This summer has been most unusual. Summers are normally slow for me—a nice break from busy seasons of travel in spring and fall. Not this year. Summer this year put me on the road about eighty out of one hundred days! What saved it for me was the second extraordinary occurrence: Debbie, my wife, and Carol, my 17 year-old daughter were with me most of it.
Rwanda - Summer 2009
The highlight, the once-in-a-lifetime-memory, was our 10-day trip to Rwanda. Thanks to the generosity of key donors we were able to stay in a nice western hotel so we were able to sleep well, heal the jet lag, and relax between meetings and other events.
We began our days with an evangelistic “convention” in Kigali. The theme, aimed at the whole nation was from Ezekiel: I Will Give You a New Heart and a New Spirit. Over the three-day event all the speakers, including me, spoke on some aspect of that passage. The event culminated in a meeting in the stadium in Kigali. You would have been proud to hear Archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda preach the Gospel.
The few days following the convention were taken up with meetings with Archbishops Kolini (Rwanda), Archbishop Orombi (Uganda), Bishop John Rucyahana (Ruhengheri) and several other Bishop and clergy colleagues in Rwanda. They are all wonderful men.
The last days were taken up with what I call our “Rwanda education”.
Blessed Sam, who must be sick of taking Westerners on tours, was a true friend and expert guide. There is not much to say in this space about the genocide in Rwanda. But maybe two simple thoughts can capture my reaction:
1. Even seeing the aftermath; even having studied it; I could not take it all in. I cannot imagine the scope, scale and brutality of the murder, rape, torture and village-destruction. Standing at one memorial where thousands of Tutsis were slaughtered I remembered the text from Ephesians wherein Paul prayed that the Christians in Ephesus would know the height, depth, breadth and length of God’s love for them. As I remembered the passage the thought came to mind that “I have now seen the height, depth, length and breadth of evil…the context in which God incarnates himself, loves and redeems.
2. Don’t give up on the church. We may be living through a down time right now in the Western world, but we are not the whole world and all of time. One of my big take-aways from the trip was that I wish all of you could see the Kingdom work these leaders of the church are doing. It is most everything the emergent/missional church movements have been hoping for over the past decade. It was great to feel genuinely proud of the church!
