a day's labor

This was the last day of ministry-- on thursday we were to hop on a plane. After almost two months of life in Kigali, the thought of being transported out of here to a native world was not yet real in our minds. My task for today was to drive three ladies in our team to a nearby village where they were to hang out with widows and care for them. The pickup was tightly packed as four other local staffmembers joined us for the ride. Driving in Rwanda can be a harrowing experience-- just a week ago one of our friends was involved in a head-on collision, miraculously avoiding serious injury-- but this ride was particularly tricky because the steering wheel was on the right side, the gearshift on the left; the hardest thing was to not confuse the turn signal from the windshield wiper, as they were also inverted in position.
Anyway, we first stopped at the local granary to pick up several large sacks of provisions-- several hundred kilograms of rice, sugar and cornflour. But here, as Jackie was waiting for the truck to be loaded, someone came from behind, snatched her purse, and took off with a wad of money. Pandemonium broke as a foot chase ensued. Luckily the street was crowded with pedestrians and loiterers milling around, and it didn't take long for one of the guys to catch the perpetrator. He turned out to be a kid in his late teens-- a dark fellow with a menacing, defiant demeanor. He seemed unrepentant and indignant at being caught. Regardless, he was now our captive. Several arms grabbed him and marched him towards our pickup. I was both curious and apprehensive about what we would do to him. He had stolen 10,000 Rwandese Francs-- about $20-- over a week's wages for a laborer in Kigali.
After a bit of debate and commotion, Sylvan, normally the gentlest of souls, came up to me and said sternly with a pointed finger, "We will teach him!". With that, he was ushered into the back of the pickup truck and made to sit down among three male staff members. We drove off through the dusty streets, the heavy laden truck straining on second gear most of the way. It was about a 30 minute ride to the widows ministry, and I periodically glanced through the rear view mirror to observe the animated conversation that was going on amidst the back crowd. I wondered what was passing through the theif's mind. Was he thinking we were taking him to jail, or abandon him on a desolate road to fend for himself?
We eventually emerged out of the city to a small village center. As we turned a corner into a community center, we saw about a hundred women gathered by the driveway. Some were weaving banana leaf baskets that they had been commissioned to make by the ladies in our team. We realized then that with such a large crowd, distributing food be a substantial undertaking. I parked the truck a distance away from the crowd. The thief got out gingerly from the pickup. He was noticably subdued, and made no efforts to run. He looked uneasily at the crowd of widows who by now were up on their feet. It was apparent that life on the streets had encrusted a tough and weathered exterior, but not enough to close off his heart completely. He submitted to unloading the heavy sacks of grain from the truck and soon we had all the provisions lined up and ready for distribution.
I had to leave the team behind to get some supplies from town-- it was a busy day since I had planned to purchase and deliver a water pump to a village by the border with Burundi. When I returned several hours later, found the widows aglow and exuberant in their gestures of thanks for the food that now filled their bags, and for the company of strangers who cared for them. Some were HIV patients living from day to day. The thief was hanging out by himself at the side of the building, perhaps still a bit indignant at the turn of events, but not as menacing. We got back on the truck, now more nimble and free of the weight from the morning. With much effort I had now learned not to activate the wiper every time I needed to make a turn.
We unloaded the last cargo right where we started, at the local granary. For an honest day of labor he was given 1000 francs, what any able-bodied man would earn in Kigali if he had a job. His name was Robert, and by now he was no longer a thief, but a fellow worker in the field. We knew where he lived, and Sylvan was going to follow up with him later to make sure he's on the right track.
That was a perfect way to end our ministry in Kigali.
[photo: Robert at work]

Neighbors

An impromptu gathering of farmers in the village. My new neighbors!

Friday

Most days here we embark on a ministry in which we don't quite know what to expect. On Friday we teamed up with Chantal, a young lady "evangelist" from the local church, to go on a street evangelism expedition. Chantal was a charismatic lady who spoke excellent english. We followed her into a neighborhood beyond the main throughfare, through muddy backtrails that entwined tightly packed living quarters. Large dirt ditches often flanked our trails, making the trek a bit treacherous. We approached a group of youngsters in their early twenties. A couple of them carried stacks of used clothes that were likely to be donations from the West. Street kids such as these sell them for a pittance-- Rwanda is filled with secondhand clothing-- reminds me of Jaqueline Novogratz's anecdote about seeing her unforgettable green sweater of her childhood pass by as she was jogging one day in Tanzania (?). Another guy had a bowl of packaged peanuts (sold as a street snack), while several other loiterers gathered and sat in the shade, resting from the sun that was unusually hot that day. It seemed foolish to disturb them and start talking as though we can share anything relevant to them. But Chantal had the boldness of a lioness. She greeted them and said a few sentences in Kinyarwandan. They were unexpectedly welcoming and responsive; one thing that I've come to appreciate about Rwandese is that they are great listeners. When you are engaged in conversation with them, they give you your due. But before we knew it, Chantal was motioning for us to speak. This came a bit earlier than we expected or hoped, and I mentally scrambled to full attention to start speaking. These are the moments when you desperately try to act natural, when your lips seem to move and say things, but you're not quite paying attention because you're actually wondering, "What exactly am I doing here again?" We do a standard introduction of ourselves, and Morid shares about the story of the train conductor who had to sacrifice his son for the sake of the lives of the passengers on the train (it's a longer story). Train conductor? Have they seen a train before? Rwanda doesn't have any railways. Taxibus would have been more appropriate. At any rate, we share the word, and it's the moment of truth: the invitation to a life with Christ (i.e., the train conductor... or is it the son?). At this point it feels as though there's really not much else we can do, and there's no turning back. I just hope we didn't confuse them too much as we ask if any of them would like to welcome Jesus into their hearts....
***
We then take a left onto another dirt trail; as we pass a cement house, I spy a group young guys sitting on a terrace, smoking and passing around bottles of brown juice. Chantal stops and says, "This is a bar. I think we should go in here". Okay, whatever you say. We follow her in, and we strike up a conversation with six or seven of them at the entrance of the bar. Before we could go any deeper, Chantal interrupts and says, "There are more people inside. Let's talk inside". Alrighty then. So we go in. It's filled with guys, not the bad news types, but guys just hanging out, getting a bit of an afternoon buzz. We start again. The bottles-- they smell like fermented banana beer-- keep making their way around the group. After the introduction and a bit about why we were there in their bar interrupting their happy hour, we open it up for some interaction. A guy asks Morid whether she have ever been drunk. Now we're getting personal. Morid starts to pour out her heart, sharing about laying down life's burdens on Jesus, how God is not a stern judge, but a loving, forgiving father. The atmosphere turned, dare I say it, sober....
***
It was time to get back; we had spent about 1 1/2 hours in the neighborhood. On Chantal's notebook was a numbered list of people who accepted Christ that day: 12. 5 from the first conversation in the shade, 7 at the bar. Amazing! How did that happen? But it was true-- their glowing smiles and sincere expressions of gratitude reflected what we felt in our own hearts. We were filled with awe at what God had done.

The stuffy heat of the day lifted as a colony of silvery clouds bobbled past above us. I had brought my rainjacket just in case....

Tiny Moments of Insight

African identity
I had always wondered how Africans, being from such a huge and diverse continent, are able to define their identity as "African". Does an African identity really exist? Even to a casual observer, Rwandans are so much different from, say, Kenyans. If you mistake a Rwandan for a Ugandan, you will incite spirited indignation. Within most nations, tribalism runs deep. But what I've learned from the people here is that it's a cultural identity. It's the rhythm of the music, the lilt in their dance, the type of humor, and yes, the color of their skin that profers the affinity towards one another. I sense that African identity in their culture runs deeper than most.

Another aspect of African identity is a common experience throughout history. Eighty percent of Africa was colonized by the western world. The truth is that the continent is bound by the trauma of mass exploitation and loss of dignity.

Why is Africa the site of the majority of the global issues of today?
Poverty
Corruption
Famine
Endemic disease: HIV Malaria etc...
Civil war

I'd have to say that a major factor is the legacy of colonialism. One cannot underestimate the consequences of absolute, multigenerational oppression.

Rwanda
I have a better understanding of how this country came to tread its particular path in history. There was relative stability in the region, people almost oblivious to their tribal identity, an egalitarian society under a monarch. When Germans and subsequently Belgians came, they were met with much resilience before ultimate domination by force. Once in power, the colonialists pitted one tribe against another, instilling discrimination and mistrust that was not there before. They began a crude classification of people according to their physical attributes, and identification cards were made to maintain the order of social hierarchy. In Rwanda the minority Tutsis were propped up as the higher class, under which the majority Hutu were subservient. Deep resentment against loss of dignity and freedom transfered from the colonialists to the Tutsi, and when independence was finally gained from the Belgians, it festered and grew. When mass genocide broke in 1994, it wasn't a singular event. It was the execution of a meticulously prepared plan that was organized long before. The horrific outcome of 1994 speaks to how successful the orchestration of hate was through politics and propaganda. Locally, lists of people who should be killed were generated in every neighborhood. Internationally, it's widely known that the French supplied the means through arms deals with the Rwandan government. The tragedy of genocide that noone could stop brought the nation to its knees. The fact that Rwanda was able to rise again to wheere it is is truly a miracle.

cute dancing boy1

I've seen some really cute dancing boys around here....

The road through the village

A bicycle ride down the road to the farm site.

Road down Kamabuye

Kids Praise

Saturday Community kids worship at Assemblies of God, a local church. They sing with all that they have, every time.

More pics

Pics of rural Rwanda to be captioned later.

In a village with the homies. Mambo sawa!

Visit to a village on the border with Burundi.

Pics

View from the driveway of the YWAM base in Kigali. Beautiful! But it's actually a bit drier and dustier than it looks on picture.

Laundry time at the base.

On any given day we embark on an outreach trip that invariably begins and ends with a taxi ride. Oh, let me tell you about the taxis. Taxis here are actually fleets of minibuses that sputter along set routes. They are mostly beat-up toyota vans that have seen several decades of service elsewhere and have long since parted with their original components. On their front and rear windows are emblazoned random english phrases and names like "No gain without pain" or "new jersey nets", On 4 gnarly rows they squeeze in as much humanity as they can-- no bus leaves without at least 20 passengers crammed in. Carborateurs are definitely not en vogue, and the whole journey is spent inhaling the sooty exhaust that spews in from the floor and windows. I shudder to think how many neurons (and offspring potential) I've lost so far.... The buses are manned by a driver up front and a moneyman by the sliding door. It's the moneyman's job to be handy with the wads of francs for change, and to make sure the bus is filled to capacity. Driving is a daring dance with calamity. It's every driver's obligation to make his whereabouts known via horn to oncoming traffic. Cars with the greatest potential to inflict damage have the right of way. Every maneuver is made dynamically, every action evokes an adequate reaction at the last split second that prevents disaster. The taxi ride is our daily rite for the duration of our stay here.

***

On friday my outreach involved taking 3 minibuses to a village on the outskirts of northern Kigali. I joined a pastoral team that day, and was scheduled to speak at a church that was holding a week-long "seminar". We left right after lunch; the usual combination of rice, boiled bananas or cassava, and bean stew; and after an hours' crammed journey, we were grateful to unravel and disentangle ourselves from our seats and set foot on terra firma. The sun was bearing down on us as we made our way up the steep goatpath to the church where we were to speak. The church was set on a hill-- like most hills here, virtually a gigantic pile of pale brown mud covered with lush vegetation. The building was a nondescript mixture of mud brick and cement topped with corrugated aluminum. The pastor met us at the fork in the goatpath next to a termite mound, his broken english and teeth perfectly articulating his joy in seeing us.

Worship begins furiously, the drummer aggressively on attack with a blunt rod, producing alternating thuds and staccatos of goatskin and wood. An earnest old man dressed in a baggy suit starts hopping, leaping from one foot to the other, palms outstretched, as though trying to avoid a severe blow to the feet. The rows of benches fill up in the tiny sanctuary. Maximum capacity would have been about thirty, but everyone gets a seat in this tiny kingdom of God. The beat picks up, and in the frenzy the old man's shoes come off as tears of joy fill his face. As the choir leads the congretation in the final song, the man collapses to his knees and lifts his hands up in praise....

That evening I spoke on forgiveness-- the importance thereof, the necessity thereof. I cannot forget how costly forgiveness must be for some here. It's like being asked to rip out your heart before the killer who hacked away at your child or your mother with a machete. I cannot forget the lady who wept by the window to my side as I spoke, uncontrollable shudders of grief shaking her silhouetted figure. Who are we to talk about forgiveness? Of course, we have nothing to say but by the leading of the Holy Spirit. The message is received with what I thought was a subdued response. A few come out to receive prayer. I asked the pastor if it was ok to do one more thing. On behalf of the foreigners who came to their land bearing violence and greed, who stole from them their dignity and peace, we asked if they could extend forgiveness to us. As the interpreter translates, some burst in tears; most respond, with determination: "yego!"-- yes, we gladly forgive you ....

When I was in Haiti last year, I heard the people say, "there are mountains beyond mountains", alluding to the challenges faced in the tortuous journey of life ... or something like that. In Rwanda, at any rate, there are countless hills upon hills. At around 6:30pm, when the sun sets before you, it's still making its journey past the hills beyond, so that the receding ray of light shining through a distant valley casts an infernal halo on the clouds just above your line of sight. We were met with this view as we descended the hill, the afterglow diminshing to a smear of pinkish red. As we turned at the fork in the path I saw what I thought were bubbles that the goatboy was blowing. Instead, it was winged termites, alighting neatly in a column, one by one, from several portholes on the termite mound. The rapid fluttering of the wings created an iridescent sphere around each termite, shimmering and catching the glowing pink of the sky, A slight breeze was just barely carrying them upward and away.... Meanwhile, along the path under foot, there was a drastically different scene. What looked like a thin black hose undulating down the hill was a frenzied swarm of ants collectively forming a sinewy tangle-- the barrage of hundreds of tiny feet per second bore deep grooves on the hardened soil. Some ants, running over the backs of others, were hurtling past at extraordinary speed. Whatever destination these extraordinary beings were headed to, it was getting too dark to tell. I gingerly walked over this apparition as we headed down to the roadside for our taxi ride home....

Hi Friends,
I've been in Rwanda for a week now, and all in all I find it quite pleasant. These are the things I love about this place so far:
The lush, rolling hills that are all possible shades of green.
The beautiful skyscape above the treetops, full of massive, tumultuous clouds by day and shimmering stars by night.
The weather: on any given day you get the whole spectrum of conditions, from dazzling sunlight to torrential rain-- it keeps you on your toes!
The earth-- the kind that sticks to your soles like gum when wet, but will dry and harden in an instant.
You're surrounded by hills cluttered with shantyhouses wherever you go, so it feels like you're always in the neighborhood.
If it weren't for the suffocating pollution and sprawl, this would be an amazing place to live. Seriously, ff we had these lands in the states, it would be populated with celebrity mansions.

This past monday was Rwanda's day of mourning comemorating the genocide of 1994. The crazy thing was, a couple of us ventured into the city which was all but shut down, and happened on a hotel called hotel des mille collines--- Hotel Rwanda. I had a club sandwich by the pool. It was eerie, to say the least, to be at the epicenter of the tragedy that started 14 years to the day. There was no reminder of the massacre, but we had heard earlier testimonies from our Rwanda staff members the horrendous killings that occured. 1 million people out of seven million were killed in less than 100 days-- that's 10,000 per day. One cannot fathom the trauma of such happenings. Considering that Rwanda has the highest population density of all African countries, it's no exaggeration to say that the streets were paved with bodies. I think I'm closer to understanding how this came to be ... I'll have to flesh this out a bit.

So far I've helped do some construction at a church, ministered to streetkids, visited support meetings for ladies with HIV, prayed for a gathering of widows, worshipped with college students. I am humbled by those who in the midst of desperation shed tears of joy and gratitude for God's love. I respect the local staff members who sacrificially heed the call to ministry (like all ywam staffers, they are not paid to work here). I confess I don't know God in such ways.... I'm still figuring out how I can contribute.

Rwanda is not a big country-- it's roughly the size of Maryland. Kigali is an urban sprawl, busy with people and overused vehicles at all hours of the day. Downtown Kigali seems a lot smaller than it should be for a capital. It has the idiosyncrasies of a developing city, but I sense that in a few decades, it'll be one of the hubs in Africa. There's tangible hope here. Some parts remind me of Korea ca 25 years ago....

On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 2:25 PM, James Choi wrote:
> Dear friends whom I haven't seen in a while,
>
> I just wanted to give you a mass update before I leave Kona, hoping
> that I can keep in touch with you individually in the future-- please
> do keep in touch!
>
> I'm leaving for Rwanda tomorrow! I'll be part of a 25 person team
> from my Discipleship Training School at YWAM. We have a diverse group
> of people from several nations and all ages. We'll be in Rwanda for
> two months, doing various types of ministry (sports, medical/dental,
> AIDS awareness, widow/orphanage, arts, dance, church and street
> outreach). I don't quite know what to expect, but I think with the
> Rwanda diet, coupled with being in sports ministry, I'll at least stay
> quite lean! I've been wanting to go back to Africa for a while, so I
> am excited to be in what is known as the heart of Africa. Two months
> is not a long time relatively speaking, but I really want to see how
> God can bring hope to the people who need it, and get a visceral feel
> for what really brings about the desperate conditions there. And yes,
> I do want to "save souls" as well. I pray that I will remain open to
> God's promptings at all times to do whatever I should be doing while
> I'm there.
>
> DTS in Kona has been an amazing experience, and I think it came to me
> at a critical time. It was for me a process of restoring the heart,
> which on hindsight was like a lifeless limb that I couldn't even
> recognize. Heart-less, I was quite miserable living in my head in my
> past existence. For me to come to Kona, I've had to let go of some
> things I tightly held on to, like the semblance of stability (a job at
> least) which was never quite what I thought it should be-- and the
> result is more freedom. It's an ongoing process, but I hope to now
> put into practice what's been revealed during my outreach and beyond.
>
> I really don't know what I'll be doing or where I'll be after my trip,
> but I do know that it'll be good. I've realized that what matters
> most is intimacy with Jesus, and the fruits of that lifestyle is
> purpose, vision, abundance that truly lasts. I have a few ideas right
> now that I'll be praying to see how they unfurl.
>
> I just got word that we're leaving earlier than expected-- an airline
> just went bankrupt-- so I have to jet. Please do keep in touch-- I
> hope to frequent the internet cafes in Kigali.
> My physical address for now is:
> James Choi
> xxx
> Kailua-Koana, HI 96740
>
> p.s. Your support would be appreciated! I'm afraid this trip has
> depleted me financially-- if you'd like to find out more how to help,
> just email me directly, or you can send checks to the address above.
>
> James. >