Faith, Hope, and Love

Note: This post was written after my first trip to Rwanda in July 2015. For some reason, I never posted it. I returned to Rwanda in June 2017 and have been asked to share about my trip for church. The thoughts from this blog post continue to swirl in my head as I reflect on my time in that beautiful country, so I felt it was time to finally send these thoughts into the world!  I can't get the image of Nyamata out of my head. The church doors still have the hole from where grenades were thrown. The walls are filled with holes from bullets and stained from people's blood. Small rivulets of light flow in through the tin roof because of holes left from shrapnel. The cloth covering the altar is almost completely a reddish-brown color--not colored by age or the red dirt Rwanda is known for, but rather by the blood of its people. Around one million Rwandans were killed during the 1994 genocide. No place was safe. Not even the church. As we entered the church, it felt like you w...

I've started to think about them often-- Beatrice and Scovia . They are the two Esther Home Girls that are sponsored through IF: Gathering and who I'll get to meet when I'm in Rwanda in July . I don't remember if I gave to the campaign that allowed their dreams to go to college possible, and so I've browsed through the small profiles/update we've been given , hoping to come up with gifts that can bring with me. Maybe a scarf? Or a set of my favorite colored pens? Maybe those things would be too small, too trivial? I don't know. And then I hear insecurity whisper: Maybe everything you have to offer will be too small, too trivial. Not just to the girls, but on the whole trip. And I tremble with fear. By nature, I am a pretty cautious person. I don't like to take risks, and any adventures I embark on are generally strongly vetted (or are only adventures because I finally decided to actually step outside  my home). But God has been nudging me...

Dear Family and Friends, In February, I participated in a women’s conference called IF: Gathering. The theme this year was all about faith—if God is real, then what? If I believe in His word, then what? If I trust that He is good, how do I respond? At the end of the week, we were asked to think about our “next step of faith” and offered different ways for us to actively live out our faith. One of those ways was through a mission trip to work alongside Africa New Life Ministries in Rwanda. Rwanda is a small but densely populated country nestled in East Africa. During the 20th century, Rwanda reached a height of violence in the 1994 Genocide. Now, over 20 years since the Genocide, Rwanda has and continues to demonstrate to the world the power of reconciliation and forgiveness. Africa New Life Ministries is a child sponsorship organization that provides a comprehensive level of care to the students, ministering to both physical and spiritual needs as well as focusing on the comm...