No Lord, any thing but that

You probably remember that before we left Rwanda back in April one of our staff Baptist had broken in to our office and house in Kigali, while we were up north visiting the orphan children we were caring for. They made off with about $15,000 of our personal and office equipment. You name it and it was gone!

As it was sad to lose so much, the worst part was that it was done by some one that I was pouring my life into. He had been with us for the entire three years of our stay here. He was my disciple so to speak! I could not believe he was capable of such a thing! None the less it was the bitter truth! I left Rwanda with a broken heart.

When returning to Rwanda three months later it seemed a lost cause to continue to pursue. I had kind of given up, but prayed every day that God would convict him of his sin and that he would not be able to sleep until he had repented and turned back to God.

Another three months passed. One evening I got a phone call, they had caught Baptist and the guy who helped him. To make a very long story short, I was planning on going to the jail the next day to meet with him. So many emotions rushed through me at the same time! I honestly didn’t know what I would do when I saw him. Would I rap my arms around him tell him I love him and forgive him? Or would I attack him, beating him senseless until the police pulled me off? To be honest the later felt stronger.

As I drove toward Kigali I was praying so much for god to help me to handle the issues in a Godly way.

Much to my surprise when arriving and seeing him I felt instantly compassion toward him and had to pretend to be angry. Baptist began to share with me the whole story and how it happened, also over the last few months how he had 0% peace and could not sleep at night and had reached the point that he could not live with himself and felt that he wanted to make it right. He told me that he had already met with and turned himself in to a mutual friend of ours, telling him the whole story and making the plans in contacting me to make things right.

Before leaving the jail I told Baptist that I forgave him but that there were consequences to the actions he has done. He began to get tears in his eyes and told me that he knew and to please help him.

I turned and left going straight to my friend to check on the story that Baptist had told me to see if indeed it was true or not. To my surprise my friend also told me the same story word for word that Baptist had said. Telling me that it happened just a few days before he was caught and put in jail and indeed he was helping him to get ready to contact me and try to get a bunch of our stuff that had been sold. This excited me to see how God had truly answered my prayer!! He really had repented and wanted to make things right!

The police had gotten a list from Baptist and the guy that helped him. Now they knew the where a bout’s of most of our stuff. I received another phone call and was told that I had to come back to Kigali so that I could start the process of getting our things back. Whatever that meant!

On the two hour drive down to Kigali I spent some more time praying to ask God for wisdom, knowing that I will probably be asked by the police what I want to be done with Baptist and the other Guy. Meaning am I going to press charges sending them to prison or let them go free, Since I was getting the majority of my stuff back….

In my mind it was so clear! I was very happy that I was getting so many of our things back but consequences are consequences! They made bad choices and now have to learn and live with the consequences from their choices. Let them go to prison I thought they deserve it!!

THEN THE LORD SPOKE!!!! He said “Travis you have to forgive them”! He showed me my heart and that I really had not, I wanted revenge. He said again “Travis you have to forgive them”! I began to cry….”Ok Lord I said, please help me! I will forgive!! I do forgive them”…

Then God said “I want you to set them free”! “God” I said! Again came Set them free!! I cried more…Then I thought ok I will set them free because they are going to have so many problems with the people who they sold my stuff to. They will all want their money back, and if they were in prison they would not have to face those problems. Alright I will set them free God! I really wanted them to have to pay a price of some kind.

God then told me that I have to give Baptist a job back…. Instantly I was enraged!!! Yelling at God…. Forgiving I can do, setting them free…Fine, BUT I will not give Baptist a Job!!! NO…NO… I want nothing to do with him! Let him go live his life and I will live mine. Again God said “Travis I want you to give him back a job”! I could see that I was not going to win this argument. I agreed, ok I will give him back (a) job.. Immediately I thought of the jobs I could give him…ummm…Toilet cleaner, cutting grass all day long, or maybe working in the garden all day, any how he will work his butt off I thought.

God said “NO TRAVIS, you will give him a respectful job and one of honor! You will give him a job in the ministry!! All I could do was cry the rest of the way to Kigali. The Lords presents really entered the car and he began ministering to me for the rest of the trip.

How in the world I was able to reach Kigali safely while driving, balling my eyes out and being ministered to by the Lord in the Car is beyond me. But It worked and that is all I have to say about that.

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!!!

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.