Wife, friend, sister, cousin....

I would like to share with you a funny but scary experience that happened to me just the other day. But first let me share with you a little about some African Culture's for those who don't know. In many African nations it is normal for men to have more than one wife. Some times numbering more than six or so...
In a lot of the Africa nations women are looked at as what we would call the baby factories or more politely the laborers.
In Rwanda this is not so... As we call having more than one spouse Polygamy, it is actually considered illegal here as well as the States. Of course that does not stop some, right.....

In Rwanda the spouse, childeren, and family in general do not take on the last name of the Father as in the States, they are named with there own given names. How family lines our known and kept in tact are beyond me. Yet every one seems to know who belongs to who... It is awesome and amazing!!
On the other hand I have learned that it is quit normal for a man two have three or four cousin's, sisters, or friends... this is how they are introduced (AKA) wife, lover, mistress, how ever you want to call it.
Just the other day I was in an office and meet a nice attractive young girl. As I waited we started talking. She was asking me about my family and my living in Rwanda. I told her that I was married and had four childeren, that we considered Rwanda our home... She seemed excited to hear this. I told her that one day I wished to have Rwandan residency and not to have to worry about visa's...
She turned and told me that what I needed was a Rwandan wife! Shocked at her response, I told her jokingly that I had a wife and didn't think I need any more, besides I said don't you know that it is illegal in Rwanda.
Yes she replied, it is... But you need to have a Rwandan wife pointing at her self. You see she said"on this side (motioning to her left)you have your wife and on this side (motioning to her right) you have a Rwandan" again insinuating her self.
I noticed that this time she did not use the word wife but just Rwandan.... I tried to play it off by showing her in a joking way what I knew about the way some men do here. So I told her, oh so you will be my sister, cousin, or friend..... Her eyes got big, and she seemed very surprised that I knew such a thing.... yet by her response I realized, holy Crap this women is serious.
She said "you know if you want the Rwandan ID (citizenship) and you ask for your self, they will refuse you... But if you have Rwandan (again insinuating to her self) after two or three years I call and ask for you and they can not refuse me!!!"

It was here that I decided to end the conversation! I acted surprised, which was not hard to do as I was pretty shocked at where the conversation was going. I told her thank you but that I was very happy with where my life was at and said I have to go now.
With that said I went straight home and shared with Astrid what had just taken place. She could not believe it, we had some real laughs as we went together and also shared with our house staff that strange experience. In return they shared with us some other similar interesting stories of things that happen here in their culture.

I tell you I love life here!!! Never a dull moment!!!
I guess I should not say that it was funny or that I laughed because actually it is very sad and a bit scary!! Laughing is a typical response in a lot of African cultures, when something is uncomfortable or they are not quite sure how to respond to something it is easier to laugh.
I guess we are catching on after all...
God help us.... But only in the right things.....

For the loss of Contact!!!!

As many of you know on March thirty first one of our staff robbed us and took just about every thing. He has disappeared and the police have yet to find him. Please be praying with us that he will be caught.
With in all of the missing items one of those things was our lap top that had all of our contacts gathered over the years. Any CD's with the backed up info was also taken.

This is a very great loss to us!!! It means that unless I have gotten an email from you in the last three to four months I have no way of contacting you. So it is not that I don't think about you or that I have written you off. I simply just don't have any of my friends email any more.

If you read this and have not heard from me in a while, I beg you to get back in touch with me. If you know any one that knows me please send me their email so that I can reestablish contact with them as well.
Thank you so much for your prayers, friendship, and support of what God is doing in Rwanda!
God bless you and I hope to hear from you soon!

Money problems.... Or Not....

When I went into this mission, God told me “don’t worry, I am going before you and it will be I who will sustain you”. Of course this sounds great and one doesn’t think much of it until things really start happening. The first three years in Rwanda was just that…. We never really lived in what you would call plenty but every time we would need something it would be there. School fees, rent, ministry materials such as computers, projectors, etc.. , money to fix the car when broken there (which would happen quite frequently)… It would just always be there… Even our book keeper one time asked us “how are you guys living there? Because I see everything that is coming in from the States and to be frank, I don’t see how you do it”…. Thank God she is a woman of great faith and believes God just as much as we do!!! With this we know that our book keeping is covered in prayer…

I have began to ask myself when is this going to let up. Don’t get me wrong I am not complaining… Because God provides and we are never in need!! But it would be nice for once to really have the money. I mean actually have it sitting there in the bank waiting to be used.

When we had to so abruptly leave Rwanda with only 48hours notice the money showed up….

We spent some weeks in Europe then by faith made plans to go to the United States, of course every time we tried to plan ahead it would never work but always ended up getting the money on the last day or last hour. Then we would have to take these last minute flights that in my eyes were outrageously expensive! This would happen many times throughout our three month furlough. I had a very big problem with this as I saw it as a huge waste of money! After all it could be going to the building of Heaven Touching Earth (HTE) our children’s village. All in all with the traveling between Europe and the States we spent over $26,000. The funny thing is that the money was not there when we wanted to use it but when we would step out based on what the Lord was speaking the money always showed up.

This all has a purpose, of course! God is trying very hard to get something through our heads.

You see when one is living and working among some of the Nation’s poorest orphans an vulnerable children yet also seeing firsthand the millions of dollars coming in with the awesome, rapid development of this place. I guess it is easy to get eyes off of God and put them on Man for help!
I see now that God really doesn’t care how much he has to spend to reach the lost or to reach me for that matter. After all he did say in the beginning that he will go before us and it will he who will sustain us…

Thank you God!!!