Away

Stepping over trash mounds in Kampala, thoughts and doubts tried to sneak in, “…what are we doing here…who are these people…what’s the goal…”. But when you enter a place, oftentimes these filter through the mind, and it’s not until you make relationship that your mindset will change. Uganda was amazing. Many of the relationships and stories that will forever be with us are not for us to tell you, at least not now, or on the world wide interface! We’ve learned that a lot of love can come from very dangerous places and very dangerous people, that muslims’ belief’s are changeable, and that mistakes are a part of life for everyone, including ourselves. We got to lead a Muslim in a prayer for healing in the name of Jesus. We fought with each other. We overcame and rejoined forces. But some stories since our last post will have to wait unfortunately, though we can say that we have been more than blessed in our interactions and new friendships, yet will respect our safety and the requests of others.

Skipping forward, to near Christmas, we split up our team with Derek spending Christmas with friends in Kenya, and Caleb heading to Addis early. Kenya was filled with adventure for Derek, and he spent a really great Christmas, sweating profusely 🙂 He worked in a shop for a while in a small town meeting hundreds of customers daily. They came back daily, with invitations for supper, meeting family, tea, games, motorbikes and local food. He didn’t miss home too much, except for family of course, but it just resonated ‘Christmas’ in the area near Mombasa on the coast. Boney M blaring at nearly every corner hut, people happily greeting everyone, with tea and biscuits and love. Quite enjoyable.

One day, Derek went along with a very dear friend to her grandma’s place out in the boonies. One of the most primitive places he’s been, he enjoyed a great meal fixed by her grandma, conversing with her uncles and loving the food. He could hardly believe how good the food was, this green mixture with grains and potatoes and I have no idea mixed with this amazing chicken. Surprised by the quality of food, he was caught off guard on the way home. Shiko, the friend that brought him out, was in front of him on the motorbike, and she kind of giggles and looks back, “urhh, ha, um, I lied…”. Having no clue what she was talking about, he spent the whole ride trying to get it out of her. Near the end of the journey, she lets it out in a whisper, “that was the food for the new husbands…”

Caleb spent a couple more days in Kampala after Derek left. At first he was not too happy about having to travel by himself, which was Derek’s strength and joy, but it became a very good experience. He was staying in a hostel that had daily tours coming in. The only constant were the local African people who showed up every night for some drinks. These people became some of his only friends there. Taking him to their homes, being treated to amazing African hospitality, and shown the Kampala nightlife. He also learned a lot about the missions and NGO’s that work in the area. Although there is much positive out of these, there is also many things that need to be changed. Before he left, one of his African friends handed him and amazing compliment when he told him he is not a mzungu (white), he is just a light skinned African. From this friend, this was a huge compliment because he believes that Mzungu’s come in and don’t understand the culture and can easily have a negative impact and create dependencies that are not easy to overcome. Derek has received this also, and to both of us this is a sign that we are doing something right in trying to get into and understand cultures. After a few days Caleb took off to Addis Ababa and met up with some travel companions Kiersti and Rilla, and with Kiersti’s relatives who run a tourism company in Ethiopia. It was a blessing to spend Christmas in a family setting and try to make it seem like Christmas at home (without the snow). Even though we were able to celebrate we actually picked a country that doesn’t celebrate Christmas on December 25^th. So now we get to repeat Christmas on January 7^th. We have now rejoined forces and are enjoying Ethiopia. Spicy food and amazing coffee are a good beginning. Happy New Year, celebrate a bit extra for us, as New Years here is in September, and it’s 2004 here… and we are excited to see what it brings…

Rukundo

While Derek was spending time working in the churches and staying with locals, Caleb found himself with time to spare. One day he went with the Gahini team to the market for souvenirs, he was able to make friends with almost all the vendors and work great deals for the team. One in particular, Peter, became a close friend and the began a routine of having supper together every day after work. He began to open up, and told Caleb his story of how before the genocide, he had a family with six brothers and sisters. His father was wealthy and educated, which meant when the genocide started, he was one of the first to go. After it was all over, Peter was left with one younger brother. He became a four year old parent, left with nothing. He moved to Kigali and did whatever he could to survive, and finally got hired to run a souvenir shop. He now works seven days a week, and takes no holidays. With the money he earns, he puts his brother through university. His biggest dream is to be a musician, and if there’s ever any money left over at the end of the month, he uses it to buy studio time. On our last night in Kigali, he gave Caleb the biggest compliment he has ever received. He told him “When I first met you I thought you were on drugs (that happens when you are talking as fast as you can to get deals), then I thought you were just a nice guy. But now because of your love I can see you are a true Christian.” Now even as we sit in the hotel, we dream about helping guys like this…and ideas are forming.

Predictably our bus breaks down about an hour over the Ugandan border, and with typical African problem solving, we wait. A good ‘while’ passes, and another packed bus pulls up. We were clueless when our bus emptied in seconds, and we were left the last people on the bus. Thinking there’s a gas leak or something, we run off too, and see the other bus packed with people hanging out the door and windows, with NO room left. The bus begins moving before we are even on, we have to shove people further in and hop on the moving bus with all our luggage. We now know what ‘cram’ means; it was the first time I wished for a black hole. Inside we are forced to share the doorway with five other full grown African men. Seven people on three bus steps. The journey serves to let us make some very important scientific observations:

1. There is no such thing as an African with claustrophobia
2. Deodorant has not been introduced yet

The second observation actually makes things less awkward for us, because it’s been a while for us as well. The whole ride was a fight for space. Caleb ended up battling with a very large, very competitive African woman. I don’t think anyone wins these battles. After three hours of African sardines we arrive in Kampala.

Although a relief to be off the bus, Kampala does not brighten the mood much. It stands in stark contrast to Rwanda. In Rwanda everything is new, with a heightened respect for life after their recent history. New Hope, New Love…New Life. In Kampala everything is old, worn down, broken and dirty. Even more disconcerting is the fact that there are also many more guns. Everywhere else in Africa, you can see a machine gun on every street, in the hands of a security guard, police officer or soldier. But as we walked through an alley today we came across an un-uniformed man with a machine gun fighting over a joint with another man. Sketchy situations. Thankfully we got shown around by a guy named Good Luck. How could anything bad happen when you are following Good Luck. We find a sketchy hotel and catch up on z’s.

People are people though, and in the morning, we met a friend from Kigali named Rogers. He picked us up and took us to his home. We met his family, took us to church, and then took us for lunch and to the beach in Entebbe. It was his wife’s birthday so we celebrated in style, with Rogers of course insisting on paying. We loved spending time with his his two and half year old daughter. She was super cute and began calling us both uncle. She learned to swim a little bit and would constantly threaten Derek with “I am going to beat you” whenever he got out of hand. After a full day of swimming, food and mingling with local musicians and celebrities, we called it a day. We found out on the drive home that Rogers had rented a car for a day. He was embarrassed that he was a little bit short for gas money. We gladly pitched in for the ride home. Generosity, hospitality, and community is a way of life out here.

Now, first off, Derek wants to apologize to his sister for doing this first, but we hit the rapids on the mighty Nile river. It was awesome. Some of those rapids aren’t legal in Canada, and we began to have more sympathy for Moses having to float down this river. We flipped, surfed, drowned a little, and had some good times.

Its getting close to Christmas and its strange to still be getting a sunburn. But we are loving our time and looking forward to telling more about what God is doing. Thanks everyone for the support and encouragement we are getting from home.

~ village air & the praying church ~

An arm reaches through my window at a seemingly ungodly hour of the morning and wakes me from a deep sleep: my attempt to fight off the parasites, germs and flu that seem to reside inside me. It’s time to pack ourselves tighter than the girls’ suitcases into a matatu and head for Kigali. We leave early, but not early enough. We got caught in Kigali traffic and are reminded of the civic work day, every last Saturday of the month. It’s a mandatory work day, a civic ‘holiday’ where everyone works the streets with machetes, hoe’s, rakes, and brooms. Police checkpoints everywhere, people are stopped if they are driving, and put into forced labour on the spot. We are stopped. Caleb and Dylan get out and talk to the officers. They get nowhere, and call for Derek (yours truly) for some language backup. I get on the phone with their boss, and ask how we can acquire permission to pass. After answering to his interrogations, I pass the phone back to the officer. The moment he hangs up, he squints his eyes and grunts at me,

“You lie”

“What??”

“You lie!!”, he repeats, “You do not have permission to pass!!”

I guess between the poor cell reception, traffic noise, and my mix of Kinrwanda, Swahili, and French, the big cheese assumed I had permission and demanded the officers to let us pass. I’m glad we didn’t pray into communication that morning.

We drive to Eddies, the pastor we were to visit, and pass him on the way; he’s working on the street. So we all end up slaving on the streets of Kigali anyways, which was really quite comedic.

In the afternoon, I meet this Rasta guy, ‘Jacob’ in the market, and I tell him why I’m in Rwanda. Excited, he pulls out his bible, and we start hashing through the word! It’s amazing! He then asks me, “so it’d be cool if I got down on my hands and knees right here and you prayed for me?”. And I say, “yeah! Of course!”. So he got down on his knees in the middle of the market, hands raised to the sky and I prayed for him. I was told later by the rest of our group that Jacob gave big discounts to everyone, and he was hounding them, asking why nobody else said they loved Jesus! Now every time I go visit, all the shopkeepers call me “Pasta Dedeek”. One of the other shop owners, a beautiful Rwandan girl, invited me to meet her mother, an intercessor in Kigali. She’d been praying for 10 years, usually 10-12 hours a day. She prayed a long passionate prayer for me, and I felt very blessed. At church that evening, I was anointed, and they prophesied over me, (they were on the tail end of a 40-day fast) that God would bless the work of my hands, and that I’d become a millionaire! I was stoked! (more to come on this story) They invited me to their morning church buttt…I had plans to preach the next day out near Gahini, in Kawangire. Here’s the story:

 

We start the journey back from Kigali quite late, as time is based on feelings, not numbers, and we arrive at 8:30PM in Gahini. I quickly pack a bible, an extra shirt, and take off down the hill. I wait a few minutes for a bus, but no luck. Squat with some locals, not sure what they were doing, just squatting in silence. I squat for a bit. Try greeting them. They grunt and keep squatting. I kinda liked it, but after zoning out with them for a bit I remembered to panic and look for a ride. It was odd. Then a bus came by with screaming, singing, hand-clapping girls on their way to Kigali. I was tempted to join, but too excited about the village awaiting my arrival.

I finally find a moto that’ll take me; off through the night air. He drops me at the entrance to the village: it’s dead, only one store/home cranking some international beats. I walk around, then walk back to the street in hopes of another moto, but nothing. The few locals awake are confused but excited for something other than cows and potatoes, and they try to help me out. As I walk around with them, a bike cruises by, and we whistle to catch it. I hop on, and arrive through the fields and bush to Pastor Wilsons. He steps out and greets me lovingly, and as I step inside the small humble home, I see an entire family, sitting in the entrance in the candlelight. They have a bunch of pots in front of them, and they welcome me, as they’ve waited to eat supper for my arrival. It was amazing. It was 10:30PM, and here they’re all waiting with food in the candlelight, all because of a promise I made a week before.

We talk a couple minutes, and the kids head to bed. I take to my room quickly, as I know it’s late, but before I go, I ask what time to get up. They explain that church starts at 10:00, but Wilson gets up at 4:00 AM every night to pray at the church. From 4:00-6:00 AM, EVERY night, he goes to the church to pray. EVERY NIGHT.

“Wow…can I come?”, I ask. They were astonished, but were more than happy to welcome me. I guess every Saturday night, just the pastor goes, but all the other nights, a good part of the church shows up. And so I’m introduced to a true, ‘praying church’. I hit the hay and tell him to wake me when it’s time.

I’m awoken by a door creak. Thinking it’s for me, I brace myself, but instead of my door, I hear the outside lock open, and shortly after, a flash outside my window. I wait for a bit, and nothing happens. Lying there, I wonder whether to sleep or to try going out, I even check the camera, maybe it has the time. 4:30AM, but I didn’t think it was that late. So wrestling with nobody in particular, I get the ambition to go out. I try to be quiet, and sneak out with the candle they gave me.

Walking down the trails, I am humbled at the work it takes to keep the candle burning, and try to find my way. I make it maybe halfway to the church, and forget where exactly it is. I start going into dead ends and places where I’ve never seen. This could be hilariously bad. I send up a few prayers, God, send your angels, get me there, or let me meet the pastor out here. Sure enough, five minutes and I see a light coming at me, at 4:00 in the morning…must be the man! It is, and we go to the church to pray.

We both get there, and he explains what he does, why he does it, and then starts praying: loudly and passionately. I go outside and walk to the back mudroom for some alone time. He starts singing out to God with the one drum they possess. I start to do the same, just spill some of my heart in song to God. It was pretty sweet. He started crying out at times, and then speaking in either Kinrwandan or tongues, I’m not sure, but neither would surprise me.

After 45 minutes, I start reading and prepping for my sermon, and he sits down with his torch, and reads some of the psalms loudly, praying in between. As if nobody were with him, he just praised the Lord with all his heart.

Morning comes, and I deliver the sermon with quite some ease. I’m starting to enjoy this speaking thing, especially when it’s interspersed with energetic tribal-like dancing and singing. When I finish, Pastor Wilson recaps the sermon by yelling what I just said to his congregation. I know family and at least a few friends would miss me, but I can see myself here for a while….

Pastor (Papa) Wilson

Back On Track Pt 2

One of the best meals to have in Rwanda is goat bruschette (goat on a stick). One day we came to the realization, we should just buy our own goat and then we would have an abundance of deliciousness. So one morning Caleb, Derek and a new partner in crime, Stu loaded up on dirtbike taxi’s and headed to the market. After some time of cruising horrible back roads we came to a crowd in a random bunch of trees. There were goats everywhere. About 50 people, each with a few goats, either tied to them or running around being goatee. After finding a beauty, and bartering a decent price, we decided to up the ante on the trip home. We would have a motorcycle race back, and whoever lost would be punished: whoever loses has the goat tied to him for the rest of the day. We drew straws for who had to carry the goat home on a motorcycle, as this would significantly slow down a driver. We made one of the driver hold the sticks. He did not know how to hold straws… he had them lined them up in his hand biggest to smallest. Caleb grabbed the largest and Stu quickly grabbed the next. So it was decided, Derek was stuck with the goat for the ride back. The driver made Derek drive, so his fate was in his own hands. Caleb, having a good bike and a driver that understood how to win, won the race, Derek pushed his bike to the max, with goat horns digging into his spine. His driver (passenger now) was also punching him and trying to get him to slow down…but he didn’t really want a goat tied to his leg. That meant that Stu would be the lucky new fencepost. It was quite hilarious seeing him walk around town, attempting to swim, attending a party for the Rwandan leaders, all with a goat tied to his leg. He even went to village ministry, climbed through the church window with the rope and the goat outside, still yanking on his leg during the songs. The next day Billy Jean (the goat) met her end. With Caleb doing giving his best attempt to slit its throat (an African had to come aid the city kid, but he’ll do better next time) and Derek learning the Rwandan way to butcher it with the locals. Some of it is a little different like chopping the ribs off the backbone with a machete, then tearing the ribs out with your teeth. After a few hours of butchering and preparing goat bruchette, he returned and the whole team had an awesome feast.

Ps…. If any member of PETA is reading this, dont worry. Billy Jean had a good life. She even starred in a movie. Heres the link:

We have now moved to Kigali. After an adventure of a night with next to no money and no place to stay (God sent a friend to take care of us), we met up with a team from Hopethiopia. We went to an old church that is now a genocide memorial, which was quite intense. At this church and the surrounding area, 10,000 Tutsis were killed, mainly with machettes. The church is battered by shrapnel from grenades and bullet holes. It is filled with the clothing the victims were wearing when they died. In the basement is a casket, which is a memorial to a girl from the town that was gang raped, tortured and killed (we were told some brutal details of why she is honoured there). The front wall of the church is still covered in blood from where children were thrown against the wall. In the back was a mass grave, we went in and saw thousands upon thousands of skulls and bones. After spending close to a month in Rwanda now, and making so many good friends, the genocide becomes real to you…and it wasn’t so long ago. The skull hacked apart in front of you could have been one of your good friends. It makes us understand what we are trying to do here even more, and helps for us to understand a bit of these peoples brutal and recent history. EVERYONE here has a story, and will for the coming generations, as most kids now are brought up with no parents, or parents with serious mental/emotional/physical problems. We hope to help in the healing, in reconciliation, and in the building of a new future. This will only come through a supernatural love, a love we’re learning to be sensitive to and share with these people.

Back On Track Pt 1

After the first week of camp, it was decided that mzungus would give the Rwandans a chance to take over, and get out of the way. So we decided we would dive into ministry in the villages and occasionally check in with the camp.

We decided one night that we needed to throw a party, because it was the Rwandan leader of the camp’s birthday, Betty. Most people already asleep, Derek, Caleb and their new friend Stu decided to wander out to round up a party crew in the village. First were the girls that work for the guest house. They were clueless as to what was going on, but we could communicate ‘come’. We began wandering into town, and soon saw a silhouette in the darkness. Inviting the dark figure, he turned out to be a Rwandan leader from the camp. He joined the party commitee and explained to the girls what was going on. Continuing on, we came to a house with lights on. We knocked on the door and were greeted by Manassi, the church leader who originally helped get the camp going. He invited us in. We explained what was happening and said we needed music. So he called the town’s keyboardist and as he gets off the phone, he says, “ya, he’s at the door”. The guy was standing on his front porch. We gathered the keyboardist, a random group of Ugandans on the way back, and had an awesome spontaneous dance party back at the guest house. Derek even brought a piece of stale bread, stuck a twig in it, lit it, and we all belowed a birthday tune for Betty.

As far as ministry goes, we started working at the hospital in Gahini. Many kids and some adults joined us daily for games, skits and songs. Caleb spoke to the kids the first day realizing it’s a bit different preaching to people who really have nothing, especially when you are a person that has so much. One of the patients, a young girl with epilepsy, was especially encouraging. She’d had a seizure and fell into a fire. She had burns on her entire body and had her fingers amputated, yet she loved music, and danced and sang, praising God every time she heard music. The day she arrived at the hospital, she was doing hospital visits, loving people, dancing and humming everywhere. She’s only … 10? Really makes you think about how good we have it.

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Mambo sawa sawa. Singing and dancing and singing and dancing…

So even though it’s a little tricky finding internet where there’s hardly running water, we will continue to tell some of our story when we have the chance. We left off writing at Zanzibar, and then received VIP status on the night ferry back…I guess it’s because whites are assumed to always take the best? Next time we’ll save the money and insist on normal travel as usual, as Derek spent most of the time down on lower class anyway. He met this drug dealer from Tanzania, and practiced his Swahili with him. He was the same age as us, and had just returned from some deals in South Africa. They got along great, and talked of life, love, dealing drugs, and yes, some language lessons. We’ll call him jack. He was crying out, wishing there was some other way to rise above, to make money and provide a life for himself. But with the economy in the EAC, it’s seemingly impossible. Derek shared part of his life with him, and just chilled with him all night. Allll night, as this ferry leaves port in the evening, stops at a bouy for a few hours, sails for a bit, sits for a few hours, sails, sits, etc, and finally arrives in Dar es salaam (mainland) in time for business hours the next day. ??? Haha, at least their not busy for the sake of being busy!

 

So back to the mainland, we found ourselves with a couple free days and no plans. Got cornrows, entertained everyone on a bus, took over the conductors job, made the driver wear a hemet, and were shown around by countless friends on the street. One night we met a tour guide from Holland and a couple of clients that were left with him. We spent the evening with them and eventually the topic of faith came up. We tag teamed explaining our faith. It was as if the convo was totally scripted with all three being totally interested and the tour guide asking tons of questions. Even though we had some good times in Dar, boredom was starting to sink in. It is amazing to see that once you start getting comfortable it is easy to start getting lazy and complacent. It was time to do something that would totally pull us out of our comfort zone, Welcome to Rwanda…

We prayed on the flight to Rwanda that we’d be pushed, challenged, and used. I love how if you pray the right way, it’s always answered…

Soon after landing we were assisted by a random friend who took care of everything and made sure we got out to the small village of Gahini. There we met with the canadian team that came out. They are very young and somewhat inexperienced in the travel department. However, they have adapted quickly and have been unreal in helping the first camp go so smoothly.

Camp Gahini is as strong as ever, even though you can see the shift from mzungu’s leading, to the local Rwandans leading. Often things are not ‘planned’, organization is at a minimum, and being on time is optional. However, even though to us this may seem messy, it doesnt seem to bother anyone here. Each camp runs for four days, with the same 150 kids. It’s a wild competition between four teams, each given a different coloured bracelet, each with a different cheer, dance, and activities. Every morning, we come down, and before anything is led by ‘leaders’, the kids are dancing and singing at ridiculous volumes, praising their lord Jesus in their language, kicking up a dust storm. Chosen at random for each team, the kids unknowingly become friends with other tribal enemies, coming out of the camp closer than their elders would have ever dreamed. The camp pushed us, as leaders, to speak, preach, dance and sing like we never have before. As the Rwandans slowly take over the camp, it gives some of our team a chance to leave the camp and do different types of village ministries. A small group of people will be going to a village on the 20^th where almost no one has ever seen a white person before. The plan is for Derek to preach there, so please keep him in your prayers! Yesterday, we did games, songs, and drama for the kids as usual, but then in the evening we hooked up a projector and showed the Jesus film in Kinrwandan. It’s amazing to see. Well, for us, it’s more amazing to see the villagers’ reaction than the film. Every time Jesus performs a miracle, or something interesting happens, the whole hall erupts in cheering, clapping, and praise. We’ve never seen an audience so responsive to a video!! It opened our eyes to how saturated we are in entertainment, and truly miss the point in a lot of things. More to come in the next couple days, as we have accumulated lots of stories to tell in the last couple weeks.

mornin’ glory

So we are alive.  We have been living in the boonies of Rwanda for the last three weeks and haven’t had any internet.  Life is pretty simple, yet extremely fun out here. Slip n’ slides, motorbike races, preaching, dancing, praying, and doing camps and church services, we have kept busy.  We hope to be able to explain some adventures in more detail soon.  unusable atm’s, pastors in the bush, burn victims,  land cruisers, and a fascinating, awe-inspiring God.

After a full night waiting, we’re loaded up, along with all the tomatoes and set sail