Glass Half Empty

A glass would be anything but half empty if you left it outside these days. The rainy season has arrived and everyone knows it, each of the last 7 days has had it's share of precipitation, deluge even, and it looks to continue that way.

Recently it has become more obvious to me how deep the wounds are here. The British are famed for their stiff upper lip. That ability to grin and bear it and avoid conflict, emotions or generally anything sensitive at all costs. Yet I find here something that goes far beyond that but it is very hard to place. Perhaps it is just a complete de-sensitisation because the people here have seen so much that they have become numb. Maybe it is the ostrich move of sticking ones head in the sand and pretending that it never happened. Or somehow they have just learned to live with the loss of so much, knowing that all is not lost. For they still have their lives, if not their family, if not their dignity, if not their limbs, if not their pride, if not their happiness, they yet have life in them.

Who knows, perhaps no one, but all the same Rwanda still lives in the ashes of its past, limps on with the scars of yesteryear.

For our team to get anywhere in town we have to get a bus. 20p will get you anywhere in the city. This process involves a 15 minute walk down our local high street to the local bus station which consist of a dirt courtyard packed with people and various buses. You wait on the bus until its full and then hop off at your destination. Simple enough.

However, in the 15 minutes it takes to walk to the station you will pass people who are simply lying in the street in 30 degree heat, sometimes half on the pavement half in the road with a hand stretched out.

When you get to the bus station you have to push through the swarm of street vendors who flock to the white people. You learn the word for 'no' pretty quickly. Occasionally you will actually be grabbed (it is quite a tactile culture) by someone begging for money, though it is closer to demanding than begging really.

Once you have figured out which bus you need and get on the blind man will have managed to find his way on to the bus and will do the rounds as the bus fills up. If you turn your face from him to look out the window you will likely see more vendors trying to sell you anything from bread to USB sticks through the window. Occasionally they will disperse as though someone just started shooting at them. They don't pay taxes because none of their sales are recorded so their practice is illegal and they would rather not be caught by the heavily armed police. In their place you will find at your window a woman waving the stump of an arm that used to have a hand on the end of it gently thudding against your window, demanding your attention, your pity, your money. Eventually the bus fills and you pull away, the conductor will at some point ask for your 20p and you will place it into a scarred hand full of tattered cash. Then you arrive at your destination and start your day. There were many survivors of the genocide but none got through unscathed.

Despite all of this life goes on. They press on and most seem unaffected by what they see. In fairness most have seen far worse and the fact that the country is at peace is a blessing that outshines the scars of the past.

My Grandmother had a heart attack this week. She is several thousand miles away and I am at least 6 weeks away from being able to see her again. I am a very long way from home.

The longest Saturday of all time was probably the Saturday between good Friday and Easter Sunday. The one in whom the disciples had placed all of their hope, whom they had lived with for the past 3 years and who they believed to be the one who would win the victory of victories was brutally and publicly tortured and executed.

But Sunday came.

When all hope was lost and everything was at its darkest. After all the commotion and chaos and fireworks the ashes rested and there was the cold bitter taste of grief without a mote of hope to carry them.

Yet the tomb was empty. The resurrection, so far beyond expectation that even its evidence was met with scepticism but slowly it dawned. There was not just some hope remaining. There was the most secure, the most unwaveringly sure hope ever to have graced the face of this earth.

There is a resurrection.

There is hope like African rain that will fill your glass to overflowing. A hope in the new life, a new, unbroken body, a new heavens and a new earth. A hope that we go on beyond the veil.

Not an empty star gazing hope but a living, active and life changing hope that the glass is not half empty but filled to capacity. 

Memorial

From the 7th to the 14th of April Rwanda is commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Genocide against the Tutsi. As a result the country is operating at half pace this week with work finishing at midday so that everyone can attend village meetings in the afternoon. Here they discuss the genocide and ongoing social conditions with the aim of carving a brighter future for themselves and their children. Somewhat ironically this has coincided with our work starting as we finished up our planning week on Friday.

The Memorial week commenced with a series of national events across Kigali, the capital, starting with a presidential speech and then the 'walk to remember' and finished up in the evening with a candle lit vigil in the stadium.

Our team attended the walk and the vigil to stand by and show our respect for Rwandans who have made remarkable progress in healing from the deep wounds of the past. It was a privilege to be able to attend as thousands upon thousands filled the city to commemorate the tragic loss of their families, friends, neighbours and colleagues.

As we head towards rainy season the down pours will become all the more common but for now they are still a welcome refreshment during the day to cool us off. We enjoyed our first proper rainfall with raindrops like gold balls and decided to revel in it with a walk in the rain.

As the week picked up we went back to the catch up school that we visited last week and helped provide holiday activities for the children in the form of games in the scorching sun. It was a lot of fun to be able to get involved in the community and invest in these kids who are some of the most needy and vulnerable in society.

The following day we visited a local primary school, half of the team looked after the children there while the other half helped in capacity building for the teachers. Half of the staff were given English lessons and the other half we taught IT skills.

The week was rounded off with helping the partnering charity with all of their administrative activities. From filing quarterly reports to maintaining and updating their website.

Time here is now starting to pass by quickly as we have more to fill our hands with. No doubt as things continue to gain pace the time will fly by and it will be over before I know it!

Takeoff

We have now been in Rwanda for 10 days, or so my malaria pill count tells me; it certainly feels like it has been significantly longer. There is much to take in about the new environment and plenty to prepare for with 8 or so weeks of work ahead of us.

So and update in a week of pictures, we finished our orientation without a hitch and moved to our new base of operations as a team of 8. It was surprising how quickly friendships were built in just a week of orientation and parting ways with the other 4 teams was a mix of emotions.

Since then things have started to take off a bit, we have met the partners of Tearfund in country that we will be working with. We have spent this week so far being introduced to different projects that we will be helping out with, enabling us to come up with a strategy of how best to help in different areas.

So, in chronological order:

The day after we arrived at our residence we decided to get stuck into the community, 'Umuganda' was the perfect opportunity. On the last Saturday of every month there is community service everywhere in the country. Our local one was a 2 minute walk up the road. We did not come particularly well equipped for manual labour but we were willing and got involved. The practical work was relatively trivial, cleaning up the side of one dirt road but umuganda serves as a community building tool that goes far beyond cleaning up the streets. We were able to meet some of our neighbours and introduced ourselves. The rest of the time was spent allowing local matters to be discussed among community members (all in Kinyarwandan so we only picked up on pieces here and there that were translated for us).

On Sunday we went to a Christian Life Assembly church and got caught out in the rain on the way home.

We also met some of our new house mates:

On Monday we had our first meeting with our host partners, enabling us to get to know the team that we will be working along side, the day was also in meetings as a team ourselves to organise all of our own rotas and get all the administrative stuff out the way.

Tuesday we visited a farming co-operative in Kigali where we were able to probe enough to give us an idea of how we can help to improve their productivity and hopefully work towards lifting more people from poverty.

Wednesday we visited two catch up schools for children aged 10-20 who are yet to complete primary school. The genocide 20 years ago has left Rwanda with 85000 child led homes and thousands of orphans, many of whom grow up on the streets. These schools provide those children with an alternative path in life.

This morning we visited a church led self-help saving group who have used their collectively saved money to fight poverty together. The main avenue that this has taken is through forming an agricultural co-operative together, some 90% of Rwandans make their living through farming in one way or another. The saving group has also gathered all of the required materials to build a nursery that we will help to construct at some point during our stay.

In between all of that we have not really stopped laughing together. Our meal times frequently leave us in stitches as we laugh at ourselves with each other.  As you have probably gathered Rwanda is a very green country and I haven't been to a place yet where the horizon isn't littered with rolling hills.

I am enjoying my time so far and looking forward to really getting stuck in as we begin executing the plans from next Monday. 

Broken

I have been in Rwanda now for only two days though it feels like it has been weeks. There is much to take in as we undergo orientation for the first week to prepare us for the work ahead. Having been to Africa before it is a task for me not to simply presume that it will be the same here as elsewhere. Rwanda has a unique people, history, culture, language and nuance that no other country has. I am hoping to gain a fuller knowledge of what it means to be Rwandan in my time here. Not only that but Tearfund is a unique organisation, again having done work with other organisations that are similar it is important for me not to assume that it will be in any way similar to work here.

First impressions:

The instant I stepped off the plane the all too familiar  smell of a warm humid country hit me. It was a much needed welcome and put a big smile on my face straight away. As we waited for our baggage from an old and sorry looking conveyer belt I couldn't help myself letting slip ... 'TIA'. It wasn't long (by African standards) before we were on a delightfully cramped bus on the way to the guest house.

In the first few days we have settled in to the relatively comfortable accommodation (running water and consistent  electricity). I am also making friends with the Uk and Rwandan volunteers alike, it is such a privilege to get to meet people like this and serve together with a common goal. I also found a gecko in my room on the first night but I am holding out for seeing a Chameleon because apparently they are relatively common here and I've never seen one in the wild so that is one to hope for...

I have also managed to get a sim with some data on it enabling me to update you all! :) We have also done a tiny bit of language learning and other standard orientation type briefings around security, cultural sensitivity etc.

Today we had our somewhat ruthless baptism into Rwandan culture with a visit to a genocide memorial centre. The history of the atrocities is gruellingly detailed, with the assistance of artefacts, photos and video. It is certainly not an experience for the faint of heart as you pass through a room filled with pictures of victims. As harrowing as the experience might be of walking around such a place it barely scratches the surface of what it must have been to see around 1/7 of the population of your country massacred in just one year. There is just no escaping the fact that this has shaped every person in this country and everyone who is 20 or older lived through it themselves and would have been witness to the most heinous of crimes. The centre that we went to is the burial place of some 250000 genocide victims, under 1/4 of the total.

This is still a very broken country with the sheer number of people who are still struggling to process all that they have seen and that has happened to them. Leaving the memorial centre the question that I was left with was how?

How can anyone be turned to such extreme action against their own people?

How can a person who has seen such horrors ever find healing?

How can Rwanda recover?

How can I even begin to help?

These are questions that may or may not ever be answered but I believe they are still important to ask and mull over.

So while the work that I will be doing day to day may not directly relate to this, it is absolutely the background of every national that I will be working alongside and for and therefore must be taken into consideration in all that we do here.

Departure

The all too familiar mixed emotions of departing for the field are here... Going on an adventure with Jesus to the other side of the world, lots of new people to get to know and build friendships with. Important and fulfilling (and occasionally frustrating and even heart breaking) work to be done.

Yet at the same time it is leaving the security of familiar England, the comfort that comes from existing friendships and family and heading into the unknown. Having done all that needs to be done in order to prepare there is the less concrete objective of saying the goodbyes and preparing mentally and spiritually for the season ahead.

While I am in Rwanda they will be commemorating the 20th anniversary of the genocide for an entire week. It is a very broken nation and within my lifetime has seen more horror than any of us would want to imagine, let alone be witness to or be a part of. Doubtless over the weeks I will be struck with different impressions of how this has affected those left behind. Not just those who are older than 20 but also the next generation of Rwandans who have been born out of fire and hold the future in their hands.

At this juncture I stand thankful for all of the support and encouragement that has enabled me to be ready to go. I am thankful also for the lessons that are yet to come, as varied and difficult as they may well be, they will be unique gifts from God.

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is error, truth;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is despair, hope;

Where there is darkness, light;

And where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, Grant that I may not so much seek

To be consoled as to console;

To be understood as to understand;

To be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

- St Francis of Assisi

Success

Congratulations everyone we have done it! In under 5 days we managed to raise the £800 required to fund my impending trip to Rwanda, thank you to everyone who made this possible. Not only to those who gave but to everyone who helped to support me with their time, talents and willingness.

During my 10 weeks I am hoping to update this blog regularly (hopefully once a week) though that will depend on my internet access and time constraints.

Needless to say the hair removal process was both amusing and painful, the issue now is living with scarily smooth legs and a permanently chilly head - fortunately it is hot in Rwanda!

Action

I tend to spend a lot of time on this blog talking about justice, poverty, the impact of the gospel and the call to live a changed life as a result which is great except it is just talk. Well that is perhaps all that you the reader sees, the truth is that there is a whole lot of scheming and doing that takes place behind the front of this blog. The exciting thing for you in this post  is that the action is coming to bear, and you have the opportunity to join in!

Over the past few months I have been planning and organising a trip to Rwanda with an organisation called Tearfund. I will be heading out on the 24th of next month (Soon!) for 10 weeks to the capitol (Kigali) where I will be doing development work, mainly in the form of education and training programs to help lift people out of social, material and spiritual poverty. While I am aware that the primary recipient of change over 10 weeks will be me rather than the people I meet I am definitely a believer in Gods ability to radically change a persons life in a much shorter time frame.

If you don't know anything about Tearfund then you should go and find out more over here. The beauty of this trip is that the government, through the ICS programme is funding 90% of the trip! Amazing! What this means is that you and I have the opportunity to get involved in changing the lives of individuals who are in a place of significantly more need than we are (rather than just sitting around talking about their needs). As required by ICS I have to raise £800 by the 7th of March in order to make the trip possible. I have 200 so far but in case the there is not enough incentive purely on virtue of the fact that the money will be changing lives I have decided to take on some challenges...

So - If we manage to raise £500 by this Friday (28th) then I and two of my very good friends will shave our heads, and yes photo evidence and possibly even video will ensue.

If we manage to raise the full £800 then the hair removal will be taken to the next level - we will all get our legs waxed (oh the pain!) I can't imagine that happening without someone videoing to be honest...

In addition, once the goal is reached I will take a full 24 hours of silence (that has to be worth paying for!) to give you all some respite from my harping on!

Donating is easy and safe, you can visit my just giving page: https://www.justgiving.com/ben-currer and if you are a UK tax payer don't forget to Gift Aid :)

Lets turn the talking into some real action.

Theodicy

One day, when I was a child, I lent my relatively new bike to a friend, the friend promptly broke my prized bicycle attempting to go over a jump. In a whirlwind of tears, burning anger and shame at the fact that  I was responsible for a broken bike I ran my it back home. I discarded it on the drive and ran into the house and flung myself on the sofa, barely noticing my fathers presence on the sofa opposite. My dad asked me what was wrong ... To my shame I think I told him to piss off, or at least words to the same effect.

So pretty much a run of the mill tantrum right? Why would I be talking about this now? Because some things about the human condition don't actually change. They change their outfit, sure, but the issue itself remains the same. You, I and every child in the world still have tantrums it's just that most of us dress them up differently now that we have 'grown up'.

When you think about it we have a great number of things to have tantrums over - certainly better reasons than when we were children. We discover poverty, injustice, chronic health conditions, relationship break downs and any other form of suffering that you can think of. There is an in-built trigger of rage and sadness in each of us when we are party to and particularly when we are the target of said suffering.

Of course being grown up we now realise that there is absolutely nothing that our earthly parents can do about these problems, indeed in many cases they are in fact the source of many of these problems. So what do we do? Well all too often we perpetuate the problem, we either internalise and end up imploding turning to self loathing which in turn sabotages all of our closest relationships or we externalise and end up exploding which respectively sabotages all of our closest relationships. Not good.

So this is why I started with this story - because my bike fiasco did not end this way. In response to being told where to go my dad could have taken offence and left me to cry it out on the sofa. Fortunately for me however, I have a good father. He told me that I could tell him what happened and that he could try and help. In my infinite wisdom  I had already concluded that the damage to my bike was beyond repair and as a result there was really nothing that my dad could offer me as consolation in this situation, hence I felt the need to rebuff him. I articulated the conundrum quite effectively - 'my bike is broken'. Of course my dads knowledge of bikes was far superior to mine and so he decided that rather than solving the small problem of my bike he would fix the bigger issue of my attitude. He came over to my sofa and wrapped his arms around me.

Of course he assured me that he would do his best to fix my bike but he was far more interested in letting me know that a much healthier way for me to resolve my issues was to come to him and explain my problem rather than believing the lie that all hope was lost. I had tried to fix my bike myself and couldn't - that doesn't mean my bike is beyond repair. But more important than any of that, my relationship with my dad was of far greater value than any bike I could own. The refrain that shaped my childhood came out once again. 'I might not always like what you do but I will always love you, no matter what.'

After some time on the sofa I calmed down a bit and apologised to my dad, we went out together to get my bike and of course my dad showed me how it could be fixed easily without even needing any tools.

Ok, time to bring this back to us adults. We experience the 'broken bike' in our lives and it hurts, we don't really have any human relationships that are able to fix those hurts but we certainly try. We marry people who 'complete' us, we drink, gamble, sleep around, advance our career, work harder, get stronger be better all in an attempt to fix our broken bike. The issue is that at best we only break our bike further. We divorce, become alcoholics, get into debt, traffick modern day salves, get addicted to porn and cheat to get ahead in the game. Sooner or later we come to the end of our self destructive resources and we have to face the fact that our bike is broken and there is nothing we can do to fix it.

Now comes the equivalent of telling your dad to piss off... We blame God, we say that he cannot exist because of all this mess. We become frustrated with him and run away from him, we throw one heck of a tantrum.

Now here religion can do some seriously weird things, as Christians we often feel the need to cover up our problems. We can't possibly throw a tantrum that is beneath us. God is good and we know it but this situation makes it feel like God is not good. Both cannot be right so I will just bury the feelings and say God is great, YAY, praise the lord! We sell God short and don't actually take our frustration and anger and pain and anxiety to him we just say he is good and busily try and figure out how to patch ourselves up so we can look pretty on Sunday. We even create whole schools of theology to explain why there can be suffering  and a good God (we call it a theodicy) instead of facing our problems. Well this is a Faberge egg. We can do great at making it look pretty on the outside for a bit but it is paper thin and has absolutely no substance to it and just ends up propagating the problem. What's more this is not what the God of the bible tells us to do at all. It is some weird twisted, dismembered, decaffeinated version of what Christ has given us.

 Fortunately for all of us as good as my dad is he is not even a touch on how good God is. While we are far off trying to sort ourselves out and failing miserably he asks 'what is wrong?' it's not that he doesn't know the answer. He is giving you the opportunity to cry out and admit to him and to yourself 'my bike is BROKEN!'.

I can assure you when you make that admission to God, as painful and messy as it can be there is release. For some reason western Christianity has completely forgotten the place of lament, of unashamedly calling it like you see it. Life sucks some times and God is absolutely big enough to handle us screaming at him every now and again. When you are honest with God you give him the opportunity to wrap his arms around you and be enough for you. Now despite the fact that your bike is still in pieces on the drive things are looking better. Why? Because the far more important issue of your relationship with God is improving and that will set you free! The fact that God is also able to put your bike back together (and improve it too) becomes a small side issue by comparison to the fact that you have discovered something better than life itself. The love of God.