So the song Open the Eyes of my Heart more or less became the prayer of our trip to Rwanda. Which seemed very appropriate since Brandon Heath's "Give Me Your Eyes" was the theme song for ISP this year. So a good majority of our trip was just focused on us asking God to give us His eyes.
Our time in Rwanda started in an amazing way. We got out of the airport and got most of our luggage, only missing one bag which we were able to get the next day. Regardless, we made it safe and we were just stoked to be in Rwanda finally and ready to do what God wanted us to. From there we get on to the bus that is going to take us to the first hotel. However, we have to wait a few minutes to find out about the missing bad. As we are sitting in the bus the bus driver asked if he can see Steve's guitar, Steve was fine with it and so the man starts playing. He begins to start playing "Open the Eyes of my Heart" which I found to be an incredible blessing. So the two teams are sitting here in this bus after 30 hours of travel in worship of the sovereign God just praying that he will open our eyes and allow us to see him, and see what he sees.
Throughout the trip several times Steve and I were blessed with the opportunity to lead worship not just for our team, but also for the university students and even a local church. Several times we just ended up playing "Open the Eyes of My Heart", I fully believe this was Spirit led. Steve also had the music for "Give Me Your Eyes," and we found ourselves leading that song on multiple occasions as well.
God answered this prayer of ours. To once again quote Steve, "God ripped open my eyes and showed me what he sees everyday." Rwanda is a very broken nation, fifteen years ago they suffered a genocide in which at least 500,000 people were killed. However, I saw more joy and peace in the Rwandan people than I have in any other group of people.
Slavery in America ended 150 years ago and some Americans are still bitter about that, on both sides of the spectrum. Everyone from that time period has passed away, and some people still have a sense of bitterness about it. Fifteen years ago, this happened in Rwanda; that is in my lifetime as well as probably anyone reading this, but still they do not have this sense of bitterness about it. They told us that they did not wanted to be remembered for the genocide, it happened to them but it is not them. I will always remember them for the peace that they had, as well as how hospitable they were, and many other things. If you went to Rwanda not knowing that there was a genocide, you probably wouldn't know. There was rare mention of it while we were there.
God opened our eyes and allowed us to see a sense of peace in a people group that is still very hurt by this genocide. A peace that could have only come from him.
God allowed us to be changed by the peace that they have.
He opened our eyes to see the poverty in this country. The street children chasing someone down for any sort of handout, they had to work for their handouts. God allowed us to see how blessed of a nation that America is. God allowed us to see so many things through his eyes, and I fully believe that this experience has changed my life as well as the lives of my teammates.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
People...
This year I met some truly amazing people through my trip to Rwanda. I was able to visit a new continent with 15 people that I had never met prior to November, and two others that I knew as acquaintances, and was able to make good friends with many of them. Through this I met some amazing people, people that I could truly see living the life that God has called them to live. They all very much inspire me.
The guys that I went with were a solid group of guys that have just majorly inspired me. They were the exact example of what God has called men to be. I remember the first full day that we were there we all woke up and one of them asked if we were all interested in doing a men's Bible study while we were in Africa. This Bible study truly blessed me. It was truly incredible to go to a different country with a group of 6 other guys, where 4 out of 7 are studying the Bible as part of their classes, one changing to Christian studies, and then even the ones who aren't having a very strong foundation in the word of God. It was an incredible blessing to have people around me at all times who had amazing insight on the word of God.
A couple of the guys had said things that just truly inspired me, even now that I'm back home they are still hitting me. I want to share a few of them with you...
Santiago at one point had told Chris, "I didn't come to Rwanda to chill." The context of this was the day after we landed, we were all tired, crabby and just wanted to sleep but instead Santiago was being a champ and instead of resting goes out and starts just finding children and just starts loving on them.
Danie (girl) asked us a question about what we would tell people when we got home from Rwanda. People are going to ask what we did how would we respond. Steve answered this question amazingly. His response was this, "God ripped open my eyes and gave me a glimpse of what he sees every day." God sees the poverty, the brokenness, the hurting, and He allowed us to see these things. Steve further went onto challenge my team to be intentional about how we are going to spread the gospel at home everyday.
I want to say that more often than not I, as well as others, were surprised by the insight that was brought about by the non-Christian studies students. I honestly could not have picked a group of people that I would rather spend 3 weeks in a foreign country with.
The girls I couldn't forget at all. The guys were outnumbered on this trip. Regardless of this I will say that I was also very blessed by the girls that went to Rwanda. One way that I was very specifically blessed was on the way home in the Kenya airport we were just looking through the different stores and we came by a store that had magazines on display and one of the girls spoke up to say, "Brian, don't look over here." It took me a second to realize what she meant, then I noticed that there was a whole row of magazines - and thus figured out what she was telling me to watch out for. A similar situation happened on the airplane from London to LAX, one of the other girls had warned me to be careful about looking forward because the movie that the guy in front of me was watching had nudity. It truly is a blessing to have a group of females that realize that the men that they are on a team with all struggle with lust, being that we're human, and also just assisting us to avoid the temptation. I don't know if either of the two girls realize how much of a blessing I found this, but it was truly incredible for me. Steve wrote a song for the girls of our team, I helped a little with writing a lead and and just playing the song along with him. This song just talked about how we were so appreciative of what the girls have done for us, whether they realize how much of a blessing they had been to us or not it was incredible.
There were a lot of good things said so I can't remember all of them to quote more but I was truly blessed by all the members of both my team as well as the B team. The girls definitely displayed an amazing examples of what Biblical Womanhood really is.
I know that I'm forgetting amazing things that happened and I apologize for that, but I really just wanted to write this specific blog as a thank you. Thank you everyone for making this the amazing experience that it was. I miss seeing everyone on a daily basis. God has truly blessed me with the opportunity to make amazing friends.
The guys that I went with were a solid group of guys that have just majorly inspired me. They were the exact example of what God has called men to be. I remember the first full day that we were there we all woke up and one of them asked if we were all interested in doing a men's Bible study while we were in Africa. This Bible study truly blessed me. It was truly incredible to go to a different country with a group of 6 other guys, where 4 out of 7 are studying the Bible as part of their classes, one changing to Christian studies, and then even the ones who aren't having a very strong foundation in the word of God. It was an incredible blessing to have people around me at all times who had amazing insight on the word of God.
A couple of the guys had said things that just truly inspired me, even now that I'm back home they are still hitting me. I want to share a few of them with you...
Santiago at one point had told Chris, "I didn't come to Rwanda to chill." The context of this was the day after we landed, we were all tired, crabby and just wanted to sleep but instead Santiago was being a champ and instead of resting goes out and starts just finding children and just starts loving on them.
Danie (girl) asked us a question about what we would tell people when we got home from Rwanda. People are going to ask what we did how would we respond. Steve answered this question amazingly. His response was this, "God ripped open my eyes and gave me a glimpse of what he sees every day." God sees the poverty, the brokenness, the hurting, and He allowed us to see these things. Steve further went onto challenge my team to be intentional about how we are going to spread the gospel at home everyday.
I want to say that more often than not I, as well as others, were surprised by the insight that was brought about by the non-Christian studies students. I honestly could not have picked a group of people that I would rather spend 3 weeks in a foreign country with.
The girls I couldn't forget at all. The guys were outnumbered on this trip. Regardless of this I will say that I was also very blessed by the girls that went to Rwanda. One way that I was very specifically blessed was on the way home in the Kenya airport we were just looking through the different stores and we came by a store that had magazines on display and one of the girls spoke up to say, "Brian, don't look over here." It took me a second to realize what she meant, then I noticed that there was a whole row of magazines - and thus figured out what she was telling me to watch out for. A similar situation happened on the airplane from London to LAX, one of the other girls had warned me to be careful about looking forward because the movie that the guy in front of me was watching had nudity. It truly is a blessing to have a group of females that realize that the men that they are on a team with all struggle with lust, being that we're human, and also just assisting us to avoid the temptation. I don't know if either of the two girls realize how much of a blessing I found this, but it was truly incredible for me. Steve wrote a song for the girls of our team, I helped a little with writing a lead and and just playing the song along with him. This song just talked about how we were so appreciative of what the girls have done for us, whether they realize how much of a blessing they had been to us or not it was incredible.
There were a lot of good things said so I can't remember all of them to quote more but I was truly blessed by all the members of both my team as well as the B team. The girls definitely displayed an amazing examples of what Biblical Womanhood really is.
I know that I'm forgetting amazing things that happened and I apologize for that, but I really just wanted to write this specific blog as a thank you. Thank you everyone for making this the amazing experience that it was. I miss seeing everyone on a daily basis. God has truly blessed me with the opportunity to make amazing friends.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Jericho
I'm gonna start this off slow. I never went to an internet cafe while in Rwanda, so I'll recap it all now. So I just wanted to start by telling you about Jericho. Many of you know about the story in Joshua where the city of Jericho is destroyed. My team and I began to read and study Joshua in Rwanda and at some point we began to see that we had escaped the desert, we had crossed the Jordan but we had not gotten to Jericho yet. By that I mean that we had see God do amazing things right from the beginning but there were still bigger things to come. So during this trip we all set our eyes on Jericho. We made one lap around the wall. Now the other six laps remain. God did amazing things while we were out there, now we just have to see how God goes about knocking the walls down.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Here's how you can pray...
Please pray for my team and I over the next twenty days. Here is how you can do so.
Pray that we will rely on God to give us strength when we are tired, and sick and just want to give up. Pray that we will remember Psalm 41 at all times.
Pray that we would build friendships.
Pray that God will give us the opportunity to share with the people about our reason for being there.
Pray that we would remember at all times that it's not about the place that we are but rather about the One we are there for.
Pray for us to have unity as a team, and that we would build each other up at all times, even when we just want to go home. Note: I love my team, as well as the other team that I am going with, they are some of the most amazing people that I have ever met.
Pray that we would be receptive to God's will.
Pray that the word of God would be on our hearts at all times.
You can also check for updates here -
Pray that we will rely on God to give us strength when we are tired, and sick and just want to give up. Pray that we will remember Psalm 41 at all times.
Pray that we would build friendships.
Pray that God will give us the opportunity to share with the people about our reason for being there.
Pray that we would remember at all times that it's not about the place that we are but rather about the One we are there for.
Pray for us to have unity as a team, and that we would build each other up at all times, even when we just want to go home. Note: I love my team, as well as the other team that I am going with, they are some of the most amazing people that I have ever met.
Pray that we would be receptive to God's will.
Pray that the word of God would be on our hearts at all times.
You can also check for updates here -
Monday, May 18, 2009
Broken
So I was on facebook today when I saw that my friend's brother had posted a link, it was to this website, I Am Second on this website there is a video by a guy named Blake Mankin he talks about Africa, and talks about how broken he was when he got of the plane when he landed in Sudan. I'm leaving for Rwanda on Wednesday, and I'll be updating this while I'm gone. Until now, I hadn't thought much about how different it will be, how I will see people suffering hardships that I could never imagine. People living in a country still haunted by a terrible genocide that occurred fifteen years ago, broken by watching their sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, friends and more all taken away and murdered. People who are truly broken.
Part of me scared of how broken I will become for these people, the other part in awe of God's glory and wonder knowing that whatever happens God will use this trip to change lives.
While I'm gone, I urge you to pray that the people who are going with me, as well as my self will be changed by God in these twenty days, to further become the people he wants us to be, and the people this world needs to see. Also pray for the people we encounter, pray that they see something in us that just screams hope, that just screams of the supernatural - pray that they would see Christ in us at all times.
Part of me scared of how broken I will become for these people, the other part in awe of God's glory and wonder knowing that whatever happens God will use this trip to change lives.
While I'm gone, I urge you to pray that the people who are going with me, as well as my self will be changed by God in these twenty days, to further become the people he wants us to be, and the people this world needs to see. Also pray for the people we encounter, pray that they see something in us that just screams hope, that just screams of the supernatural - pray that they would see Christ in us at all times.
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