission to discover a God that can encompass a white upper-middle-class Southern girl and a young Rwandan school pupil. I'm on a mission to discover a God that can speak Kinyarwanda (cause I sure can't yet) and English and that can (hopefully) fill the space between linguistic understanding.  I'm on a mission to discover a God that can heal in a country that has seen so much pain. I'm on a mission to accompany and learn from rather than fix or change.

In the quote above, Joseph H. Taylor Jr., a Nobel laureate in Physics, says that "our knowledge of God is made larger with every discovery we make about the world". With every paradox we encounter, with every seeming contention we find within ourselves or in the world around us, for every wall that is built to divide us, we are introduced to a God who is even bigger and more all-encompassing than we imagined. So for those of you still wondering why I'm going to Rwanda, it is just that: to discover God by discovering more about my brothers and sisters in Christ in Rwanda, to discover God by discovering life in and the beauty of another culture, to discover God by discovering how to teach science in another language (prayers please), to discover God by discovering the Science of Service.

I hope you'll come along with me. I hope you'll pray for me and the almost 80 other young adults going into global service this year. I hope you'll walk with me (via possibly reading the stuff I type) as I experience Rwanda. And most of all, I hope that you'll embrace every seemingly irreconcilable part of yourself and your community, knowing that we have a God of paradox who is big enough to reconcile across even the deepest divides.

Love, 
Sav