Thoughts Pt. 3

God and the Genocide (The worst of man and the best of God)

Being in Rwanda, it was hard not to notice their intensely different take on religion and God. In Canada, devout Christians seeking to express their faith in some way might hang a rosary around their rear-view mirror or slap a Jesus-fish decal on their trunk. In Rwanda however even the biggest Jesus-fish would be too small of a statement. Instead, nearly every mini-bus, car, moto/ bike-taxi has large decals plastered on it front and back expressing their love for Jesus or God. Three by one foot decals shout: "Jesus is my friend", "I love God", "God bless you" (in one of their three spoken languages). Their shameless zeal can also be seen nearly every morning of the week when many business gather early to sing and pray before starting the day or on the Weekends when many attend church and nearly all available businesses, buildings or shelters become a place of worship. Some might say it is easy for them to be so open and expressive about their faith in such an overwhelmingly Christian nation, but in seeing the earnestness of their faith in real life it's easy to see their faith plays out much differently than the majority of Westerners. JoAnna and I saw many with faith that could move mountains or at least a small hill. The only possible explanation I can come up with for this is that they have no choice but to rely on God to provide. In North America, we have pension funds, RRSP's, 401k's and hefty savings accounts to fall back onto should life every take a turn for the worst. Nearly all of us have never had to consider the possibility of going without food for a day or two because we couldn't afford it. In Africa, many have no choice but to remain faithfully reliant on God to provide them with a means to eat or clothe their children and no doubt many have seen God come through in a big way in their lives. Not, only is their faith and zeal impressive but it is doubly so considering their past. How does a nation remain so faithful in light of what they experienced? After many saw lifelong church-goers turn on their fellow congregants or a pastor or priest gleefully opening the doors of their church to a militia so that they can slaughter the hundreds of asylum-seekers inside? How can one exclaim God is great after their entire family was murdered before their eyes? The answer that I received time and time again was shocking. Many summed it up shortly in saying that the genocide was the worst possible acts of man (all men, men of faith included) and the mostly successful reconciliation that has taken place since they say is only due to God's grace and goodness. This shocked me because the reaction would have been much different (probably the inverse) in North America. I can only help but think that the reaction in North America would have blamed God or the church for the genocide and what happened and saw the reconciliation as the work of man's greatness. After all was said and done I thought it absurd that North America or elsewhere would send missionaries to Africa, instead they should be coming here.

Now for something completely different!
JoAnna and I are now back safe and sound in Canada where we will spend the next couple of days visiting friends and family in High River, Lethbridge and Red Deer before moving to Edmonton to continue our studies in September. This blog will be the last of the Thoughts series and another couple of blog entries will come before we shut things down.

We hope to see many of you soon and wish you well,

Alex and Jo

The Cit-ay of Luv

Sorry for the long wait between posts, but we’ve been busy as of late enjoying our time here in Europe. Last Thursday, JoAnna and I left Rwanda to start our journey back home. Because flying from Africa to North America (or vice versa) necessitates a stop through Europe, we thought we would take the occasion to enjoy ourselves in Europe for a couple of weeks before heading back home. My parents also decided to take the opportunity to fly to Europe and join us for those two weeks to celebrate their 30^th Anniversary. So here we are one week in, relaxing in our Parisian apartment after our first full day touring Paris. Just to give you a little run-down on the things we’ve experienced since our departure Thursday night. Our flight arrived in Brussels, Belgium at 6:10am Friday morning and we were greeted at the airport by my parents and their rental car. After a quick morning visit of downtown Brussels and some Belgian waffles, we hopped in the car and headed off to Brugges, Belgium. Brugges is a beautiful town with plenty of history and lies in Northern Belgium, not far from the Dutch border. A UNESCO world heritage site, there was plenty to be seen as many of the buildings date back to the 1500’s or earlier. After three days of taking in some beautiful museums, a brewery tour and even the final performance of an international music festival, we began our scenic three-day voyage to Paris. During our scenic trip we were able to take in several historic Canadian war monuments and museums such as the Flanders Fields museum in Ypres, Beligum and the site of the Canadian D-day landing in Dieppe, France. Upon arriving in Paris Wednesday afternoon we found our apartment, returned the rental car and settled in to our cozy 6^th floor Parisian apartment where we will spend the next 6 days. To conclude the blogging of our trip we will in the upcoming days (whether from Paris or home) post the conclusion to the Thoughts series as well as the link to our Photobucket account and an additional blog including some of our impressions of Europe in light what we saw on our trip and a top 10 list of things we didn’t expect to experience in Africa but did. We look forward to seeing all of you soon and sharing some of our additional thoughts and experiences of our trip with you after we get back. In the meantime we will spend our days trying our best to enjoy the many sights and tastes of Paris.

Love you all,

Alex and Jo

Thoughts Pt. 2

After another long restless night I give you Thoughts pt. 2. If you missed out Thoughts Pt. 1 make sure you take the time to look over it before continuing below. As always, if you loved it or hated it, let us know. A quick disclaimer: while reading the Thoughts series, please keep in mind that these are late night, sarcasm latent, unapologetic rants. Also, keep in mind that these commentaries mostly seek to comment on the negative aspects of the human condition and how they play themselves out in the form of greed, avarice (materialism), pride/comparison and all-around laziness in North American culture and that by pointing them out, I am in no way saying that I am above or beyond them, in fact I probably struggle and fall victim to them just as much or more than you do.

Stewardship (If only I had more money)
Stewardship. When the word comes to mind, it is usually in the sense of being a good steward, taking care of the responsibility given to you. In Christianity, the word stewardship is usually used in reference to being responsible for the things given to you from God. In Genesis, after God created Adam, He gave Adam responsibility to watch over beast and earth alike and to be a good steward of both, i.e. responsibility to use them responsibly (a responsibility that modern Christians often shirk for a variety of reasons). The word stewardship also applies to one’s money (how and where we spend it and how and where we give it away). We would all like to think that we are responsible people, mature and good things of the like, but the reality (regardless of age) is usually a lot less. Upon accompanying my African friends to the market place, I’ve been convinced that we (in North America) probably all fall short of being called stewards (let alone good stewards). The scruple and care that Africans take while buying and caring for their possessions is nothing short of anal. I mean sure we all fondle, fiddle and handle the apples before picking 5 or so, but what I’ve seen here is a whole new level of scrupulous. Whether it be beans, fruit, shoes or strainers, nothing is small potatoes (pardon the pun). An example, my friend spent a good 5 minutes examining every strainer available to make sure it was the best possible one before buying it. If he was going to spend his hard earned money he wanted something that was going to last. 5 minutes! Five minutes (that seemed like an eternity to me) to decide which dollar-store-quality strainer he was going to buy! My same friend takes that kind of time to pick out everything… no matter big or small, expensive or cheap. And when he goes to the market, he knows exactly what he’s going to buy because he’s already thought about it long and hard. In those insufferably long 5 minutes (insufferable because my Pavolovian-conditioned attention span is the size of a gnat’s see joy), I had time to consider my course of action had it been my money and decision to make: I would have bought the first strainer my eyes laid sight upon (regardless of quality or relative price +/- a dollar or two) and had I gotten the strainer home and it broke within a week, I would have probably returned to the same store and spent another $2.50 on a new strainer hoping that the machine or Chinese kid who put it together did a better job this time around. I would have treated that strainer like I treat most of my possessions, as disposable and replaceable. Yeah, I can easily buy a new strainer, I have the money, but that’s hardly being responsible with what has been entrusted to me. The worst part about my typical North American mindset is that when that neighborhood kid comes to the door looking for money for a school in Africa or to feed the hungry, I’ll turn him away because I don’t have enough money for his charity or I only support a select few others and I’ll probably think a thought like “if only I had more money I would be more inclined to help you out, sorry”. What if instead, we treated everything we have as if it wasn’t so easily replaceable? What if we stopped and thought about the quality of what we were buying and if we really needed it or not? I’m sure we probably wouldn’t have that closet or crawlspace full of boxed up crap. Cups and dishes, books and irons packaged away, collecting dust. Fact is, if you stop and think about the excess that you live in and then consider that people around the world (or just around the block) are struggling to save up enough money to buy that same very crap that you have sitting in our basement, it’s enough to make one sick (or at least minutely depressed). If being a steward means being responsible, it probably looks a lot different than dusty boxes of crap. It probably looks more like, garage sales, the Salvation Army Thrift Store and giving things away to that needy family a couple of blocks over. And mostly it probably looks a lot like responsible spending.

P.S. JoAnna and I are spending our last weekend here in Kigali relaxing and spending time with our friends. One thing we neglected to mention in our last blog was that we bum-rushed the gates of a concert with about two thousand other people. Yeah! We were waiting in line to get into a big pan-african dance/music festival and the crowd starting pushing against the gates. The police and military police could do nothing as a wave of about 4-5 hundred Africans (and four muzungus) found their way through before they were able to close them again. My one concern at the time was squeeze your toes tight and hold on to those flip-flops! We did. All is well and we will be leaving Rwanda this next Thursday.

Love,

Alex and Jo