The truth about beans...

Today I am simply not in the mood for a heavy, thought-provoking kind of post but sticking with my theme of honesty, I am going to be honest about food.
I like food, it's no secret!  I like cooking it, baking it, and most of all, eating it!  Cooking and eating here in Rwanda is quite a bit different from my down on the farm, meats and potatoes, full of butter, Lancaster County roots! 
When I first came to Rwanda, the food was good and there were only a few things that I would say I did not enjoy.  And honestly, after over three years of eating Rwandan food, I can honestly say that I like it.  I eat everything that Rwandans eat and our daily diet is very Rwandan.  I do enjoy occasionally cooking up something "American" like pasta or pizza, but we eat pretty simple for the most part.
A typical meal in Rwanda has a base of some type of starch.  Potatoes, plantains, sweet potatoes, rice, kaunga, or ubugali (there really is not word for those last two in English).  Then on top of the starch you put some kind of beans or veggie with a sauce.  Sounds good right?  It is good, but the hard part for me sometimes is the lack of variety.  We literally eat beans every day, most times, twice a day!  We rarely have meat, typically once or twice a month.  One, it is expensive and two, I am not a huge fan of the butchery that we have available in our little town.  Case in point, recently when I went to buy some meat, after telling the man with the big knife what I wanted, I glanced down at my feet, only to find a cow's head looking up at me.  Yup, the whole cow's head, eyes and all.  The meat literally just hangs on a big hook in a non-refrigerated room with flies sitting on it until you come to buy it, at which point they take a large knife and hack away at whatever part you want and then, with their bare hands, put it in a paper bag and with the same bare hands, take your money.  It's a lovely experience.  So when we do have meat, we cook it for several hours.  One, because it is so tough you can barely chew it, and two just to be sure to kill "everything!"    So with our lack of meat, beans are a logical source of protein and on top of that, they are cheap!
 So while I certainly get tired of eating the same food every day, I am thankful that we have enough to eat because I know so many right outside our gate, who don't have enough.  And it makes me extra thankful when we have a little extra and I can by special things like cheese or ground beef! 
I can't write a post about food without raving about the freshness of food here!  Everything we cook is from scratch.  We eat very little processed foods and practically nothing comes out of a can.  The fresh tomatoes, green peppers, garlic, and onions make delicious sauces and the fruit is delicious!  The pineapples, bananas, and papaya are family favorites and are so much sweeter the what is available in America.  Since we have several avocado trees, we also enjoy our fill of the best tasting avocados!
Alas, I hear the clanging of dishes which means my children are home for their lunch break from school and though I would kill for a hamburger, I am going to eat my beans and kaunga with a grateful heart.  Blessing all!

Motherhood...now that's real stuff!

I am a mom.  I am a mom and I love it.  But just like most other things in my life (probably because I tend to be somewhat of an idealist) it is not what I thought it was going to be.  It is beautiful in all it craziness but it is...well...real.
I sort of became a mother fast and sometimes still feel very "new" at all this.  On top of everything, we are not exactly your typical family.  I married my sweet Rwandan prince almost three years ago and we quickly got pregnant with our first baby.  It was fast but it was also planned and actually quite in line with Rwandan culture where people don't really wait to have children.  The culture tends to say that if you are ready to be married, you are ready to have children too.
Muhire Benjamin Ntiganzwa was born on May 20th, 2011 which means, if you do the math, I have a very busy, very cute, very stubborn, "I want to do everything by myself" two-year old little boy on my hands these days. 

Having a baby here is a bit different, to say the least.  I gave birth to him in a very nice hospital in the capital city of Kigali, not in a mud hut in the village, but it was still a stretching experience!  While I was pregnant with him, I remember thinking that surly babies need more "stuff."  However, I was constantly seeing the mamas all around me at church and in the village raising their babies with very little.  I basically had a crib, some clothes, and nice cloth to tie him on my back.  Of course, after my mom and sister came to see us, bearing tons of great gifts from all our American family and friends, we had the most spoiled little baby boy in all of Rwanda!

Benjamin, just born

 I am now expecting another precious little boy, due mid-October!  Benjamin is quite excited about the baby although he really has no idea what's coming!  He affectionately calls the baby "Hami Vuke."  Yes, we do already have a name chosen for him but I will just let you try to guess what it is! haha!

We are very excited, but the truth is, there are days when I feel like I am barely keeping my head above water with the kids that we have and I secretly wonder why we are bringing a new baby into the mix.  But he is coming, and yes he was also planned, and is very wanted!  So now, I just pray that he will be a peaceful baby!

In April of 2012, our son, Nahimana Ivan, came to live with us.  He was ten years old, at the time.  Oh, what can I say about Ivan?  Ivan was left at an orphanage in Kigali as a baby and has really only known an "institutional" kind of life.  What I know of the orphanage that he was from is not good and I can only suspect that he was probably neglected and maybe abused, though he has not talked to us about these things yet.  The journey with him thus far has been really tough but we love him so much and are committed to him 100%. 
Ivan has a really hard time attaching and though he is a happy, healthy boy, he has really resisted bonding with our family.  This, for me as a mother, has been so hard.  I dream of the day when he will call me mommy, but I know that day may never come.  He still calls me Mama Benjamin.  He is old enough to know that I am not his mom and on top of that, I'm white so I could never pass as his real mom anyway. 
It is so hard to love a child so much and have so little of that love returned.  Communication is hard with him and Muhorakeye because neither of them speak any English.  There are so many things in my heart that I desperately want to say to them but I just don't have the words that I need.  Even when I try to pat him on the back or hug him, he quickly pulls away like I was going to beat him.  I have cried many tears over this son that I love so much and I pray that one day he will really know how much I love him.  But for now, I just have to do what I can to be his mother whether or not he ever "feels" like my son.

Here I am with Ivan, helping him do his homework.

One of the hard things about raising children that you did not give birth to is that you are missing that natural bond.  There is closeness that I have with Benjamin that I will never have with Ivan or Muhorakeye.  I miss that, I grieve for it even.  I would give anything to have been able to have them in my life since they were little.  I want to teach them how to walk and talk but I don't get to.  That's the thing about adopting or caring for older orphans, they have already been raised by someone else, and not always someone who loved them and had their best interest at heart.  And many times, maybe those who raised them did not even have the same values as our family has.  My older kids have habits that I wish I could have broken years ago.  They lie, sometimes steal, and have language that I certainly don't want in our home.  But it is all they know.
Muhorakeye Sandrine came to live with us only a few months after Ivan.  Her mother was my husband's sister and I regret that I never got to meet her while she will still living.  She passed away leaving four children, of which Muhorakeye is the oldest at 13 or 14 years old (we don't really know when she was born, oddly enough).  I fell in love with her instantly on the day she came to see us with her grandfather (my husband's father).  I secretly prayed that she would be able to stay as part of our family.  I sometimes have to remind myself that I wanted her to stay.  I wish that did not sound so terrible.  She has been a test of my patience, to say the least.  She can be so sweet and tender one minute and the next (usually when she is being disciplined) she looks at me with such hatred in her eyes it could kill.  Her emotional needs are sometimes overwhelming to me and I wonder if I will ever be able to get close to her.  I wonder sometimes why God gave her to me when I feel so inadequate to give her what she needs.  She has much anger and I just don't know how to help her work through it all.  So I just pray.

I get a lot of people thinking we are some kind of heros for raising two orphans but truth be told, I don't feel like a hero at all.  In fact, most of the time, I feel completely helpless like I have no clue what I am doing and I just pray that I am not messing up their precious lives even more!  This has to be the hardest thing I have ever done in my life.  Sometimes I get angry and I see things in myself that I did not even know I was capable of.  I love my kids but honestly, sometimes I don't like them.  It drives me to my knees in desperation.
So that's my beautiful, crazy, slightly dysfunctional family and all I pray is that God would be glorified in our home.

Honesty

I love to write.  I always have.  So why has it been so long since I have written a post on this blog?  Why do I struggle to write our missionary newsletters?  It isn't a lack of time.  It isn't a lack of desire.  It is certainly not because I do not think it matters or is important.  Every single person who prays for us and supports us in any way absolutely deserves to hear from us and to know what is happening.  So what is it?

I grew up reading lots of great books written by amazing and inspirational missionaries.  I was fascinated by their stories of valor and bravery.  I was captured by their adventures and even by their suffering.  I was determined that one day my life too would be a great adventure lived for the glory of God in a far away place.  My heart was in the right place, wanting to do something big for God.  My motive was pure.  I was just incredibly naive!  I was not running away in search of my own "book worthy" tale, I truly wanted to live my life serving Jesus on the mission field and I truly was called to do just that.

But after a little over three and half years on the "field" in Rwanda, I can only say that it has not been anything like what I thought it was going to be.

So the really reason I struggle to write blog posts and newsletters is simply because I somehow feel like the "real" story is not really what anyone wants to hear.  But recently I have been feeling prompted to tell the real story, to be honest about what my life is, and what it is not. 

God does not ONLY receive glory when people do things that we see as "incredible" or "heroic".  I have to believe that He can receive glory in my little life, in my little corner or the world.  I have to believe that my ordinary and sometimes "boring" life, lived for Him is what He is after.  He is not looking for an adventure.  He just wants ordinary people like me and you to live our lives for Him.

Honestly, I get a little annoyed when I read "perfect" little newsletters with the "life is so great and I love every moment of being a missionary" kind of "I am saving the world" attitude.  Why?  Because I know the truth.  The truth is, life is hard in another culture.  The truth is, now that I understand what people are saying when they speak Kinyarwanda around me in public, sometimes they say mean things and I wish I did not understand. The truth is, I get sometimes mad and annoyed when Rwandans treat me differently and feel entitled to ask my for anything from money to my earrings simply because I am white.  The truth is, sometimes I just want to speak English and eat a hamburger!  The truth is sometimes people lie, and sometimes people take advantage of you, and sometimes after you have already given so much, they steal from you too.  Sometimes you do something that doesn't work.  Sometimes you start a project that falls apart.  It's hard to write about those things in newsletters.  It hard to write about failure and mistakes and issues, but that is the truth.

So, I am thinking I want to try turning this blog into a truthful look into missionary life as I am experiencing it.  I will to do so, without dishonoring my family and the Rwandans that I love and serve because I really don't think painting a perfect picture of things is really helping anyone.  So, if you prefer the rose-colored version of what living in Africa is like, I suggest you stop reading this blog and go watch a movie about a safari or something.  If you want to know the ins and out, ups and downs, all for the glory of our great God, then stick around for more!