So I am not going to write, but instead allow this essay to speak to the many thoughts I have about motherhood. I thought it was really well-written. And I love the quote by G.K. Chesterton from his book, What is Wrong with the World:
"How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No. A woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness."
For the full essay: http://www.washingtoninst.org/resources/articles/guest/motherhood-vocation.htm
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Visiting my son's home
When we adopted Lian and Anna, their home seemed far away, their situation unknowable. Now I live in the same city as our son, his home is less than a ten-minute drive from my house. Yet, he is unknowable for now. Is he born yet? I don't know. Yet, what I do know now makes my heart long for him even more.
On Sunday, Kristin and I went to the Home of Hope orphanage, run by the Sisters of Charity in Kigali. We were not allowed to take pictures and I don't think I would anyway. Almost seems to trivialize the reality these children live in. So we went with some teachers from my daughter's school who volunteer there every Sunday. I have been to many orphanages before as a result of our adoptions and my work with Children's Hope Chest, but this was harder than what I've experienced before.
I need to preface my comments by saying that I know the Sisters there are prayerful, dedicated, hard-working and compassionate people. Yet, there are too few of them and too many children. One hundred and twenty children, ages 0-8 live in this home. Volunteers are not allowed in the baby room, unless you are a doctor, so as to keep the babies healthy. However, I could see them through the windows. Crib after crib lined the room - it was overwhelming to me. There had to be sixty cribs, at least. Outside the baby room were the 1-2 year olds, some of whom slept two to a crib in a very small crib. No furniture except the tables at which they all eat their meals. Outside in the courtyard, about forty 3-6 year olds, along with several special needs older children, were playing and getting ready to eat their dinner (a roll and some milk) and take a bath.
I thought I was prepared. I brought a Rwandan soccer ball as I thought that would be fun to play. Lesson learned, unless I had 40 soccer balls, I should not have brought it. The children stormed at us, wanting to be held, wanting to touch our hair and wanting to see what I had in my bag. They tried to grab it off of my arm. I finally got control and tried to play a game, but it was chaotic. They all began climbing on me and not in a fun way. I literally had to cry for help because the smaller children were getting trampled by the older. I just wanted to cry. This was not what I had imagined. And the caregivers (not the nuns) did not seem to know what to do. Finally, I put my bag in hiding, toys away, and just held a few small children, singing and blessing each one.
The smell of urine was everywhere - on the children, on my clothes, on my skin. It was overwhelming to me, yet I couldn't stop holding them. My son could be one of them in a few years. Lord, please hasten our process.
In the meantime, I will hold the children and support those who are coming alongside these children. I've met so many wonderful people who are providing medical care each week to the children, or working to provide material needs for the children. Specifically, another adoptive mom, Laurel Greer has started a non-profit to come alongside this orphanage. She is doing a "Crocs" shoe drive right now, which will be followed by a developmental toys drive. She sends the supplies from the States with other families who are adopting. To learn more, please visit http://four4-more.blogspot.com
My son, you are loved and longed for.
On Sunday, Kristin and I went to the Home of Hope orphanage, run by the Sisters of Charity in Kigali. We were not allowed to take pictures and I don't think I would anyway. Almost seems to trivialize the reality these children live in. So we went with some teachers from my daughter's school who volunteer there every Sunday. I have been to many orphanages before as a result of our adoptions and my work with Children's Hope Chest, but this was harder than what I've experienced before.
I need to preface my comments by saying that I know the Sisters there are prayerful, dedicated, hard-working and compassionate people. Yet, there are too few of them and too many children. One hundred and twenty children, ages 0-8 live in this home. Volunteers are not allowed in the baby room, unless you are a doctor, so as to keep the babies healthy. However, I could see them through the windows. Crib after crib lined the room - it was overwhelming to me. There had to be sixty cribs, at least. Outside the baby room were the 1-2 year olds, some of whom slept two to a crib in a very small crib. No furniture except the tables at which they all eat their meals. Outside in the courtyard, about forty 3-6 year olds, along with several special needs older children, were playing and getting ready to eat their dinner (a roll and some milk) and take a bath.
I thought I was prepared. I brought a Rwandan soccer ball as I thought that would be fun to play. Lesson learned, unless I had 40 soccer balls, I should not have brought it. The children stormed at us, wanting to be held, wanting to touch our hair and wanting to see what I had in my bag. They tried to grab it off of my arm. I finally got control and tried to play a game, but it was chaotic. They all began climbing on me and not in a fun way. I literally had to cry for help because the smaller children were getting trampled by the older. I just wanted to cry. This was not what I had imagined. And the caregivers (not the nuns) did not seem to know what to do. Finally, I put my bag in hiding, toys away, and just held a few small children, singing and blessing each one.
The smell of urine was everywhere - on the children, on my clothes, on my skin. It was overwhelming to me, yet I couldn't stop holding them. My son could be one of them in a few years. Lord, please hasten our process.
In the meantime, I will hold the children and support those who are coming alongside these children. I've met so many wonderful people who are providing medical care each week to the children, or working to provide material needs for the children. Specifically, another adoptive mom, Laurel Greer has started a non-profit to come alongside this orphanage. She is doing a "Crocs" shoe drive right now, which will be followed by a developmental toys drive. She sends the supplies from the States with other families who are adopting. To learn more, please visit http://four4-more.blogspot.com
My son, you are loved and longed for.
Monday, November 2, 2009
An Umuganda Day
The last Saturday of every month in Rwanda is called Umuganda Day. From 8 am -12 pm, no cars are supposed to be out in the street, no one is to be working, everyone is to be serving their community, rebuilding their neighborhoods, cleaning up their streets. We decided to participate as a family. There is a ton of trash on our street and the potholes do wonders for our cars. So we decided to pick up trash and try and fill the potholes. Here are a few pictures. We ended up with all the neighbor kids working with us. We gave them oranges afterwards for all their hard work and they devoured them. Afterwards we went to a Fall Festival at Lian's school, followed by another fun party at the Magruders. Lian wanted to be Mulan and Anna was a Hawaiian princess, thanks to Jen and Seng Thor who mailed us our first care package with holiday decorations. 
There was a well or cistern of some form full of trash, so I hunkered down ( to the surprise of the children) and started pulling out trash until a cockroach scared me out.
Lian, the hard worker.
Dano and the boys trying to fill the huge ditch at the end of the tarmac.
Anna and her fellow trash picker-uppers.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Just some reflections I had to get on paper....
It has been fifteen years since the genocide. Rwanda has made tremendous strides toward healing, redemption. I am given the privilege of living in this country – from my front veranda, I can see lush mango, papaya and avocado trees, and the green valley. My children play with Danyire, Jiye, Samuel, Francine, Pierre, JoJo, Benita, Jadit, Christian. The rains pour down in the afternoon, bringing life to the red earth. It is a beautiful country.
I went to a meeting the other day at the Free Methodist church in Gikondo. Good people. Incredible hearts for the handicapped, the widow, the HIV-AIDS victim, the youth. We walk past the old church, being remodeled for a new Bible training center. 165 people were killed there. In cold blood. By their neighbors and friends, sanctioned by their Bishop. I am asked to see the future. To help with the future. Yet, the past is right there in front of me and I find myself fighting tears, seeing ghosts. The dead still speak.
Our security guard and gardener returns home from an evening out. He asks me for permission to return home to the North next week so he can pay his school fees and receive his diploma. He asks me in broken, yet understandable English sentences. I have been paying 8,000 francs ($12 USD) a week to study Kinyarwandan and I still can't have a two sentence conversation with Zechariah. He could not speak more than three words of English three weeks ago, but each night he studies a worn out 1970s textbook the gardener across the street lent him. And he can talk to me. I envy him.
Our househelper, Consolee, can barely stay awake by 3:00 pm. There are no Starbucks runs here. I tell her that she can take an hour break – I had assumed she would. One can't assume. I am the boss. I direct the program. If I don't make it clear that she can take a break, than she doesn't. I want to kick myself for not recognizing this earlier. I ask her when she studies for I know she goes to school six days a week after working for us nine hours a day. She says she wakes up at 3 or 4 am to study, before getting her five children up and ready for school. Her mother died when she was 16, so she had to quit school. Now she is determined to finish. I let her go early that day.
I met a woman on the plane. We are becoming friends, having weekly playdates with our daughters, taking Pilates together. She is Rwandan, but has only spent four months in Rwanda until now. Her family fled in 1959, so she grew up in Uganda. Her family returned to Rwanda after the genocide. She studied in the United States. Her family is of the elite. She asks me when I adopt if I will adopt a Hutu or a Tutsi. I don't hesitate to say, “It will not matter to us.”
The genocide is still the point in time by which everything else is defined here. The country wants to move forward. It is moving forward. I walk by people on the street and wonder what their story is. The number of crippled people here is staggering. No one needs to ask why they are maimed. I truly cannot begin to fathom the depths of the evil done by people to people. It has been fifteen years. My life here is good. We are doing good things to help build the economy. We will be forever connected to this country through our son's blood. My heart cries out for healing for this beautiful land. My soul is humbled by the people I meet. My mind seeks to grasp all I can learn so I can understand the stories of these people through their own language. It has only been three weeks. Time, time....
I went to a meeting the other day at the Free Methodist church in Gikondo. Good people. Incredible hearts for the handicapped, the widow, the HIV-AIDS victim, the youth. We walk past the old church, being remodeled for a new Bible training center. 165 people were killed there. In cold blood. By their neighbors and friends, sanctioned by their Bishop. I am asked to see the future. To help with the future. Yet, the past is right there in front of me and I find myself fighting tears, seeing ghosts. The dead still speak.
Our security guard and gardener returns home from an evening out. He asks me for permission to return home to the North next week so he can pay his school fees and receive his diploma. He asks me in broken, yet understandable English sentences. I have been paying 8,000 francs ($12 USD) a week to study Kinyarwandan and I still can't have a two sentence conversation with Zechariah. He could not speak more than three words of English three weeks ago, but each night he studies a worn out 1970s textbook the gardener across the street lent him. And he can talk to me. I envy him.
Our househelper, Consolee, can barely stay awake by 3:00 pm. There are no Starbucks runs here. I tell her that she can take an hour break – I had assumed she would. One can't assume. I am the boss. I direct the program. If I don't make it clear that she can take a break, than she doesn't. I want to kick myself for not recognizing this earlier. I ask her when she studies for I know she goes to school six days a week after working for us nine hours a day. She says she wakes up at 3 or 4 am to study, before getting her five children up and ready for school. Her mother died when she was 16, so she had to quit school. Now she is determined to finish. I let her go early that day.
I met a woman on the plane. We are becoming friends, having weekly playdates with our daughters, taking Pilates together. She is Rwandan, but has only spent four months in Rwanda until now. Her family fled in 1959, so she grew up in Uganda. Her family returned to Rwanda after the genocide. She studied in the United States. Her family is of the elite. She asks me when I adopt if I will adopt a Hutu or a Tutsi. I don't hesitate to say, “It will not matter to us.”
The genocide is still the point in time by which everything else is defined here. The country wants to move forward. It is moving forward. I walk by people on the street and wonder what their story is. The number of crippled people here is staggering. No one needs to ask why they are maimed. I truly cannot begin to fathom the depths of the evil done by people to people. It has been fifteen years. My life here is good. We are doing good things to help build the economy. We will be forever connected to this country through our son's blood. My heart cries out for healing for this beautiful land. My soul is humbled by the people I meet. My mind seeks to grasp all I can learn so I can understand the stories of these people through their own language. It has only been three weeks. Time, time....
Thursday, October 22, 2009
A little publicity from Gordon College
My alma mater, Gordon College, actually interviewed me for this back in the Spring, but I just got an email today saying they published it to their blog. Very nice of them.
http://gordoncollegegrapevine.blogspot.com/2009/10/encouraging-small-business-growth-in_22.html
http://gordoncollegegrapevine.blogspot.com/2009/10/encouraging-small-business-growth-in_22.html
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Listen and Learn
These are the two words I keep hearing in my heart and mind as I live life here in Rwanda. It has been three weeks and if you know me, you know I am a doer. And now I am in a land with plenty of needs for which there is plenty of "doing" to be done. I am friends with so many people who are great "doers" and for whom an immediate need on the street requires immediate action. Yet, I continue to hear the whisperings of "Be Still."
I attended a Bible Study today with other Westerners and the theme was on...yes, "Being Still." The author of the study said the Hebrew word for this expression is "rapah" which literally means to relax, be lazy, be discouraged, be slack, weak." When I've heard or read these words before in Psalm 46, I never viewed them in a negative way. I always thought it mean to just be quiet, relax. But this Hebrew word implies so much more...it requires one to literally give up control. That is what I feel I am to be doing...to give up control of what my ideas are for my time in Rwanda.
"But, wait," I cry. "There are street children and orphans and widows...your word cries out for them, so I should do something now." And, yet, I keep hearing....just listen and learn.
So I have been here three weeks now this evening. While we're still lacking certain furniture and comforts of home, I feel quite settled into life in Kigali. So I want to know what is next. Dano is busy with Karisimbi and I am thrilled by how that is going, but my heart is for the orphan and I want to know what I am supposed to do for the orphan. I met with a wise woman today who has lived in Rwanda for five years and works with African Enterprise. I told her of my struggle and she was so encouraging to me today. She said, "The best thing you could do right now is to listen and learn because you're not just listening and learning for opportunity, you're listening to the culture."
The guys have commented that they are so glad we had several months to just meet with business leaders, organize our thoughts, meet with the leaders again, reorganize our thoughts, meet with them again, etc., because now the final product is so much better and the clients have tremendous buy-in. Every day the guys learn something new about a potential client or Rwandan politics or business and with each lesson comes a better focused direction for our company. I believe that is what is happening with me as I seek to discern how to best serve here.
So I have decided to just start meeting with people who are doing orphan care work, to hear their hearts, to see the needs, to simply be present. I'm starting to see and believe that so much "good work" that is often done is often done too quickly. It is still good work, but it could be so much better if the idea and heart behind it were given time to "Be still."
I attended a Bible Study today with other Westerners and the theme was on...yes, "Being Still." The author of the study said the Hebrew word for this expression is "rapah" which literally means to relax, be lazy, be discouraged, be slack, weak." When I've heard or read these words before in Psalm 46, I never viewed them in a negative way. I always thought it mean to just be quiet, relax. But this Hebrew word implies so much more...it requires one to literally give up control. That is what I feel I am to be doing...to give up control of what my ideas are for my time in Rwanda.
"But, wait," I cry. "There are street children and orphans and widows...your word cries out for them, so I should do something now." And, yet, I keep hearing....just listen and learn.
So I have been here three weeks now this evening. While we're still lacking certain furniture and comforts of home, I feel quite settled into life in Kigali. So I want to know what is next. Dano is busy with Karisimbi and I am thrilled by how that is going, but my heart is for the orphan and I want to know what I am supposed to do for the orphan. I met with a wise woman today who has lived in Rwanda for five years and works with African Enterprise. I told her of my struggle and she was so encouraging to me today. She said, "The best thing you could do right now is to listen and learn because you're not just listening and learning for opportunity, you're listening to the culture."
The guys have commented that they are so glad we had several months to just meet with business leaders, organize our thoughts, meet with the leaders again, reorganize our thoughts, meet with them again, etc., because now the final product is so much better and the clients have tremendous buy-in. Every day the guys learn something new about a potential client or Rwandan politics or business and with each lesson comes a better focused direction for our company. I believe that is what is happening with me as I seek to discern how to best serve here.
So I have decided to just start meeting with people who are doing orphan care work, to hear their hearts, to see the needs, to simply be present. I'm starting to see and believe that so much "good work" that is often done is often done too quickly. It is still good work, but it could be so much better if the idea and heart behind it were given time to "Be still."
Help Support Ballet Rwanda
We are very proud of our friend, Caroline Peixoto, who moved with us to Rwanda. She is launching Ballet Rwanda on November 9. Check it out at www.balletrwanda.com and if you're interested in helping her meet her fundraising goal of $2000, you can give online at www.balletrwanda.com.
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