Animals! (Ethan Adventures)

We were very lucky and saw a TON of animals over the 3 days. We took a game drive through the Nile Delta area of the park and spotted elephants, gazelle, buffalo, giraffe, and many DLA (deer-like animals.) Our driver even went barreling off road, (waaay off road), to chase down a lion family in the tall grass. It was awesome! The next day we took a boat ride up the Victoria Nile to the base of Murchison Falls. We saw more elephants, tons of lizards and crocs, and a million hippos! The hippos were my favorite. It was neat to watch them interact in their families, and how the parents are so protective of their children. Hippos look like the laziest animals ever...floppin' about and lounging on each other. They don't intermix families. I learned that Hippos always stay in their own "clan." The last day, we traveled to the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary in Nakitoma, and tracked white rhinos! They were amazing! It was so special to be able to get so close to them. Beautiful!

Murchison Falls (Ethan Adventures)

Ok, don't laugh. I know it's been over 2 months since Ethan left, and I'm still getting around to posting pics and stories! Sometimes life gets in the way, ya know! :) I wish I could be with Ethan now on his adventures traversing the United States in his used RV; crisscrossing through, oh, about 16 different states, stopping to say hey to folks along the way. What a life! :) Makes me think of the Zac Brown song, "So we live out in our old van, travel all across this land....just as free as we'll ever be!"

So Ethan and I spent our Christmas in Murchison Falls, Uganda, with an amazing group of friends we just met. Christmas Eve morning, we met Heather and Greg, a couple from the UK, who have traveled all over the world together, and were now on their African honeymoon. They slept in bunks 9 and 10 right by us. (I hope I'm as adventurous as they are when I get married!) We headed out to our safari van, and met the other people we would be spending Christmas with for the next 3 days. There was Ruben, from Sweden, (we dubbed him John Mayer.) He was an interesting fellow,with a great mind, and hopes to teach one day in the U.S. He was traveling with his sweet mom, Mikela, who was a hemotologist back in Sweden, and came to volunteer in Uganda for a few months. And then there was Joe...a fun guy from Tucson, who has lived all over, and now is teaching in Kosovo. He had hoped for a position in Peru, but when they denied his visa, he packed up and set out for Kosovo. We heard his many challenging situations with his students there, and just life in general. Joe was full of stories. He was our Jack Black of the trip. If I've ever met someone who should write a book someday, it is Joe. We all encouraged him to put these stories on paper! When we first stepped into our van, Ethan and I had no idea who any of these people were, or what the next 3 days would be like, but soon, we both knew, as cliche as it sounds, we were all so well chosen for each other. I can't explain it any other way. We just clicked, and this Christmas is one I'm sure each of us will never forget. We made memories and lifelong friends. We shared like we had known each other our entire lives. We chased hippos together, and laughed at the antler-wearing Canadians together, and ate and drank and sang Christmas carols all night! Joe and Heather and Greg have already been to visit me here in Kigali, and I know the rest of us will reunite soon. We made some special memories. I love them all!

From L to R: our driver, Heather, Ethan, Joe, me, Mikela, Ruben, and Greg. Our guide/guard is in front.

On the first day, we set out for Murchison Falls, about a 6 hour drive on dusty, pot-holed Ugandan roads. We stopped in Masindi for a brochette lunch, and then headed to the falls. I've seen some amazing waterfalls in Africa, and this was the most powerful one by far! We could feel the mist from far away; so forceful! This is where the Nile River splits Lake Victoria and Lake Albert. About 300 cubic meteres of water per second flows through a narrow gap in the rock about 20 ft. And the result is power! Whoa, it was cool! The water then flows into Lake Albert. In the back of this picture, you can see Greg placing, "Mr. Bear" in front of the falls. Mr Bear has traveled with them to 6 different continents, and taken some really awesome pictures. One day they hope to write a children's book about his adventures. :) We arrived at the camp right before dark. The next morning we woke up at 5, and set out for the ferry, to cross over the Nile, into the gamepark. We were so fortunate to see every kind of animal...our guide even went offroad and chased down the lions for us. I'll post some great animal pics in a sec. We spent Christmas Day taking a boat ride down the Nile, and spotting hippos, crocs, and elephants. Our boat stopped at the site where Ernest Hemingway crashed his plane in 1952 when he was on safari with his wife. After the boat ride, we went back to camp and celebrated Christmas with a delicious barbecue, and warthogs and hippos. I'll write about my most memorable Christmas in a sec! The next day, we headed out to Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary, the only place to see rhinos in the wild in Uganda. The sanctuary was created to reintroduce rhinos to East Africa, after they became extinct in the 80's. Their longterm goal is to rebuild the rhino population and relocate the rhinos back to their natural habitats. They also have a rhino breeding program. We made it back to the Red Chili in Kampala shortly before dark, and hit up the Sunday night barbecue, before heading out to a local joint to have one last night with our safari friends.

Checking out the hippos

The Victoria Nile

Our faces were kind of orange from the dirt!

This was where a bridge had been erected for when the Queen came to visit. Shortly after her visit, the water overtook it.

grace

Something really bad happened this weekend. And it hurt. Really bad. There were feelings of anger and rage and ugliness and not so good words coming from my mouth and imbeded in my heart.

And then, just like that, grace came. Forgiveness came. I can assure you it wasn't me. I still harbored some pretty bad thoughts about this person. But grace triumphed. Forgiveness is a beautiful thing. I was able to focus again, and to worship again, and to really commune again. God is amazing. His love and His grace for us is unending! If grace is an ocean, we are all sinking for sure. (love that line!)

I picked up my journal and started to write today, and I happened to read the words my friend wrote to me before she gave it to me in 2009. She wrote that sometimes messed up and confusing situations just happen to us, and it's a mystery as to why, but that is where we grow. Then she added, "Green grass comes from deep crap." (sorry!) She's right! :)

Grace is a mysterious, crazy, wonderful gift. Because of grace, I can sleep tonight, work tomorrow, love my neighbor, and love myself. It's an amazing gift to accept. Give this gift of grace to someone today. Accept this gift today. I can assure you, you will sleep better tonight. :)


Grace, she takes the blame
She covers the shame
 Removes the stain
It could be her name...



Grace, it's the name for a girl
It's also a thought that changed the world
And when she walks on the street
You can hear the strings
Grace finds goodness in everything...


What once was hurt
What once was friction
What left a mark
No longer stings
Because Grace makes beauty
Out of ugly things


Grace makes beauty out of ugly things...


-Bono

No words

I don't have any words for the suffering Japan is enduring right now. I don't understand why these things have to happen. It seems so unfair, so ugly, watching what's happening to those people. There's no answers. This year, it seems like it's been one thing after the other. I'm in a unique place where someone, at least one family in our small community, has been directly affected by these disasters. Two of our students haven't heard from their family in Japan at all. Last month, the Martin family moved back to New Zealand, after being in Rwanda for 3 years and heading up the Salvation Army here. They moved back in time to watch houses of their loved ones crumble, and a relative die in the earthquake rubble. But they also were there to see friends who were rescued after three days. Kang Hee is my "special" little fellow in my class. He prays for Korea everyday now. At the beginning of the year, he didn't like his home country of Korea, because of the "bad dictator", and he refused to pray. Now, Kang-Hee understands that his country needs his prayers. He used to live directly on the border between the North and the South, and saw soldiers and shooting daily. His parents said he never could understand why he wasn't allowed to cross over the border. This explains the war games and "border crossing" games he plays at recess. (He has Asperger's too.) It's what he knows. It's what colors his world. Last fall, when there was a short, selective reunion between the two countries, the family met some of their relatives they hadn't seen in 60 years. How can you put something like that into words? I can't imagine. He prays for his uncles everyday now. He prays that he may see them again in heaven. Marijike lived in the Philippines before coming to Rwanda. Houses in her village were decimated in the typhoon in October. Families were broken, a neighbor lost her child. Every disaster, my children know someone by name who is suffering. Indonesia, fighting in Bahrain, they know someone. Eyoviel has relatives being evacuated in Libya right now who we are praying for. And my kids PRAY. They cry and cling, and pray. Sweet prayers.

It's different than being in the States where everything seems so far away from us...and while we grieve and pray and try to help, being so far away, we can rest easier. We are usually removed. Suffering is hard. Times like this where you see people waiting for answers, hoping for the best, trying to just breathe, and clinging to what they know and love. It's very different being in this international community where someone you know is hurting directly. My kids are angels. Only 9 years old and so sweet and precious. But they have already lived more than most of us will ever live in 5 times as many years. They have traveled, they know this vast world, they speak its many languages, and their worlds are being shaped by the things they are seeing and experiencing, and sometimes suffering too. I think about my friends who are genocide survivors, and try to understand what has colored their world, and why they are who they are today. Suffering is something I can't really explain; a mystery, so hard to watch others that you love go through. We all have suffered in our own ways, in our own families and communities. What we suffer through, someone else may see as miniscule. But nothing is trivial to God. Sometimes I think, it's when we are broken vessels that God is working and changing us, and others can see His glory shining brighter in our lives. Paul knew this. His suffering became his pulpit. His fiery trials became his reason for rejoicing. I don't get it though. It's hard to understand suffering like that. None of us have ever experienced what our brothers and sisters in Japan are suffering through. Let's remember them and intercede for them now.

Load

Are you carrying a load that's too heavy for you?

Think about someone with an even bigger load than you. Better yet, give your load and his load to the only One who can carry it. Give it up.

"Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." ~Matthew 11:28

Buj

I knew my Heels were gonna win the big game, when our dilapidated African bus pulled up into the breezy, balmy, lakeside town of Bujumbura, Burundi;  a country still in the throes of conflict, with its countless UN convoys and compounds, and the first put-together, decent building I saw was an old car dealership that had, “Old East” written in huge letters scribbled on it’s concrete slab of a sign. I thought of that beautiful campus, and the charming old dorm, and felt like James Taylor was singing in my mind. (Of course last month, when they played Duke for the first time, I was sure they would win, after seeing a guy wearing a UNC girls soccer camp T-shirt at the local market; but instead they blew a 17 point lead.) But I just told myself, basketball is not soccer, and there’s always next time, when it really counts. And they won! Go heels! I wore my blue bathing suit too, just in case.

We had a long weekend, Friday and Monday off of school…and I decided that I was actually not going to do a lot of work this weekend. Not school work, or any other work. I decided I needed to spend the weekend relaxing my body and my mind. I wanted to read and swim and eat. So on Friday, I traveled with a couple of friends on a 6 hour road trip down to the sweltering Bujumbura, Burundi, Rwanda’s neighbor to the south. I still delight in the fact that I can travel to another country for the weekend! Crazy! Life is always an adventure here, and I was blessed to have some time away for another one this weekend.

The guide book advertises Burundi as “beautiful, but tortured.” I would say that sums it up quite well. Burundi is simply gorgeous, I thought Rwanda was the prettiest place on earth, and what I had heard about Burundi, didn’t think it could match it. But Burundi is absolutely stunning. There are mountains and green, rolling hills dotted with coffee and tea. The different shades of green against the landscape are incredibly stunning. I only wished I didn’t have to travel it at Mach 10 speed in a bus. I want to return to Burundi. To the countryside, and visit with people. The first 4 hours we were weaving down and around and up and around hills, and the last 2 hours we were going down to the lakeside, and everything flattened out. You could feel the heat start to grab you, and it started to feel more like Mombasa in July.

And then we arrived in the not-so-bustling or brilliant capital city of Bujumbura. Buj, for short, looked more like a small village town, compared to Kigali. There were no buildings higher than three stories, as there hasn’t been any development in Buj since the early 80’s. All the ministry offices were more like run down apartment buildings in the ghetto. It had the wide colonial streets and elaborate roundabout displays, similar to Moshi, in Tanzania, but the city itself was practically a ghost town. There are UN soldiers standing guard everywhere, and their compound is the biggest deal in town. Coils of barbed wire run along the top of all the buildings, even small stores, and we found many people just hanging around, with nothing to do. Everywhere we went there were groups of soldiers running shirtless in a pack, shouting army chants and sweating it out. Every patch of grass serves as a makeshift soccer pitch, and boys are out there all hours of the day.

I am fascinated by history, and wanted to learn more about this small country that borders my own. Especially because Rwanda and Burundi are so similar. They are both small countries, first colonized by the Germans, and later by Belgiums, and they have both endured awful ethnic conflicts over the last few decades. However, now Rwanda has peace and is stable. International investors and NGOs are flocking to Rwanda to help with development, and the government is highly supportive. But in Burundi, there is no Kagame, no development; and while there is no war right now, the situation is still very unstable. Like Rwanda, the conflict goes back many, many years, and is too complicated to map out here, but things came to a head in 1993, when thousands were massacred in inter-tribal fighting between Hutus and Tutsis, and many refugees fled into Rwanda. The following year, the Hutu Burundi President died in the same plane crash that killed Rwanda’s Hutu President, and it triggered the genocide in Rwanda that lasted 100 days. In the next 3 years, hundreds of thousands of Burundians were also killed in tribal clashes, and the fighting continued during a successful coup in 96. In 2003, the largest rebel group, FDD, finally signed a peace treaty, the UN sent troops in 2004 to maintain peace, and elections were held in 2005. The former rebels, the FDD, were victorious and claimed the presidency.

Their President is a Hutu, and our President Kagame is a Tutsi. Even though both tribes are represented in both countries, each country deals with it in a totally different way. In Rwanda today, there are only Rwandans. There are no divisions. It’s even a crime to even speak of the separate tribes. When asked who are you, they all answer, I am Rwandan. We even have to have “code names” when speaking of the Hutus and Tutsi here. Most ex-pats refer to them as hamburgers and tater-tots. (I’m not joking.) But in Burundi, they really debate their divisions still, and talk about them openly. They say they are Hutu or Tutsi, they discuss them together. They drink together, work together, and since 2003, seem happy to live in peace together. These are two very different approaches to the same problem. I respect that Burundians can openly discuss the past and their conflicts, but at the same time, I think they really need to embrace a spirit of unity and stability so they can move forward and grow in many ways.

I enjoyed Buj. We stayed on the beach at Saga Plage, a lazy shamba on the beach that shared its home to a large caged crocodile and almost-as-large python, who was in the process of hugging a sweet, innocent guinea pig when we arrived. Not fun. We had to hassle more for uncorrupt prices from everyone in Burundi, but I had been warned about that. Buj sits right on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, and only 5k down the road from Buj is the legendary spot where Stanley uttered the famous line, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” Wow. I only thought I’d read about that place in history books! Life is good. Buj has reputedly the greatest inland beaches on the whole continent, and I would agree. Soft, yellow sand, and the waves of the lake crashing in. The menacing mountains of Congo are in plain view, a few miles away. It’s so crazy to be sitting in either Rwanda or Burundi, relaxing on the beach, and seeing Congo in the distant. It looks so bold, and menacing, almost like if you peered behind those mountains, who knows what you would see! I’ve gotta get there before I leave this continent. There’s an active volcano that a few of us have wanted to climb for sometime, but they have just recently jacked up the visa price to an unaffordable amount. And that doesn’t even include the bribes you will be asked for. The DRC is a different place. I still would like to visit someday. Anyway, the beaches in Buj were amazing. All that was missing was the salt smell.

We ate dinner at an old, carved out ship in the water, that looked like it might collapse any minute. And we spent the day swimming in the lake, and lounging at Bora Bora and the ex-pat hotel. Saturday night, we had a juicy burger at the old Havana club, and enjoyed the view of Buj at night. Not a lot going on though. We made it back in time to catch some live music on the beach. Get this! Literally 10 minutes after we got out of the lake, we looked and about 15-20 yards from where we had been swimming, a baby hippo comes up out of the water! We couldn’t believe it. Maybe we shouldn’t have been swimming there. An hour later, we saw the adult hippo pop up too! Crazy!

On Saturday, I met some retired U.S. Army personnel who were in Buj training their soldiers. These guys did short training contracts all over Africa. Had an awesome Spirit-filled conversation with one guy, from Kansas, who just left the Mormon church, and was doing a lot of searching. His sister was getting married soon and he wasn’t even allowed inside the Mormon temple. He seemed hurt by that, and he started asking me about the book I was reading called, ChristianAtheist, by Craig Groeschel. I listened and talked and shared. My plan for Saturday was to swim a lot of laps, do a lot of reading, not talk to anyone, have alone time, and sleep. I’m so glad God’s plans aren’t my plans. I did get my quiet time in, but I also was given the opportunity to share everything I believed with this new friend. Nothing was forced, and the conversation was just definitely put-together in a divine way. Really cool. Also was able to share with my lawyer friend from Kigali, who is not a Christian, but is open to hearing about my faith. The guys have invited him to their “man-group” Bible Study, and he went last week. He confessed to me this weekend a lot of things he had shame about in his life. And some things he was still doing and practicing that he had no shame about. He’s lived a very privileged life, but has encountered many demons and has tried all there is to try, looking for love and acceptance. We had a wonderful conversation, (after he had some drinks in him), and he was just asking, asking, asking so many questions about Jesus. It was awesome! I just continue to pray for opportunities like I had this weekend; even with strangers! And I pray that I may be prepared. He does the rest! I got some good sun this weekend,(a bit too much), had some awesome Spirit-flavored conversations with friends, and new folks too, still got in 2.5 books! (mostly on the 6 hour bus rides), and just relaxed. But now it’s good to be home! (my African home!) Gonna prolong the holiday, now, with Ramen noodles and sugar cookies tonight, and an early bedtime. Can’t wait!

Book Review

I finished a great book this weekend. I recommend it to everyone. A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, by Donald Miller. He's the same author who wrote Blue Like Jazz, Searching for God Knows What, and others. I read his adventure tale, Through Painted Deserts, last month, but nothing he has written compares to this latest book.

After writing his successful memoir, Miller's life was stalling; going by in slow motion. He got depressed, couldn't write, or even get out of bed, and his faith was taking a beating. But it all changed when two movie producers approached him about turning his memoir into a movie. He started living again. This book isn't even about the movie. It's about living and everything that comes with it. It's about relationships and community, and love that binds, and adventures.

He writes about telling his story, and realizing that for a while he didn't have a story to tell. Our stories must be difficult, sacrificial and epic, he writes. Jesus wants us to live epic lives with epic stories. And these stories and adventures are designed to transform us, from one person, into a new creation. The change occurs when we really know our Creator and love Him, and start living!

Miller tells tales about so many real-life characters he has met along the way that have inspired him to live a great story. And he got me thinking about all the characters I've met along the way that have inspired me to live a better story. And many of those probably don't even know it. I think I need to fix that.

Part of living a better story is taking risks. Embracing the open doors before us, without fear. Seeing the beauty that is everywhere. Create memorable scenes. A good movie has memorable scenes. So should a good life, he says. And invite other people into the story with you to create memorable scenes, so they can have a better story too.

He got me thinking about memorable scenes in my life, and also ones that I hope to create someday. On the bus to Buj, I started a list of memorable scenes, just spontaneously writing ones down that popped into my mind. I took up two pages in my journal, writing as we bumped along, before I stopped. Things came to my mind like spending the night on the floor of the Paris airport with Sarah and Jason, with our faces pressed up against the nasty tiles, and sitting in the field in the middle of Bamburi, crying with Stella at the orphanage. And dancing in the rain in the quad in Chapel Hill, and holding my nephew for the first time, and jumping in the swollen lake at camp with the whole gang. It was good to reflect back on scenes and stories and those memorable characters that have shaped my life. It's been a good story so far. I can't wait to live the rest of it.

This book will inspire you, and allow you to reflect and dream. I wanna read it again real soon. It reminded me that we all have a story to tell. Question is, what's our story gonna tell?

"If God is your partner, make your plans BIG." ~D.L. Moody