Easter at our church

Yesterday was quite a special day at church for us.  It was our first Easter in our new church, our first baby dedication, and our first communion together!  What a blessed time we had!  Here are some glimpses from the day...

I just think this little girl is so precious!  She was among the little ones that we dedicated.

God bless these little feet!

Just a few of the little children from the church.  We have lots of children!

The choir of women wearing their colorful ibitenge (traditional wrap skirts)!

Sweet little girl in her princess dress!  She was also dedicated yesterday.

It was a baby dedication but some parents wanted to dedicate their older children to God to since they didn't have the chance when they were younger.  Never too late to dedicate your children to Jesus and ask Him to bless them!

Appolinaire praying for a little one during the dedication.

Last Night's Dinner

In yesterday's post I mentioned that I was trying to put together a nice birthday dinner for my husband.  Well, here's how that went... (pictures would have been ideal but someone is borrowing my camera so words will have to suffice)!

Let's start with the cake...DELICIOUS!  I used a recipe for cupcakes but put it in my 8 inch baking pan instead and turned it into a cake.  I was very pleased with the outcome.  It was a nice moist cake, very simple, using orange juice for a really nice flavor.  Then i just used a bit of butter, milk, vanilla, and lots of icing sugar to whip up a nice creamy icing.  Cake= success!

Okay, the fish... My dear husband like fish so much but we don't eat it often.  We are living in a land locked country and finding a nice fish fillet is a bit expensive, the hour drive to town to buy it.  This is the lesson I learned yesterday. :)  I decided that there might happen to be a place in the small town where we live that sells fish so I sent our house helper on a mission to find out.  I probably should have gone myself but I was feeling tired and didn't feel like walking all over town with my huge belly searching for fish...mistake number one.  Well, he was quite pleased with himself when he came home and was excited to show my what he found.  I took a little peek in the bag while he ran to get a pot and I saw tails so I knew what was coming.  Indeed, he found some fish, probably caught from nearby Lake Muhazi.  But they were not the nice little boneless fillet that was I hoping for.  Instead what I got was eight little fish dangling from a rope, tails, eyes, scales, the whole thing.  I smiled and thanked him for finding them and put them in the pot.  That pot sat in my kitchen for the next few hours smelling up the whole place while I contemplated how to cook them.  All I could imagine was a nice birthday dinner gone horribly wrong!  My husband came home and I showed him the fish and began to appoligize for my mistake explaining to him that I have no clue how to cook these fish.  He had a great attitude and reassured me that I could just clean them up good and put them in the oven.  So that is exactly what we did.  Our house helper cleaned them very nicely for me and I just put them in the oven on a pan with a little oil.  Oh, I did cut the tails off first at my husband's request.  I am not sure why that was important since I left the heads in tack :)  Anyway, long story short...they weren't too bad.  We just had to pick them apart and chew carefully to avoid bones but the meat (the little meat that there was) tasted pretty nice.  Oh and I learned that the popping sound coming from the oven while they were cooking was probably their eyes exploding :)  Fish= semi-success
I also threw together a simple sauce with carrots and tomatoes which turned out okay.
The realy success of the night was the rice!  I am very pleased to say that I finally found a way to make rice that is not sticky!!!!!!  I know that rice is so simple and people all over the world cook it, but I am horrified to admit that I struggle to make a nice pot of rice.  It is always either too sticky or I don't cook it long enough.  Last night, I made Spanish rice and it was amazing!  I think that I learned the key is to saute the rice and onion and pepper for a few minutes before adding your water.  It may have been the first time that I cooked rice that was fully cooked (not still crunchy), and not sticky at all.  Yea! Rice=success!
All in all my husband was happy and had a nice birthday so all is well here in the Ntiganzwa household :)

It's been too long...

It has been too many days since I posted!  General update: We are doing well and keeping busy!  It is now only a month away from my due date!  I can hardly believe that we will be meeting our precious little boy so soon.  I know that life as we know it is about to change forever!  But we are excited and blessed. 
Today is Appolinaire's birthday!  I am trying to put together something special for dinner tonight...maybe I'll have to write about how that went tomorrow.  I sent our house helper on a search to look for fish since that is a favorite of my husband.  Yeah, I maybe should have went myself?!  In my kitchen right now is a bunch of fish and by that I mean whole fish, skin, eyes, tails, the whole deal!  Problem?  I have no clue how to clean them or cook them!  I guess I'll wait until my husband comes home and see if maybe he knows how?  Sorry honey!  Anyway, I am planning on cooking some rice and veggies too and of course I have to make a cake!  So I will be heading to the kitchen soon :)
Things at the church are going well.  We had a great time with the youth last weekend.  Saturday we had a youth seminar all day.  Appolinaire and I took turns teaching and God really blessed our time.  Our church is pretty small but we have a good amount of young people so we are trying to really invest in that area.
Yesterday we had a nice time with the women from the church too.  We met with them to discuss and exchange ideas/plans for the upcoming "Hands For Hope" project.  I am excited about what God is going to do there.  So many of these women carry such heavy burdens and such pain in their hearts.  I am really starting to feel connected with them in a deep way and I thank God for that.  We had a precious time sharing with eachother.  The afternoon rain came and boy did it ever come!  It poured so hard we couldn't hear anything so we just sat together praying and waiting for it to let up.  What a sweet moment it turned out to be.  One of the older ladies noticed that I was cold (I had forgotten to bring a wrap to wear) and she came to let me share hers.  We sat together, not even able to talk because of the loud rain, but keeping each other warm.  I love those little moments when it is like God is just knitting our hearts together.  I am so blessed by the love that I feel so much from these precious women.  They take such good care of me, helping me to walk through the mud without falling and even cleaning my shoes after walking in the mud.  I am humbled and blessed to share life with them.  Thank you Lord for bringing us to this place!
Well, I guess that is all for now.  Just wanted to give a little update on life here in the Ntiganzwa house.  Now...to those fish...hmmmmmm....

Simple thought for the day...

"Really, we don't have to prove anything to anyone else, we just have to live as we believe we are called to live." ~ Carl Wilkens

Just heard this simple quote while watching a video clip of an interview with Carl Wilkens.  He was the only American who chose to stay in Rwanda during the 1994 Genocide.  He stood by "his" people helping to bring food, water and medicine in a time when everyone else seemed to "run away" from Rwanda.  
Simple quote...but believing and living it could bring so much freedom!  How much time and effort we spend just trying to prove ourselves when all we really need to do is follow God's call whole-heartedly.  Even if what God called you to do seems "different" or if you encounter people who don't agree with what you believe God has called you to do.  God's thoughts about you and what you do are the most important! 

April 7th

This morning started like every other morning in our house.  But today is not like every other day here in Rwanda.  Today is April 7th.  Today we remember that 17 years ago, on this day, Rwanda was changed forever.  Seventeen years ago, on this day, the killing began and for 100 days this beautiful tiny, landlocked country of a thousand hills became a type of hell on earth as those beautiful hills became the graves of over 1 million precious souls. 
As I sit here at my computer on this day in 2011, I can hardly begin to wrap my mind around what happened only seventeen years ago in this very place that I walk today.  I hear the birds singing outside my window and I wonder...did they sing on that day?  I hear some children laughing outside and I wonder...was it laughter or was screams of terror that were heard from children on that day?
April is rainy season here in Rwanda, the grass is the brightest shade of green you will ever see, the sky is overcast and the sun peaks through the clouds every once and awhile as if just to give a short greeting before retreating again.  The rains come, sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon.  The red-tinted soil quickly turns to mud, as if overwhelmed by the wealth of water pouring from the heavens....and I wonder...I wonder about the rain on that day.  Was it mud or was it blood that ran in the streets? 
So many times, especially since we moved to Eastern Province, I have marveled at the beauty of this country that I now call home.  The road from Kigali to Rwamagana is lined with breathtaking beauty.  Rolling hills, scattered mud houses, grazing cows, and banana trees as far as the eye can see.  I often remark, on that drive, that I think I live in perhaps the most beautiful country in the whole world.  The air is clean and fresh, especially after a recent rain, and I take a deep breath, filling my lungs and feeling nothing but peace.  And yet I remember.  I remember that these beautiful hills once ran with the blood of hatred.  How can it be?  How is it possible that in such a place as Rwanda one of the worst and bloodiest genocides could happen? 
I have no answers.  Only questions...but I have hope.  I see Rwanda today and I see hope.  Today, I will remember the lives of those who were lost in this land seventeen years ago.  We will not forget them, and we will not forget those who still mourn and grieve.  We will pray, for those who grieve and for those who still hate.  But we will not lose hope.  If we lose our hope then the evil has accomplished it's purpose.  We will not lose hope.  We will hold on to our God who is a God of hope even in the face of hopeless circumstances.  Our God stills reigns in Rwanda and He will heal our land!

A woman's hands...

Oh there is so much in my heart!  How to express it all?  God is certainly up to something!  I feel like He is taking me through a time of refining my ministry.  I had a very interesting dream last night that confirms this to be true.
In my dream I saw a rope with many random things dangling from it.  I can't remember the specific items that were hanging there but they were certainly random and seemed to be completely unrelated to each other.  Then suddenly someone reached over and gave the hanging rope a little tug.  The random items began to slide toward the bottom of the rope and they disappeared and became an arrow at the end of the rope.
When I woke up I felt like I instantly knew the meaning of the dream.  I love when that happens because for me it is a sure sign that God was using my dream to speak something to me.  To this point (over the last year and a half) my "ministry" here has felt rather random.  I have been doing good things but never with any real purpose or focus to it.  It has been a "little here and little there" kind of ministry, often leaving me feeling as though I am not really "doing" anything.  Of course that is not true, but without a specific focus I have felt random, to say the least.  I have been crying out to God to "refine" and "clarify" what He wants me to focus on and spend my energy doing.  I truly believe that the "tug" on the rope is God (using my sister) pulling things together and showing me where He wants my focus to be.  Hands For Hope is the arrow at the end of the rope and the place I firmly believe He is calling me to focus.  Hands For Hope is in the process of being born.  Right now it is not an official "organization" or anything but who knows where it will lead in the future.  Right now we are planning to partner with the local church where my husband is the pastor.  It will be a project involving the women there.
In short, we are going to create opportunity for them to use their hands in bringing hope to their lives and the lives of their families.  My amazing sister has been raising funds to bring with her when she comes to Rwanda in the beginning of June to get this whole thing "kicked off the ground."  We will be setting up a place where we can train the women in sewing and jewelry making.  Lord willing, we will be trying to find a "market" for the items they will create, both here in Rwanda and also in America.
If there is one thing that I have learned about women struggling to survive here in Rwanda, it is this.  They are not looking for a hand out but they are look for an opportunity.  Even if they are at my door asking for a hand out, I know that in their heart what they really desire is an opportunity to make life better for themselves and especially for their children.  I have had many women come to my door looking for a job.  They want to work, to do something with their hands.  They ask if I have someone to do wash, someone to cook, clean, anything that they could do for a little job.  Most of the time I don't have anything for them to do and I have to turn them away saying that I have no work for them at the moment.  It always breaks my heart.
Hands For Hope is about creating opportunity for women to learn a skill and then to work with their hands, giving them hope and dignity in their work.  I don't know exactly where God will lead this project in the future.  I am praying that this is the beginning of something that will grow and minister to many more women in the future!  Pray with me for this vision to become a reality!  And watch for more updates as this project takes form over the next two months!