need one? be one.

This is Team Kivu, the small group that will be traveling to Rwanda in 6 short weeks! Starting top row left this is Karen, Bryan, Jeri, and Bob. Front row: me, Colleen, and Mike.

See, I told you we were normal. The trip is composed of 5 such groups, and we are getting to know eachother through our training period, so that we will be more effective to get stuff done once we arrive in Kibuye.

"Training" may sound like an odd way to phrase what we are doing; we associate training with athletic or professional endeavors. But if you can picture what it would take to bring Normal You to a place of readiness to be something other than stunned and useless to a poor, sick, underresourced, scarred, and weary group of people who needed your assistance, can you picture you'd probably want training? Right.

Stunned and useless was where I started Saturday morning when I pictured taking on the P.E.A.C.E. plan- style tasks that my small group packed into this past weekend: on Saturday, a Poker Fun Run Fundraiser for Jeri, a member of Team Kivu, and on Sunday, teaming up to help a family pack their house for a move. Fish-out-of-water might aptly describe me eating lunch with 20 bikers (long story, loved them!) and taking a house from extreme disarray to boxed-and-ready together with a group of 11 hardworking friends. Yet, after the fact, there is nothing that mattered more. In the end, Jeri's fundraiser was a roaring success and a ton of fun, and packing the house for Jen (a cancer patient with two toddlers and a teenage son)and Ted felt like being part of a miracle. One they needed desperately.

Generally speaking, I've noticed either I need a miracle or I'm positioned to be part of one. We are back in the NEED ONE category today. Dave learned Friday that his job has been ellimiated: another casualty of this heinous economy. Today we join the ranks of the unemployed in search of our next miracle. And just like last time, it will show up, we just don't know how. I will need prayer and total clarity to make the decisions we face in the next few weeks. We need some miracles and are actually excited to see them rise like a perfect sun on our horizon. Because that's what our God is like.

as we forgive

There is something going on in Rwanda right now called 100 Days of Hope. It is the 15th anniversary of the genocide, so in Rwanda, there are many observances. In the same way that we in the US observe the passage of years since a national trauma like 9-11-01, the Rwandans are marking time and honoring the lost as well as celebrating the reconciliations that are not just "religious" in quality, but are also social, political and personal.

As We Forgive is a documentary (and a companion book) which will debut July 3rd in Rwanda, and then go on to be shown worldwide and through PBS stations everywhere. It is an award-winning film that highlights the private reconciliation stories of victims, widows, orphans and perpetrators "whose past and future intersect". Pray with me on July 3rd that the opening of the film will reach 1000's in country and internationally, so that the beauty of the many reconciliation efforts in Rwanda can flourish.

How does this affect me? I am not at war with my racial opposites. I am not even angry at anyone. But I've been hurt and I've wished harm. I do not understand the feelings of the people in the world whose loved-ones were the victims of violence and injustice. But this does not exempt me. I am not UN-called to love and forgive and care just because that is not my story. I see injustice all around me, I'm no longer blissfully blinded. It is not my personality to interfere with things that are not my business. But, my personality is not the only aspect of my humanity God asks me to operate from. It's just the beginning of something I'm learning.

There's no real end to this path. This is a good thing.

P.S. to see the movie trailer for yourself, click on the title of this post :)

over-joyed

Every been over-joyed? Not overjoyed, as in; I am just overjoyed to find out that my friend is pregnant after years of infertility, or; I'm overjoyed at the chance to have a day off while the sun is out so I can go to the ocean with my family. No, over-joyed, as in over-worked, over-whelmed, over-come, only not with too much work, pain, or exhaustion: with too much joy. That's how I feel lately. There is more joy set before me, more to look forward to than I can even think about in one thought, and more than I expected this year to have in it. How much joy can I even hold? I have more than I can handle with these hands.

When I get to talk to someone about what we will be doing in Kibuye, this thrill just gushes out and when we are done talking, I'm breathless with the invigoration of all of it. Probably the ordinary life of working and raising a family, although it's fun (no offense, fam) has dulled my thrill-nerve, and it is suddenly exposed by the opportunity to do something amazing. And probably, there has been amazing stuff to do all around me all this time that I was dull to, as well. What I mean is, it's not Rwanda or this work after all that is the source of all this ridiculous joy: it's giving yourself to people for a purpose that is simple and essential, and actually appreciating the process because it has a beauty -in the planning and in the doing- that feels like a gigantic perfect rose bloom opening in my face. Like that one from Maria's garden.

The bible says that Jesus did what he did for the joy set before him. In Hebrews 12:2, it says:

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

That was his motivator: JOY. I love that about him. It inspires me to let joy source my life like an underground reservoir for action, for dreaming, for plans and for purpose. The version of the bible called The Message, puts the same verse in modern words:

Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we're in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever.

Are you over-joyed? Want to be? Ask. I know I'm getting all preachy, but hang in for a sec. Today I read in Luke 11 (on the subject of Fathers, since it is Father's Day this Sunday) that ANY Dad (even an average Dad -if there is such a thing) will give his child a snack when they ask, and not slip a snake into his hands instead. This is the image Jesus uses to answer the question: how should we pray? Pray like a kid asking his Dad for a snack: totally sure that because he loves you, he won't let you go hungry. That, times a gazillion = God your father's desire to answer you.

So, here's the deal. Ask for joy. Let me know what happens.

what is fair trade and why should I care

Please check out the new Trade As One blog, which happens to feature some extraordinarily cool people from my church. Colleen, whose face graces the start of the video (you are so famous, Colleen), is my team leader to Rwanda. This past weekend, Dave, Julia and I trekked down to Boston to check out the Fair Trade exhibit, and see up close what fair trade vendors are up to. We are aware of fair trade mainly because Manchester Christian Church partners with Trade As One, and so we have a little mini boutique of products made available through them at church. All of the products they represent are fair trade, which means that crafters and growers get paid fairly for their work. Not just that: frequently fair trade items are making life possible for people who are escaping sextrade networks, and making an income for families with HIV positive members who have few income opportunities. And can I just say, the fair trade items I own are really high quality as well! The basket in the above pic was made in Rwanda, and it most often holds one of the major protein sources our family lives on: Peanut M&M's. There are lots of fair trade products available in the general market now, so we can look for the Fair Trade Federation seal on things like Honest Tea (great stuff) and many coffees too. Naturally I got a great new bag from Marigold - being the queen of bags and bowls, I have a title to uphold.

Seriously, I've never been very aware of spending with a social conscience. Its really not that complicated: let my consumerism make a difference whenever possible. For instance, if I buy fair trade coffee brewed for us at church on Sunday instead of at Dunks, I am letting the real coffee growers who made it get paid fairly (and the coffee is also yummy). Win-win.

It is amazing and embarassing how much bigger my world is now than it once was. Recently, I was fb'd (facebooked) by a California nurse who has worked in Rwanda and wants to answer my questions. She was responding to a blog post I wrote on Morgan in Africa. Dave shakes his head when I tell him these things because he knows my tight little world is breaking open. On one hand, I have forty-plus years of ignorance to make up for and it's humbling to say the least. On the other hand, this God of ours is so much bigger than my envelope of ideas of him. Is that not GOOD news?

survivor

This July 24-26, I will participate for the second time in the Breast Cancer 3 Day, an event in which people walk 60 miles in a 3 day period to raise money to end breast cancer. There are 15 such events nationwide, and this year, Boston kicks of the season.

Since losing my mother to breast cancer, I have met so many people whose lives are indelibly altered by loss when their loved one did not survive and survivors who continue to battle on. I did the 3 Day last year as a walker, and this year I will be on Bike Safety Crew. So as I plan for Rwanda, I am also training to be bike-ready for 10-14 hour days "in the saddle" (cylcists lingo for on the bike) - serving the walkers, who are worthy of all my time, tender tuchis, and temporary tenting because what they do will remarkably add days to a life that is precious.

I love survivors. The survivor status at The 3 Day is a significant honor. Survivors, the ones who have had cancer, walk alongside us and enter the closing ceremonies last, like battle-scarred warriors, which they are. It is a moment of choking back tears or letting them flow when we stop to cheer them and recognize that the fight is still going on, even as we enjoy the achievement of the walk we have just completed together.

I am a Survivor fan - the show, I mean. I am one of those addicted souls who rush to be home for 8pm on Thursdays when the group of reality-tv characters show up for their 39 day ordeal of athletic and mental endeavors, and I love to root for a winner just as much as the next guy. But I know that surviving desolate conditions in Tocantins, Brazil is nothing compared to surviving cancer or genocide. And, anything risky you take on by choice is pretty much off the table when a discussion of life and death arises for real. Is perching on a pole for over an hour without falling off really surviving? And yet I watch.

Survivors of the genocide which killed 90% of the city of Kibuye, Rwanda, where I will be living, are not all immediately obvious just at a glance. I'm told that when we meet them, they will not be identified as such, but we will know from their age who was orphaned, because those kids are about 15-25 now. We will know, if we see people with less than all of their appendages, that they lived through unspeakable events. Are they people of honor? Lauded in society? What is remarkable is that Rwandans feel very ashamed of their history - folks who have nothing to be sorry for, are humiliated by the actions of the Hutu power movement which scarred their legacy. Some do not look you in the eye because of this - because you are foreign and visiting, and what must you think of them. This is a different kind of survivor, to be sure.

Am I a survivor? I am certainly not a war hero or a cancer patient (yet). I am not mamed by the machete. Yet, I fight for life. We all do. What are you surviving?

shots and live typhoid in the fridge

Shot, to be more exact. Today I went to The Travel Clinic with Karen Lofgren for our shots - and was surprised to find that we could only get one; the yellow fever appointment will take place when five of us are all there together because there is a shortage and the doc only opens a vial of five doses when he has five victims, um, patients. And the malaria is a pill, so we take that at home along with the live typhoid capsules which are living in my fridge. Yup, behind the eggs. Don't eat at my house for a while.

This is kind of really actually happening. Each little step toward our time in Rwanda seems small but feels more and more solid (less dream-like) with each doorway I pass through. It reminds me, strangely enough, of getting married and every little thing that led to May 2nd, 1987, becoming David's wife. Three years of wacky friendship, letters, distance, dating, I love you's, gifts, holidays, families, lots more I love you's, then a diamond. Before the ring, Dave actually had to take a job and move near me, which must have been a huge deal for him! Although 5/2/87 was the day my identity changed (from just me into his wife), each little choice over 5 years moved me toward that one.

I find that sometimes choices make my other choices. I choose to go to Rwanda and help out, love a while, and come home with new eyes. But this choice is making many little choices right now: I had to get a new passport (arrived today), immunizations, do some fundraising, and basically get out of my own way to make this trip real. As real as a shot in the arm.

Hope you like the photos :)

P.S. I know why weddings are on my mind: today my parents would have had their 52nd anniversary

P.P.S. Shots schmots (doesn't work as well as risk schmisk)

TRAVEL STUFF

• Airfare went Down and the due date moved back! Now airfare to Rwanda is available for the bargain basement price of just $1,875, and is due by 6/22, which means...
• IT IS NOT too late to join my Support Team (go team!)
• Total support raised thus far, thanks to YOU: $1,580, which means...
• I'm over halfway there!

All this and prayer support too. Wow