Break time stories... Then & Now

When living in a place where you have little or no choice on things as food or items that bring comfort or convenience to your life. You learn to just live simple! After a while you almost forget what your missing...
While visiting the west again boy were we bombarded with choice ! We would walk in to stores and start crying, or we would have a list of items in our head to get in and get out again but then walking into the store we would find our mind just go blank and would just walk around in a daze and finally leave with nothing.
When eating in restaurants we found it easier if the menu had pictures and we would just tell them to bring what we saw in the picture. I know it sounds ridiculous but you try living three years with no choice in what you eat. When you ask for chicken you get chicken if they even have it, unlike, would you like baked, fried, deep fried, boneless, skinless, honey glazed, barbecued, etc. etc..
Your body is no longer used to all the added things in the food, artificial colors etc.. We found that hear in Rwanda we eat very organic. The first few days in the States our girls loaded up on one of their favorite cold cereals called fruit loops. One of the mornings when we were cleaning up some toys that were on ground some from our girls and some from our host families little dog. There was this little bright green, I mean florescent green thing on the ground. thinking it was one of the dogs toys we went to pick it up and realized that in fact it was one of our little girls that had an accident. Only a few moments later our daughter Nani comes running down stairs saying "Mom, Dad, this is so wicked cool!!! My Poop was bright blue with other colors to..."

It has been a little tough on the girls being back when they were so getting use to choosing from 100 different cereals, muffins of all sorts, bagels, etc.
Breakfast was and is a big meal for them. Now they get to choose between Cheri o's, cornflakes, fruit and fiber, or cocoa crispies, and thats it.... But with a box costing any where between $6 to 10 dollars they dont get much of this either.
It wont be long before we settle back into the simplicity of life and once again adopt the phrase TIA (this is Africa)... A few days ago I was sitting in a office to pay for my internet bill and found myself laughing so hard as I was on my way some two hours later.

On the way home I run into much traffic due to a car broken down in the middle of the road. This greatly holds up traffic but no one seems to care but me for a moment. I first thought was that of any of you.... If you would just move the stupid car to the side every one can pass with out holding up traffic!! But When in Africa one must think like an African, It is broken and there for it does not work so it is stupid to try to move something that doesn't work. In a short moment I find myself laughing again and thinking to myself it is so good to be home!!!

Deepest Apologies...

I realized while We were on our break in both Europe and the States that it was not going to be possible for us to see and spend time with all our friends. We simply did not have enough time between fund raising and visiting.
In total we were out for about three months and all over the place. It was a whirl wind of emotion I must say!! Of course we loved being out after not having a break for almost three years but oddly enough even after three short weeks we found our selfs longing and wanting to be get back to Rwanda again. I guess this is proof that it is home!! We would frequently contact our staff here on the ground to be updated on the progress and wellbeing of the children we were caring for. This of course kept also our minds and hearts here.

I would like to send our deepest apologies to those we did not get to see or spend much time with!!

Quick Review

We have come to the end of our break and now are back in Rwanda just as God promised…

I don’t even know where to start. It has been so long since I have written anything and I realize that there is probably a lot of people who don’t know what has been happening.

Let me start from the beginning:

March31,2008

We were up North of the country to see the Kids, are car broke down again and while trying to fix it we received a phone call from one of our staff telling us that many of our things in our house had just been stolen. We abandoned the trip to see the kids and after fixing the car headed straight home to see what we would find. It was late when we arrived home and what we found was very shocking!One of our house staff had gone and taken everything he could from our house; Computers, cameras, power point projector, ipod, etc. etc. anything electronic plus much more. If that is not enough, I had stopped by our office to check on it in rout to file the police report. Everything was gone!!!! Electronics, tables, desks, chairs, curtains, toilet paper, you name it, it was gone…. All in all we figured it to be about $13,000 to 15,000 to be taken.

The next morning while taking more of an exact count of everything that was gone, I received a phone call and was told to come for a meeting where I was told we had to go out of the Country in 48hours.
I went and broke the news to Astrid and immediately we started to make phone calls to everyone we knew to ask them to pray. After this point I don’t remember many details because everything moved so fast. What I remember is never seeing my family for the next three days due to having meetings with any one I could who I thought might be able to help us. Astrid was at home packing up everything we had left. Our friends both local and from the international community, really gathered around us to support us and pray. The night before we had to be out we decided through the advice of a very good local friend to have a night of just worshiping God and lifting him up high. Once again putting the focus off of what Satan was trying to do and putting it on the very one who had brought us to Rwanda in the first place.

April 3,2008 ( the morning of departure)

The Girls went off to school. I went for more meetings and to deal with our daughter Yaida’s visa for the Netherlands. Our flight is leaving at 8 in the evening meaning we need to be at the airport around 5. At 4:30 I am told that there had been a big misunderstanding and that we did not have to go but could stay.

Praise God!!!!! Unfortunately we had tickets that could not be refunded. I asked if it was ok that we still go out for a holiday and come back to start fresh again. I was told “Of course, no problem!”

WOW!!!!! GOD IS SO GOOD!!!! He has done the impossible!! Thank you for all your prayers for us, our God has heard and has answered!!! We are back and more excited than ever to see God move in a mighty way through this nation.
There is going to be a revival coming to Rwanda and an out pouring of God’s presents on his people here like no one can imagine. Please continue to pray for us and pray for this great Nation, it’s leaders and all that God has planned.