How much is too much?

So I have been wrestling with the subject of generosity a lot lately.  I feel like God is really challenging me so much in this area.  And to say that I have been "wrestling" with it is exactly how it feels.  God's Word is pretty clear that we who have much are called to give generously and help in meeting the needs of the poor.  There is no question that I believe that to my core.
The other morning I was reading in Luke 12, a familiar scripture, and was struck once again by this call to give.

²⁹ And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it. ³⁰ For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them. ³¹ But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well. ³² “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. ³³ Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. ³⁴ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

These are some powerful words!  I was so struck by the way that this scripture ties together worry and giving.  Maybe I had never really thought very much about the connections between the two before.  But isn't it true that when we are worried about our own needs, what we will eat or wear, we are much less likely to give to meet the needs of someone else.  What a challenge this is for me!  As a missionary, it can be tough sometimes being "dependent" upon financial support from others to meet my needs and the needs of my family.  The reality is that we are dependent on God for everything but it is hard to have that pass through other people's hands.  I can easily find myself feeling worried about how we will have enough money to do what God has put in our hearts.  On the other hand, at the same time, I easily find myself feeling guilty for needing financial support and often wonder if I am worthy of it or doing enough to "earn" what we are given.  
Missionaries are faced with many questions and decisions when coming to a new culture to live.  I struggle with these issues on a daily basis.  How much is too much?  What is okay for me to buy and what isn't?  What standard of living is God calling me to? How much do I give?  Can I give too much that it can actually hurt people in the long run?  These are tough things.  When you are living and ministering in a Third World country, faced with poverty daily, how do I choose to live?  In light of the Gospel, how much is too much?   
I will never forget the first time I posted pictures of our new house online.  I can remember feeling like people in America were probably expecting to see a little mud brick hut and would be surprised to see that we have a relatively large, beautiful, brick house.  I sort of remember wondering if people thought that I should be living in a hut instead.  Maybe that would somehow be more "spiritual" as a missionary?
God has been really challenging me to understand and look at these issues as a matter of my heart.  The scripture says that where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.  Where is my treasure?  Is it in having a nice home or good food to eat? Am I setting my heart or what I will eat or drink, like this scripture says?  Or am I seeking first the Kingdom regardless of how much or how little I have from day to day.  
There is a lot to think about and wrestle with on in this area of things and giving.  Because this post is getting long, I will continue to write about these things and what God is teaching me over the next few days/week.  I want to encourage you and challenge you to let God examine your heart as I let Him examine mine.
 

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!

Sharing New Vision!

Our Dear Family and Friends,

               I wanted to take a few moments to catch you up on a few exciting things happening in our ministry!  I have been praying and seeking for a long time now, asking God where my “fit” is in ministry.  Things are going very well at the church and the sewing school but I had dreams and ideas in my heart that I did not know what to do with.  For a few years now, I have known that my heart for ministry is focused on vulnerable women.  Being a woman and mother has opened my eyes to the real struggles that women here in Rwanda deal with daily.  

The Hands For Hope sewing project with the women from the church was a great start for me.  We are now working with our second group of students and they are doing very well. This group will finish in August.  The first group of students have graduated and moved on to using their skills to earn income.  Honestly, they are struggling a bit to find work.  Because of this and many other factors, we have decided that this second group of students will be our last and we will begin to phase out our work with the sewing school and move things closer to home, in the community that we live in.  I have desired this for awhile because of the challenge of balancing family and ministry responsibilities.  We will still continue all our work and responsibilities with the church.

 So that leads me to our new exciting vision (which is not really new because it has been in my heart for a long time)!  We are going to begin working to start our own bakery business here in Rwamagana!  I am very excited about this because it feels like a “fit” for me, so to speak.  There is not much that I love more than baking up delicious breads and cakes to enjoy with my family.  So rather than continuing to try out different things that I am not as familiar with, I felt like God was leading to use what I know and turn it into ministry.  Like many other Lancaster County, Mennonite women, I know baking! 

My vision is to have a bakery that will provide training and jobs to poor, vulnerable single mothers in our community.  My heart is to see them thriving and working with dignity to provide for their families.  God has given me Proverbs 31:25 as my theme verse for Hands For Hope. 

               “She is clothed with strength and dignity, and she laughs without fear of the future.”

This is my desire, to see women working with strength and dignity and being able to laugh, allowing joy to replace the fear of the future.  By giving women jobs and walking side by side with them, pointing them to Jesus as their Hope, I know that God is going to use the Hands For Hope bakery to grow His kingdom here in Rwanda. 
Thank you for keeping this in prayer as we begin to take the steps of faith in this new venture!

In Christ,

Valerie, Appolinaire and family

What a week!

Last week was quite a week for us!  It was busy and beautiful, just the way I like it.  I have learned that it is quite easy to be busy and not beautiful or fruitful.  It is easy to feel like being busy equals being fruitful but I have learned that is not always true.  I want to be the kind of person who is not always busy but is always fruitful.  I want to be the kind of person who always has time to stop and chat with those I meet along the path, time to hug the neighbor kids, time to hug my own kids, time to play with them and read books, time to make homemade bread for my family and neighbors.  Sometimes I wonder if our definition of success and fruitfulness is quite different than God's?  Just some food for thought this morning.


Last Tuesday we had a Children's day at the church.  It was a blast!  We had about 150-160 kids.  It was hard to count because they did not stay in one place long enough for me to get an accurate count!  We had so much fun singing songs, telling Bible stories with the felt board, playing games and eating lunch together.  It was chaotic of course but a lovely mess!  I did not want to create even more chaos by taking too many pictures (if you have ever been to Africa, you will know what I mean) but here are a few I managed to snap while they were busy eating :)

Then on Wednesday I took Ivan to Kigali for his little "reunion" get-together with the kids he used to live with in the orphanage.  He had such a great time reuniting with his buddies and I could tell that he really misses them.  Even though I know that orphanages are not ideal, good places for children to be raised, you can not deny the companionship and "brotherhood" that these kids have with each other.
Thursday was spent attempting to pack up our whole house!  I was expect to have a little more time but I was suddenly told by my wonderful husband that there was a truck coming to help more the large items on Friday morning!  Welcome to Africa, where we don't plan we just wing it!
Friday morning, early, the truck came and our "helpers" started throwing things in the truck.  Meanwhile I was rushing around still trying to pack things and praying that they would not break anything!  Oh and doing all this with a 15 month old in tow!  Wow, it was an exhausting day but we got everything over to the new house, mostly in one piece.  Of course the huge and wonderfully helpful wardrobe that we had in our bedroom (that we purchased from the landlord) did not fit through the door.  But in the midst of that and other frusterations, everything got done and we are getting settled in our house.
It is such a good feeling knowing that we are here in our own house and we can really feel at home and make it our own.  I love putting all my little"homey" touches on it.  We are having fun trying to get organized and trying to figure out how to keep the tiles in the kitchen and living room clean!  On top of that, we are at the beginning of rainy season and as we discovered yesterday during a huge downpour, we will need to fix some things.  I stood in my kitchen during the storm watching the outside building filling up with water and seeing my pots and pans floating around!  So we need to work on the drainage situation but we had a good laugh about it (though the tears were not far).  God has been so good to us and we are thanking Him for His provision!  Here are a few photos from moving day!

Yes my child is drinking Sprite...with everything everywhere we had no drinking water and we were all parched!

Nap time for Benjamin

Unloading the car

Our guestroom in the new house which is storage until I get organized...hope we don't get any overnight guests for a little while!

August 2012

Ntiganzwa News

Dear Friends and Family,

We hope this newsletter finds you and your family well and enjoying your summer!  Our family is doing very well here in Rwanda and we thought it was about time to give you another update.  Once again, our family has grown!  I am now a proud and busy mother of three!  Muhorakeye Sandrine, who is actually our niece, is now living with us as our daughter.  Her mother, Appolinaire’s sister, passed away unexpectedly a few months ago and God put it in our hearts to ask Muhorakeye if she wanted to stay with us.  God has really bound our hearts together and she seems like the perfect addition to our family.  She is thirteen years old and very sweet.  She fits right in and loves playing with Ivan and Benjamin.  We are thankful that God keeps on forming our family to be what He wants it to be and gives us the grace that we need as parents.  It is a challenge for me especially, now having two children who don’t speak English, but I know they will begin to pick up some English soon and it helps me in my continued language learning.

The building of our new house continues and is almost complete!  We are getting really excited to move in and though we don’t know exactly when that will happen, we hope within this month.  Even though the new house is not far from where we live now, we still have our work cut out for us in getting everything moved and organized…and clean for that matter!  We are coming to the end of dry season and everything is very dusty!  But as soon as the rains come, everything will be mud!  I am not sure which I prefer, either way, keeping things clean (including my children!) is a daily battle for Mommy!  We look forward to being settled into our new home and pray that it will be a blessing to all who enter! I am especially excited about having a sink in my kitchen and the kids are looking forward to their new rooms.  We have learned a lot in this process of building and God has been so faithful through it all.  We praise Him for the way He cares and provides for His people!

Things continue to go well at the church.  We are looking forward to our upcoming youth seminar and children’s seminar in this month.  The building of the nursery school continues and we are praying that we will be able to start school with the new year beginning in January.  There is still lots of things to finish up in the building not to mention finding teachers and helpers.  I plan to help in the administration aspects of running the school. 

Our Hands For Hope sewing school continues to be a blessing.  Our first students finished up their year of studying and had a beautiful graduation ceremony at the end of June.  I was so proud of them and all that they have learned!  Here is a picture of them at graduation where each of them is wearing something that they made themselves!

These women were all able to receive a brand new sewing machine because of the generousity of many of you!  In order to receive the machine, they were required to purchase a goat for another member of our congregation as a way for them to give back and multiply the blessing that they received.  They are now able to use their new skills and sewing machine to help themselves and their families earn income.

August first we began our second Hands For Hope sewing school class!  I am very excited to see what God will do this next year.  Many of our new students are young women who are not married with families yet but I know that this is a good way to help them to “get a good start” in their lives.  For various reasons they were not able to finish school but learning the skill of sewing can give them a good future to build upon.  We also have our first male student, which I did not expect but it seems that God had a plan for this young man to study as well!  Pray for these students as they study and for us as we give guidance and counsel to them.  On the right side you see pictures of three of our ten new students.                                                                      

We thank you all so much for your continued prayers and support.  We want you to know that God is using you to accomplish His work here in Rwanda.  If you would like to give monthly support or a one time special gift to help us continue our work, simply send your contribution with an attached note “Valerie and Appolinaire Ntiganzwa in Rwanda” to:

Commission To Every Nation                                                                                                                                                     

 PO Box 221307                                                                                                                                      Kerrville, TX 78029-1307  

To give online go to: www.cten.org/valeriepeters

Email us: valerientiganzwa@cten.org

Mailing Address:                                                                                                                                         PO Box 2954                                                                                                                                                     Kigali, Rwanda

Visit our blog: www.ntiganzwafamily.blogspot.com