Today we finished up training for 2 churches on how to minister to women who are forced into prostitution. I am so blessed to be able to be a part of something so amazing. These people were all working together to find a solution to the problem. We never come here to tell them the answers but just to ask the right questions to get them to find the solution on their own, for their people, in their community. 

In the afternoon we drove out to one of the churches that had been working hard to save some of the women and when we arrived, the sight took my breath away. The church was made of just sticks and a sheet of metal for a roof. There was about 40 women singing and dancing with complete abandon. As I looked around, tears came to my eyes to see so many women who had once been so used and broken
worshipping our amazing God. I looked over to my friend and translator, Oliver, to see her crying as well. One woman even stood up and told us her story, even though she was shaking tremendously. She was scared to share the horrible things that had happened to her but she wanted to share where she had been and how God had rescued her. These women were so grateful for their new lives. To see in
just one year what God can do with a few people willing to do the work was so awesome!

This was a wonderful opportunity to remind us of how we should praise God for everything. I sometimes focus on the negative things happening in my life and don’t look to see the great things. I want to open my eyes to the good things, staying focused on them and letting that joy overflow into my world. If we are always walking around with an attitude of resigned rigidity, who will see the joy God has given us to live in his world? I want to choose to walk with childlike enjoyment, taking in all that God offers for each day. The beautiful sun shining or the sweet smell of rain, the color of the flowers or the crisp smell of fresh cut grass. Our lives in the U.S. tend to be too busy to notice
these small blessings but noticing these things is a choice. Walking through life with this grateful attitude glorifies God and tells others of His glory, I want this life for me.

This morning we got to meet with 2 pastors that are committed to helping the women caught in sex trafficking in Rwanda. Pastor John Damascene, who we had met a year ago to do training on how to minister to trafficking victims, told us about all the great work he had been doing since then. He took the training and ran with it, reaching out to the hurting women that were unloved by the community. He told us about his church and how he had over 40 women who had been saved from a life of prostitution coming to his church. He also told us that because of his willingness to seek the lost and the vulnerable, so many other people had left the congregation because they didn’t want to be a part of it. This is heartbreaking! “Christians” who refuse to accept people because they think they are sinners!

How is it that we as humans tend to think that other people are less deserving of forgiveness? Why do we think we can decide who should be a part of God’s family? 
 
I like to think that I am a good Christian and accept everybody but if we are all honest with ourselves I’m pretty sure we can look back (to like yesterday or even a few hours ago) and find a time when we weren’t accepting of someone. Whether it be because they look different than us, or act different, or make choices we don’t approve of. Either way, we all seem to do it. So after being angry at the fact that people were judging these women and condemning them, God  humbled me when I had an opportunity to choose not to do the same. We went to the market on our down time later in the day and we ran into a woman that was part of the Gukura program. Our program had helped this woman on 2 separate occasions when she was very ill and needed care. She was supposed to be getting better and making a better life for herself but instead we found her drunk and stumbling around the market. I had stuck up for her when no one wanted to help her, saying that she should have a chance to change. Now here I was disappointed, and hurt, and sad, and most of all I felt kind of stupid. Here was my opportunity not to judge, not to look at her and decide she is bad, not to give up on her. 

I have to tell you, I struggled with this, with my emotions. It should have been easy to see she is sick and hurting. But in the moment it was hard to see that, all I saw was the poor choices. I just hugged her and told her we would continue praying for her and moved on. Looking back I feel I should have been more compassionate, but this is where God is telling me to grow. I need to learn that if someone hurts me I can’t just discount them and move on, I need to love them anyway and never to judge anyone. We never know someone else’s story so who are we to decide if they are deserving of anything. God loves everyone, even the prostitutes and the tax collectors! So we should too, even if it is hard.

So as we are driving along on our supposed 3 hour drive to get to our next training destination, the driver realizes he has taken the wrong road, so he stops to ask for directions (thank God this man asks for directions or we would be in Uganda by now) So we turn around and within 5 minutes we have a flat tire. The driver realizes he doesn’t have the tools to change it, he doesn’t know where we are, he has no one to call and we are in a very rural area. We all start praying silently amongst ourselves because that is all we can do at this point. The driver hops into a passing car and off he goes leaving us 4 women on the side of the road by ourselves. We start to draw a crowd from the people who are making their hours long daily trek down this long winding road for work or for water. It’s fun to see the stares and awestruck faces of people looking at Muzungu’s
(white people) standing on the side of their usually quiet road. People came out of houses built on the side of the hill we never even would have noticed had we not been standing on the road.

The driver finally comes back with a few men and a tire iron. I am amazed as more men passing by join in as they all struggle to lift the van, by hand, up onto rocks taken from the side of the road. I am grateful to have heard the song they sang and their laughs as they worked hard to lift this van without a care in the world. I am also amazed at how quick the driver was able to go to a nearby town
to find total strangers to help change a tire. So even though our trip took over 5 hours I felt so blessed to have the opportunity to witness such compassion and togetherness that we never get to see in America. We always seem too busy to help or only help when it is convenient for us. Jesus’ example teaches us that we need to help one another, any time of any day. He always stopped to help others, even when he had other things to do. I want to take this story back to
the U.S. with me and always remember that people and our relationships on earth are most important, so we need to take time out of our lives to help people who are in need. I want to stop long enough to look around. I want to look for a need, not just wait until I am asked. I want to be used by God every day in everything I do!

As we finally fly into Rwanda, after the 36 hours of travel, my body aches from sitting for so long. I’m very puffy all over, anybody ever heard of Kankles? I feel exhausted and I feel gross.

But as I step off the plane, I feel invigorated and excited. The amazing smells of Rwanda hit me as I step onto the tarmac; sweet, musty and tropical with the aroma of burning charcoal. The feeling I get here is too hard to express. I can’t explain what it feels like to be right at the center of God’s will for your life. I know this is exactly where I am supposed to be at this very moment in time. In a couple weeks I will be back with my awesome family and doing God’s will there also, but for now I am here.


 My mixed emotions about this trip are hard to put into words. The lead up to this trip was very different and much more difficult than in the past. There were many prayers and a lot of tears. Heather and I don’t claim to know how to fix the problem with trafficking in Rwanda, but we are willing to try. Our only goal is and always will be, to think in the best interest of the women we are trying to help. The program is complex and culturally different than anything we have in the United  States. So this is where we let God take over, He knows exactly what is supposed to happen. It is not up to us.

 Since this road was longer and harder this time I really wondered if I was still on the right path. I never once thought this would be an easy road but I surely didn’t think that it would always be an uphill battle. So here we are in Rwanda, waiting for guidance from God, more clear now that I'm on the right path.

“God, Please be with us as we try to do your will in this small yet amazing country, through your churches, that you have raised up. We are here and are completely open to what you have for us. I trust you with all of my soul and pray for safety and direction. Amen”

Last night we went out to meet some girls on the street, ones not in our program yet, to see if the needs were different for the different area or if the basic need was the same. This area was a little bit nicer and the cost for the girls a little bit pricier. Our goal was to take them to dinner just talk to them and find out more about how they got forced into prostitution. In talking with them, the story was mostly the same, orphans who were unloved and unwanted by society, cast out because of a certain tribe they belonged to. In their pain and humiliation they were forced into prostitution by society, by circumstance, by lack of good in the world.

One, named Jen, shared her story of being 13 years old when the Genocide happened and having to carry her baby sister on her back while dragging 2 more siblings behind her. She made her way to Burundi to find a refugee camp. Since her parents were killed and she knew she had to provide for her family she returned to Rwanda and used the Genocide fund to put herself through school for a little while before she realized she wouldn’t be able finish if she wanted her siblings to finish school. So she gave up on her dream to better the lives of her family. Still raising her siblings and a child of her own, she was forced into prostitution to be able to provide for all of them. 

The other, whose Kinyarwanda name translates to Gift, shared her story of being unwanted because she was a Tutsi girl, the targeted tribe during the Genocide in 1994. She was forced out of her home and ended up in the city with no way to  live. She met a friend who worked on the streets, who introduced her to the life as a prostitute, coercing her into living the same life. She also shared stories of being beaten with electrical cords or fists for not behaving properly. This girl was so lost, confused and hurting. She didn’t trust us or the God we talked about. She only knew how to survive and never thought for a moment she was worth loving. 

As we take them back to the street where we found them, I am horribly disturbed and terrified for them. I wonder at this point where God is in all this. I cry to Him to show me where He is. He whispers “I’m right here, and I know” God doesn’t apologize for the pain, but He is there with us in it. I have to remember that God feels the pain for them more than I do. Only the pain a father can feel for His children who are suffering. My chest physically hurts as we drive away and leave them. Everyone in the car is silent and scarred by this encounter. But I know only God can help them at this point, and all I can do is love them like He does. I have to know that showing Gift that we cared for her and letting her know of a bigger love was enough at the time. And Jen, who seemed to know who God was, may find her way back to Him. I have to leave the rest to God, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. I am reminded of my own human emotions and my own human limitations, and I don’t like it. But I think that is what God is teaching me in this, to rely on Him only, not on me, for anything. Faith in Him alone.

Today we did more home visits with the women in our program to take surveys, learn how to best help them and hear their stories about how they ended up where they are now. It was hard. It was hard to hear the horrific things these women have endured but most of all it was hard for them. Hard to share their pain with outsiders who may not understand. This is where we can make a difference. Good or bad. 

Compassion is complex. Compassion is hearing or seeing injustice and heartbreak, then feeling the unrelenting need to do something about it. What does that mean? Compassion is choosing to share in the pain of another person, carrying some of their burden with them. Making a conscious choice to enter into someone’s suffering with them and meet them right there.

So as I sit in their home with them on the edge of their bed because that is the only thing that can fit in the tiny space, I look around. It is a one room,
crumbling mud structure, with a dirt floor. Stifling hot, the whole community
smelling of urine and feces because they don’t have running water for proper toilets. I listen to the story of Chantal, being an orphan of the Genocide in 1994 was raped at 15 and became pregnant. She chose to still have the baby, even with no support, because she doesn’t believe in abortion. After giving birth she is forced into prostitution by the people she is staying with and by her circumstances. Listening to her story I realize I am entering into a place she has allowed very few people, into her anguish, into her humiliation, into her heart.

I also got the privilege to sit with a woman who sobbed uncontrollably in my arms because all she wanted was for her 8 year old daughter to go to school and have a better life than she has had as a commercial sex worker in one of the poorest areas. She didn’t want her daughter to be forced to have sex with drunken men for as little as $5.00usd per customer. By being there to hold her as she wept, I think she was able to see God loving her through us. 

Relationships that are only on the surface cannot change someone’s world. Taking a risk, volunteering to feel the pain of another, no matter what that cost, is a way to truly change your life and theirs. This experience is beautiful and ugly. It is simple and difficult. It is wonderful and terrible. But most of all it is worth it. Even if I have to sit with the Father in my sadness and in the pain of this world. God never said we would leave this world unscarred. If I can get those scars doing His work, to further His kingdom, through fearless compassion then I am more than happy to do it. For His scars are eternal, mine are only for a little while. I can only pray for courage and strength during those dark moments. I pray for Jesus to love through me and hold my hand as He leads me out of the darkness.

Today we spent time visiting 3 girls in our program. I was a little nervous to see them at first. I didn’t know what to say or what to ask. I couldn’t tell them I would fix their situation or even make it better for now. I wanted to bring them answers and the help they so desperately needed but instead I brought
juice.

Seriously?!  Juice!

The idea behind it was good, but it seemed so ridiculous given their
circumstances and living conditions. It is custom in Rwanda to bring something
small when you visit someone’s home. We chose juice concentrate because it would make a good amount of juice over time, and it would at least provide some vitamins and nutrients to make their hunger seem a little less on the days they were unable to feed their children or themselves. 

Even though this seemed insignificant to me, when we got there, the joy
that you could see shining out of them was enough. The light they had in their
eyes because someone  just  showed up for them was enough. Entering
into their pain, hearing their stories and hardships, showing them the love of
our amazing God was enough. Knowing they were not forgotten or abandoned was enough.

So my human and American way of thinking was that I wanted to have the answers, and I could fix this for them. This was self-serving and prideful. God doesn’t choose us because of who we are, but in spite of who we are. So he didn’t choose me because he thought I could be the one to make the difference for these girls. The only answer to fixing the evil in this world is Jesus. Only Jesus can shine a light into the darkness. Only Jesus can make an eternal difference.


Me, I can just choose to show up, to be a part of showing Gods love to the ‘least of these’. We are all the ‘least of these’. We are all the same people who need the same things. Food, water, air, shelter, love, and Jesus. So why wouldn’t I choose to help those that are the same as me? Why wouldn’t I choose to give whatever help I could to those that need it? Even when it’s “hard” or it “hurts” to give up my time or my possessions. I think if we all did that, everyone would have enough.

Today I spent time with the Pastor and church team running the ministry
in Kigali talking about the magnitude of the of the problem, the scope of the
program and how it will work. I was nervous. I committed to get this ministry up and running no matter what it takes. I felt like I was crazy………             
I can’t walk away now, even if it gets hard. I have to stick it out. But
how can we do this??

 This is what I love about the Rwandan culture. Their faith!

 Talking with them was so exciting, just to see their passion and commitment. To see their resolve and their faith in God to work out the details of making this ministry happen. I, on the other hand, was panicking. I can’t do this! What was I thinking?! What am I doing here?!

Why do they have so much more faith than we do in the U.S.?

Because they have to!

We, as Americans, have the ability to rely on ourselves, for the most part. Most of us don’t have to pray every day that we will have enough money to pay the rent so we don’t have to sleep on the streets. None of us have to pray every day that we would find enough food so that our family doesn’t literally starve to death. We don’t have to pray every day that what little food we can find, or the water we carried for miles won’t make us sick because we can’t afford to go to the doctor. We are not amongst the 15,000 African people that will die TODAY of preventable diseases. We know that our children are not one of the 26,575 children in this world that will die in the next 24 hours for lack of clean water, food or medicine.

I thank God that this is not the way we live. But I wonder what it will take for us to fully rely on God the way these people do. I don’t like that I can go home and just go back to living the same life. I pray and plead with God that He will break my heart EVERYDAY for what breaks His. I want my life to be used for a better purpose. I want to have the faith that the Rwandans have and just trust. Trust that God knows what he is doing and will work everything
out.

I hurt so badly in my heart for God’s children that are suffering and I cry because I can’t make people care enough to do something.  But I have experienced an indescribable joy in fulfilling the calling God gave me. I also know that God is still working on me. I am so far from finished.  But I get to see God working and I can’t wait to see what He does next!

Coming to Rwanda this time seemed like it would be easier. I knew the culture better. I knew quite a few people. I had a plan, I had a calling. I was travelling alone, only myself to deal with. I felt confident in my plan, why I was coming, and I knew exactly what I would do when I got here.

 Then I got here.

 I feel inadequate. I feel unsure of myself and my plan. I feel like I am not sure
why God sent me for this.

 I  had a meeting today with a good man, named Emmanuel, that is helping me start  this ministry. The meeting went great and I feel like we made a lot of progress.  But as we sat there talking about the enormity of the problem in just Rwanda alone, not talking about the trafficking problem worldwide, I felt like I was crazy for taking on such a big problem. Emmanuel reminded me of the story of Moses and the Burning Bush in the Bible. God had asked him to lead the Israelites out of Egypt and into the promised land. Moses asked God “Who am I to do this?” He felt like he was not qualified and he too felt inadequate. But God said “I am with you.” All Moses needed was God on his side and he was set, but just like any of us, he said “But…..” We all tend to think of reasons and excuses why we can’t do something.

“But what if they don’t listen?”

“What if they don’t believe me?”

“I don’t know how to speak well.”

 We come up with every reason we can to make ourselves less than able to do what we need to. But God says “I am with you.” He goes before us, He makes a way through. He can use anyone or anything He wants to make a difference.
 
So do I think I can attack this enormous problem? NO.

Do I think I will even put a dent in helping the ever growing number of abused
women in this world? NO.

But God can and He chooses, for now, to use me. So the question is ‘If not me, then who?’ We all have flaws and we all fall short of meeting the requirements to make any lasting difference in this world by ourselves. But with God all things are possible!


 

As I sit talking with a wonderful woman on my first flight to DC, I am reminded of what worry can do to a person. It can rob you of the simple things that are happening around you. Staying so focused on what can go wrong, you miss what is going according to plan.


As we flew over Las Vegas, notorious for turbulence, the woman next to me is struggling to keep her worry unnoticeable to me and the others around us. Since I know all too well what this is like, I feel for her. But to be honest, I was really tired and didn’t want to start a conversation since I had been up since 3:30am, and was really looking forward to going back to sleep. I do the
unchristian thing and try to ignore her, telling myself that she would be embarrassed if I said something anyway. I try but I can’t help but ask her if she is ok. And so starts the conversation…. just to get her mind focused on
something else. In talking we are able to discuss marriage, kids, life plans and
religion (an easy lead in once I am asked where I am going:)). She seems interested in what I am doing with Human Trafficking – not that she wants to join the fight but more because she herself has been searching for her purpose and passion in life. I shared with her my journey and  how I got to where I am now. We talked about a lot of different injustices worldwide that we as Americans are mostly unaware of, and we settled on the lack
of basic medical care and knowledge across the world. This is where she drew her line in the sand. She didn’t understand why people die everyday because they don’t have simple medicine. This is what she wanted to see
fixed.

 She told me I inspired her to do something.
 ME?
 Who am I?
 I  just do what God asks of me – sometimes begrudgingly – to the best of my ability. 
She said I was brave. 
I don’t think so. I just feel called and so I go.
See, God put this in place. Maybe to give her hope and direction, to find her
calling. Also for me, I  realize that God can use me in any situation. All I have to do is take the first step – even if I don’t want to.