and in a flash, i was home.

standing relieved in jordan’s arms in the airport, sitting around the dinner table laughing with my family, snuggling under the covers of my cozy blue bed — it feels as if i’ve always been home; i just woke up from a strange and beautiful dream.

i think this is maybe what the pevensie children felt like when they realized they weren’t in narnia anymore after their incredible adventure with prince caspian: this old world seemed “a little flat and dreary for a moment after all they had been through, but also, unexpectedly nice in its own way.” the children returned to england completely changed people, because in narnia they had met aslan. they had outsmarted witches and fought battles; they had climbed unbelievably steep mountains, but when the world of narnia faded away and the children found themselves sitting in the grey cabin of a railway car, we all could see that although their adventures were about bringing justice to oppressed people, and about becoming better people themselves, what was really important about their adventure was that they fell in love with aslan, and began to understand the depths of his love for them.

i recall being very concerned as a young girl when my mom read these last lines of the story to me because it ended before we could find out what it might have looked like for the pevensie kids to move forward from their adventure. i was afraid for them, because i knew aslan would seem much more distant to them in england than he had seemed in narnia, and i knew they would be surrounded by fewer people who loved him and knew about his love for them. i craved a better resolution for the children’s story.

and sitting in my grey aeroplane cabin on the way home from rwanda, i craved a better resolution for my own story. i thought back to all the people i met, the battles i fought and the mountains i climbed; i thought about the people i had helped and the ways i had been changed myself. in that moment i could plainly see that all those things made for a good story, but not yet a good resolution. i felt like i was sitting in my canoe, looking back on the vast waters that i had paddled through, but still not being able to find a place to dock on the shore and continue on my way.

i found my distant shore while sitting in church on sunday morning. wrapped in brightly coloured african material, and keenly aware of how much less rhythm my church has than the one i just came from, i looked up at the cross at the front of the building and listened to the lyrics of the hymn we were singing.

what heights of love, what depths of peace / when fears are stilled, when strivings cease / my comforter, my all in all / here in the love of christ i stand

my eyes filled with tears. and for a moment — unlike any other i’ve felt in my entire life — i loved my God and i knew he loved me. and i could feel him helping me gently from my canoe and setting me upon the sands of a new shore. it struck me that i have been searching for a resolution for my story, when all along i have been living in the resolution of God’s story. jesus died. he made peace between God and man. and now i am living in the part of the story where i can stand hopefully in love.

over the past two days i’ve been gradually being reminded of the realities of my life here in Canada. i need to begin sorting out my course schedule for the fall, writing reports for my scholarship foundation, and planning a wedding for jordan and i. it’s a whole new daunting mountain range rising in my horizon, and — believe it or not — i think it will be more harrowing and difficult than the mountains i’ve just come through. but, i can feel God at my side promising to journey with me the entire way.

i didn’t realize it when i was younger, but i can see it now: i should not have felt afraid for the pevensie kids in their grey railway car cabin. though their bright and vivid adventure was over and they were on the outset of a drab and dreary one, they were continuing to be part of God’s resolution for the world, and that is a beautiful and wonderful thing. so, my dear friends and faithful readers, i hope you can see what has now become so evident to me: God doesn’t write stories with “happily ever afters.” his stories — even in their resolutions — are full of hills, because climbing mountains in love is the best life anyone could ever dream to live.

i had to say goodbye to appolonaire and john yesterday too. and this afternoon i will give my last hugs to valence, jean paul and maman brigitte. the pain that i’m caused by these goodbyes makes me question what good it has done anyone to build these relationships in the first place. i mean, i’m about to take off and leave these beautiful people behind, perhaps never to see them again. am i causing more pain than it’s worth by being another person in their life who abandons them? it’s as if any work i did to heal wounds will be undone and reversed by my leaving; i’m tearing out the stitches.

i wrote those last two paragraphs yesterday, but didn’t have direction to finish my thoughts. re-reading it tonight, i see exactly how God used today’s circumstances to address my worries.

three different people came to me today to tell me what God has done in their life through me and my time here in rwanda. interestingly, none of them were people who i thought i had ministered to, so i was quite surprised, and reminded that God always works in ways i don’t expect.

one of those people was a friend of mine named julien. he’s the type of guy who everybody is strangely drawn to because he is so guided by God’s spirit, and he shared with me this evening that he believes God sent me to rwanda as an encouragment specifically for him. something about my life (something that i’ve actually been quite discouraged about lately), has inspired julien to not be afraid of a big calling that God has placed on his life.

i was incredibly humbled as i considered the notion that maybe my role as a tree in the story about God’s forest was simply to come to rwanda to encourage julien. after all, God is the sort of author that is willing to go to great lengths to transform his characters. as i walked quietly beside julien in the cool, kigali night air, i felt content. God, i prayed, even if your only reason for me flying across the ocean this summer was to do this one thing, i am glad i did it. i like being a tree in your story.”

and the thing is, i think God actually uses willing trees in bigger ways than we realize. i heard from three people tonight about what God has done through me, but i imagine God — in all his extravagant grace — has used me as a vessel for other acts of transformation during my time here. i might not ever know who i helped or how i helped them, but i think i’ll be able to feel the story i’m part of growing to be more and more meaningful. God’s forest is vibrant and advancing in a way trees standing on their own just cannot be.

“five” he says.

“two” i say.

“okay, three.” he says, “but that’s my best offer.”

when he walked me to the bus stop today he did the same routine, and even though i knew he was joking, i could see the hurt in his eyes when we talked about saying goodbye.

leaving here has felt surreal for me until today. i mean, i’ve been watching my calendar, and counting down the days, but it didn’t hit me until this afternoon that i’m really going to have to say goodbye to these people. it was my last tuesday at ubuzima. the ladies sang and danced for me, they hugged me and made me promise not to forget them. it was so wonderful and so awful because at the same time that i was flooded with an understanding of how definitely they have changed my life, i also realized that i won’t have their help to express that change when i arrive back home.

i rode home on the bus, full of sentiment, and began to sift through all sorts of questions that i’ve been repressing for the last few weeks. could i have done more here? what will become of valence when i leave? what will it be like to be home again? has my character been transformed by the story of my thousand hills?

i thought about the daunting task of eventually writing a blog that will wrap up my story. you know, it will be really nice if i’m able to reach some sort of a grand resolution within the next few days. i’ve been paddling so hard, and i’ve been hoping to see some sort of great beauty when i finally dock my canoe on the approaching shore. but, to be perfectly honest, i’m still not completely sure whether or not God’s stories work that way

. . . i’m about to find out though. will you stick with me for a little while longer?

it was strange because — for the first time — i found myself uncomfortable with such a  message. this lady had been abandoned by her husband and left with five children. on top of struggling with HIV/AIDS and starvation, now this woman’s house is caving in around her. could God really have a part in that? i sat there feeling really uncertain.

but, to the extent that i was uncertain, my translator jash was sure. he opened up his bible and began to preach. the first passage of scripture he showed us was in haggai chapter 2. he read, “the latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the LORD of hosts.” jash was telling this woman that God wants her to have a new house. he read us hebrews chapter eleven, explaining that God will show favour to his children if only we have faith that He wants to show us favour. jash went on like this for over an hour, and the longer he preached, the more i was unsettled. how dare he promise her a new house! i kept thinking. what if God doesn’t want her to have a new house!

i went home confused and sat on the bed beside my roommate kendal to hash it out. she asked me why i thought God wouldn’t want the lady to have a new house. “he just doesn’t work like that!” i retorted agitatedly. i thought about my sister, who has spent the last three years of her life sacrificing everything important to her to do what’s right. yet it seems to me like God hasn’t shown her favour in a very long time.

then i began to realize that something about my collection of life experiences thus far has caused me to perceive God as the sort of father who always works logically, giving us only what we need and nothing more than that. i’ve always known his love, but i’ve experienced it in a very controlled and balanced way.

and then i remembered back to when i read through parts of the old testament last year. i remember noticing that God is really different than i thought he was: he is wild and passionate, and sometimes he changes his mind for love. during my past few weeks here in rwanda, i’ve noticed that people here wholeheartedly believe that God’s love is lavish and beyond logic, and they know a lot of scripture to back up that notion. the scriptures are filled with verses about God wanting to give good things to his people, and most people i’ve interviewed for my writing project cling to those verses for dear life.

i’m happy to report that jash and my interview friends are beginning to rub off on me. though my faith is still shaky, it’s beginning to grow. i lay in bed last night and imagined i was a tree being tossed and bent in the hurricane of God’s love. i thought about the big hug my dad will give me when i see him in the airport in a couple of weeks, and how much larger is the love that God wants to give me. i prayed that God would make a way for this woman to have a new house because, as i’m starting to believe, he just does work like that.

God gave a good gift to the ladies at ubuzima through elim bible chapel!

but, as it turns out, peace is hugely dependent on good communication. i started to believe this last year when i took a course about nonviolence and religion. i learned that most major world religions espouse creating peace between humans as a core value. however, the way this message of peace has been communicated by many groups of religious adherents has made for themselves a bloody and violent reputation. for example, the muslim notion of jihad was first written about in the qua’ran as an internal struggle against evil, a struggle which aims to create inner righteousness and peace. but, over the years, people have come to believe that islamic faith is about violence and barbarity, because some adherents have communicated jihad outwardly, killing those they believe to be evil in the world around them.

as a christian, attentive to the teachings of jesus, i believe that peace-making is one of my responsibilities. so, when i took off for rwanda, i was ready to put into action so many of the things i have come to believe about peace. in fact, i even packed a little conflict transformation handbook, thinking i might be a really good student and map out some of the large-scale issues i became aware of during my time here. (i’ll be honest, the book has been collecting dust in my suitcase since i arrived . . . but give me a break, this is my summer holiday!)

i thought that being a peace-maker here in kigali would be something i am really good at because i thought that i have always been a really gifted communicator; my mom could attest to the fact that i’ve been speaking my mind clearly since i was two years old. but, when i arrived here in rwanda and attended my very first ubuzima meeting, where not a soul spoke english, i realized that all this time i had been equating communication with words. you see, i am good at talking with people, and writing encouraging letters, but when you put me in a room full of kinyarwanda speakers and ask me to communicate peace to them, i feel like someone pulled my chair out from underneath me. i just kept smiling and waving like a dumb fool, hoping to God that the moment would be over soon.

it was the same story with my tutoring kids and the street boys; i felt like my inability to communicate through speech was crippling my ministry, rendering me completely useless as a peace-maker. then, my friend kendal arrived in rwanda, and i watched as her dance ministry took off like a rocket. kendal is a very expressive person. her long arms make wide gestures in the air while she talks, and she loves to pull people close for big friendly hugs. i noticed that people feel really content with themselves when they’re with kendal, and i think that being content with yourself is a big part of being at peace.

so, i went to the gospel of john to find out if jesus, the great peace-maker, was a dancer.  though i haven’t found evidence of him dancing yet, i have noticed that jesus didn’t limit his love for people with words. jesus moved from city to city, he touched the blind, he healed the lepers, he stretched his arms wide open and died on a cross for you and me. jesus was a speaker, yes — a profound and innovative speaker at that — but jesus was also a doer. he brought peace to this world through actions, and i’m learning to do that now too.

lately i’ve been giving shakira lots of hugs during english lessons, and i’ve been praying with valence on the lawn at church. i give gifts to people i meet at ubuzima, and sing with all my might on sunday mornings. i go to visit my friends at their house and make cups of tea for sylvester at night.

i never saw it coming, but those hippies were right: peace is a movement, and communicating it always takes a bit of action.

i'm rubbing off on them -- street boys are throwing down the peace sign all over the place!

okay okay, i know many of you warned me not to, but i bit off more than i can chew again. it’s a classic danika move: getting a big dream and launching into a project when i have limited resources and limited time. but God always seems to see my willing heart and help me through it, just as i pray he does this time.

you see, i started to notice a couple of weeks ago that my trip thus far has had a theme: story-telling. i arrived in rwanda ready to be the protagonist in a grand adventure about climbing mountains, and i’ve been learning ever since what it really looks like to be a character in one of God’s stories. in addition to that, i’ve been writing stories home through my blog, and have been hearing an overwhelming amount of positive feedback about them.

so, when i took a weekend for reflection at the half-way point of my trip, i asked myself how do i respond to all i’ve seen here? and i was immediately struck with the idea to write it all down in a book of short stories. with six weeks left in rwanda, i began a project of interviewing people from the street kids’ program and ubuzima group, and writing down the stories of their lives. my aim is to have the book finished by the time i return home, and to make it available to people like you and i who crave inspiration to live meaningful lives. hopefully, the book will also become a good resource for other teams and interns who come to rwanda and get involved at vivante.

a lot has changed since i took on this project. for one, i spend every spare moment of my life writing now. it feels like i’m back home in my dorm room; up until all hours of the night with a container of yogurt and a pot of tea to distract me when the words for an essay just aren’t flowing. of course, in all the flurry i’ve forgotten to blog, and for that i must apologize. i’ll try to do better in the weeks to come.

but, more significantly than the way i spend my time, this story-telling project is changing the way i see the people of rwanda. now that i have a window into the past of my friends valence, appolinaire, john and alice, i see their faces in everyone i meet. riding through the city yesterday, i saw a young girl walking purposefully with a baby on her back. that’s alice, i thought to myself. she just found out she has AIDS and she is bravely entering the city to confront her rolling-stone husband.

later, a few tiny street boys approached me and motioned that they were hungry. i can’t turn them away, i thought, those boys are little johns and appolonaires who have already been rejected by everyone in their life.

the weight of it all has been enough to make me break down and cry like a fool in the middle of a coffee shop. i don’t know if the burden i feel about these stories will be removed from my shoulders until i diffuse them well and widely, so i all i can do is pray that God gives me the words to do them justice.

please anticipate this book; if the stories impact you half as much as they have impacted me, we’re all in for a wild transformation.

i woke up yesterday morning with a plan. i was to be at the church by nine, visiting ubuzima women from ten until twelve, running errands from twelve until one thirty, at a friend’s house by two and then back to the church to watch the football game at four. that’s why i had to laugh when i looked at my clock in the afternoon and realized i’d been lounging under an acacia tree for two hours talking with serge and kendal with no sense of urgency to get going someplace else. needless to say, i’m being captured by an african perspective on work and time.

please don’t get me wrong, most african people i’ve met are very hard workers. they wake up early, walk outrageously far distances with heavy loads on their heads, work the land in the heat, and then cook dinner without conveniences like microwaves or potato peelers. however, they most definitely know how to take it slow, and how to make time for other people.

when i go to shakira’s house for tutoring, i have to consciously walk so slowly because otherwise i’ll pass every person on the sidewalk. for rwandese people, walking isn’t just an exercise, or a means to get from A to B: it’s a part of life to be enjoyed.

when i talk to my rwandese friend dora, i know she is totally present with me. she isn’t thinking about what she is going to say next, or where she needs to be in fifteen minutes. she just listens, and she’ll listen as long as i need her to.

when i go to sleep at night in my kigali house — even though my mind is usually full — i don’t feel that same stress i always feel at home. you know, the sort of stress that comes from time pressures and expectations. i don’t get that here. it’s wonderfully freeing.

i met a man on the bus last week who is from kenya. he asked me “is it true that people in north america die because they are too busy?” i had never thought about it like that, but i realized it’s true. he said “let me tell you something that my father always told me: put your life under the shade.”

“huh?” i responded.

“put your life under the shade” he repeated, “it means you should work hard during the day, but when the sun gets too hot, go sit under an acacia tree. rest. otherwise the sun will burn you up and you’ll never get to enjoy your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren.”

so, just like that man asked me to do, i’m passing this wisdom on to you: walk slowly, make time to listen to your friends, take a nap when the sun gets too hot. put your life under the shade. i promise that if you do, you’ll sleep better tonight.

before i left for rwanda, i remember telling people that i was excited to learn more about God by watching how the church in rwanda experiences and knows God. i was right to think that church here is different than it is in canada, but i was wrong about how it is different. i think i expected church here to be different because the people would be more focused on difficult circumstances. i thought that they would be constantly asking for God’s provision and mercy, and that they would always sing “oh no, you never let go,” and other songs about how tough life is.

as it turns out, i haven’t heard those songs sung here yet. i paid close attention to the set list for worship a couple of weeks ago and noticed that, out of twelve songs, ten almost exclusively said “God, you are good.” in fact, now that i think of it, one of the first kinyarwanda phrases i picked up on was “imani n’ziza”  (“God is so good”) because i heard it so often from people at the church.

that stands in contrast to the attitude of worship in most churches i have been to in canada. we sing a lot of songs about theology and tragedy, and although they always come around to praising God, usually it seems that the praise comes out of a knowledge that God is good rather than an personal understanding.

you see, when i watch people here at vivante sing about God’s goodness i can tell that they really believe it. they feel it in their bones, and the truth of it makes them dance. it’s a mystery to me because, from a material perspective, i have much more reason to know that God is good than most people here. i looked down my row of chairs at church last night to see a woman with HIV, a man who lost his entire family in the genocide, and a boy without a home, each belting out the chorus “you are God, and you are good.”

my friend eric tried to explain to me how this might be possible. he said that when you really enter into the presence of God, and let his glory warm your face, you’ll forget about the trouble in your life and you’ll just be glad to be with him. he thinks that maybe i’m spending too much time trying to know God’s goodness with my intellect, and instead i should just spend time being with God. then i’ll truly understand.

i think eric is right, and that i should take his advice to heart. the north american church could learn a lot from this bunch of christians in kigali.

that being said, understanding can easily be mistaken for feeling, and failure to distinguish between the two is a danger faced by the rwandan church. i mention this because i do not wish to be another voice among many discouraging the north american church. we certainly have our issues, but so does the church here. i think the key is that we must be willing to learn from each other’s strengths, and have humility about our weaknesses.

the proverbs are full of verses about knowledge and about understanding. i think that means God delights in both. so tonight when you talk to your Father let the knowledge of his goodness permeate your mind. then, turn your face to his and understand, deep in your soul, that he is good.

it all started two weeks ago when kendal, the new IT intern arrived in kigali and moved in to my kigali house. kendal is from L.A. and loves to wear gold sequinny shoes. the kids here call her “muzungu noire,” because she is from america but her skin is black. sometimes kendal turns on gospel music to set the mood for the soulful monologues she reads to me before i go to sleep. i lie in my bed and imagine we’re in a crowded poetry club, and that i’m really cultured.

kaitlyn and ruth flew home to america last night, so that means now it’s just me and kendal here. that also means that my schedule is really changing from what is has been in the past six weeks. instead of a structured ministry schedule, i’m going to start initiating a project of my own that involves writing and compiling the stories of some of the street boys and HIV positive women at the church. i’m really enthused about it, but still, it’s a lot of transition all at once.

to top it all off, this week our washing machine broke, our electricity ran out; i received multiple hilarious prank calls, visited a new part of the country, and rode on a moto taxi for the first time.

i remember learning about stories in elementary school. my teacher made us draw out plot diagrams that looked like giant mountains. i thought they were lame, but now that i’m in the middle of the story of my thousand hills, i’m glad to know a way to navigate it. i think right now i’m at the part where the diagram goes steeply up; it’s called “rising action.” this is a really important part of the story, because it’s when the protagonist is met with all sorts of changes and little mini-conflicts that will eventually result in the climax.

even though rising action puts the protagonist under lots of pressure, it’s necessary in order for her to get to the resolution. it’s just like when i climb the hill to my bus stop in the morning, and my calves start to burn before i arrive at the plateau on top.

can you pray that all this rising action is leading me toward someplace meaningful? pray that i face the changes and mini-conflicts bravely, and embrace the burning i feel in my calves on the way.

part of my rising action involves me wearing more traditional rwandan clothes. this is jen, kaitlyn, kendal, ruth and i on our way to a rwandan dowry giving ceremony.

i met valance on father’s day; he greeted me with a wide smile from his white plastic lawn chair in the backyard of the church. valance was fascinated by the photos i showed him of my family. he kept flipping through them over and over, repeating to himself the phrases i used to describe them: “my mummy, my dad, me . . .”

i don’t know how well valance understands the concept of family. he spent a lot of his childhood on the street. that evening when he, some other boys, and i took a picture together, he insisted we call it our family picture.

valance never lets his “sista” walk alone at night. he’s spent a lot of hours this week waiting with me at the bus stop, making sure i catch a ride home. on tuesday evening, he tapped me on the shoulder and pointed out a young boy, “he’s begging for money” valance explained to me. after a second of feeling sorry for the boy, i dismissed him from my mind. i didn’t have much money on me and after all, i thought, he’ll probably just spend the money on alcohol or drugs.

five minutes later i was nearly in tears with shame because once valance realized i wasn’t going to do anything to help this kid, he kicked the faded flip flops off his own feet, and handed them to the boy. shocked, i questioned valance, “do you know him?” he didn’t understand the question. “valance, what is that boy’s name?” i clarified. he had no idea. he gently approached the young boy and asked him “brother, what is your name?”

as my bus pulled away from the curb that night, i watched valance cross the street toward home, barefoot, grinning and full of jesus.

valance isn’t a perfect kid. he’s been known to cause trouble in the street kid program, and struggles to control his temper. however, i think i have a lot to learn from valance about simple generosity, about sacrifice, and about loving my neighbour as i love myself. i think jesus would be so pleased with me if i began to see all those around me as my brothers and sisters. and maybe one day, when we all get to heaven, i’ll meet someone to whom i gave my shoes and get the chance to ask them “brother, what is your name?”