Good Mourning

I am back Home.  Some conveniences are welcomed--a solid bed, my beautiful kitchen, my favorite chair by the fireplace.  At the same time, I miss some experiences from Rwanda--the slapping handshakes, the shy "Good morning" from the school kids studying English, the rapidly changing skies with torrential rain followed by sunshine.  Mostly I miss the sharp sense of being an observer, appreciating the culture while trying to fit in.  I have waded back into the stream of my "normal" life, yet I have been changed by the last seven weeks.

I have seen again that life can be brutal and stark for the Rwandans.  They couldn't believe that I was 55 years old, or that my parents could possibly be alive at 85!  This is because the years are harder on them--carrying heavy loads on their heads, going without medical check ups, vaccinations and even without meals, their eyes and skin unprotected from equatorial sun.  The privileges I consider to be my rights are completely out of reach for most of them, like owning a house, a car, a textbook.  Their patience with power failures and lack of basic supplies, drugs and instruments baffles me.  My American reaction is "let's get our act together and FIX this!"  Their approach is "let's make the best of this and hope it improves." 

My heart has been broken by the man with tetanus who died for lack of an isolation room and a ventilator.  By the two year old with an amputated arm due to gangrene, crying alone in his bed until a doctor walks by, smiles, and bumps his fist.  By the pastor who spent his morning digging in the mud to plant beans so that sixteen orphaned children living in his rented house can eat.  By the younger brother of a comatose ICU patient who hangs on my every word as though I will somehow figure out a cure.  I am humbled by the faith of people who have nothing to give and yet extend hospitality to me.  And by the faith of a technical school graduate who prays that God will supply him tools so he can use his new skills.  I am inspired by the taxi driver who says his children are speaking English because President Kagame says it will be good for Rwanda.  And by the genocide offenders at Nsinda prison who dance and glorify God for His forgiveness of their unspeakable crimes.  I am frustrated, energized, and alternately hopeless and hopeful about the challenges that face this country and its people.

April 7 is the anniversary of the beginning of the period of intense conflict and murder in the 1994 genocide.  The world turned the other way seventeen years ago while evil temporarily triumphed.  The entire country spends April remembering, mourning and honoring the dead.  Jesus said "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted."  I am mourning, because I have seen and felt the pain of Rwanda for a short time.  I would like to turn the other way, to pretend that poverty, disease and suffering don't exist.  It would be less painful.  But if I want to identify with the heart of Jesus I will have to mourn, to be angry at evil, to encourage and support faith and hope, and to love my Rwandan friends the best I can.  The price is to share the Rwandan's pain, yet the promise of God's comfort is the blessing.