3:43 PM Central Africa Time - Noel Orphanage; Gisenyi, Rwanda
"Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord,
the fruit of the womb a reward."
the fruit of the womb a reward."
Psalm 127:3
Today has been amazing so far! We went to Noel, which is the largest orphanage in Rwanda. It is home to over six hundred kids! As soon as I stepped off the bus, my "daughters" chose me. An 11-year-old named Lilliane (Lih-lee-ah-nay) and a 14-year-old named Brigitte (Brih-jheet) were instantly glued to my side. I didn't even mind that it was hot and they were wrapping themselves around me nearly the entire day! The kids took us on a tour of the orphanage- to the special needs wing, through the library, past the chapel,
into the playrooms,
into the medical clinic,
and through some of the boys dorms,
[Please note the Justin Bieber shrine on the wall of the boy's dorm:]
[I like this wall better:]
When we walked into the toddler area, it was probably one of the best sights I have ever seen; tons of little ones started waddle-running toward us with big smiles, cooing, with their arms reaching out for us to pick them up! Unfortunately, they cannot afford diapers for all of them, so only the really young babies get diapers, making the chances of getting peed on pretty high.
Of course, holding one little one at a time was not enough, so I grabbed two right off the bat. :o)
A ridiculous amount of laundry was hanging to dry in the courtyard- I have enough trouble keeping up with my own laundry, let alone that of over 600 kids!!!
There were rooms filled with baby cribs. Noel houses children as young as a few days old! They have to keep the feeding schedule on the wall to stay organized.
After the tour, we played with the kids for a couple hours. Lilliane, Brigitte, and I had fun jump roping a little bit. These sweet girls even started calling me "mom." I'm grateful that we will get the chance to spend the next few days at Noel so I can have more time with them!
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| Lilliane on left, Brigitte on right |
We walked to Tara's house for lunch. Tara is a 20-something American woman from Oklahoma who first traveled to Rwanda on a Visiting Orphans trip in January of 2011. [Fun fact: This world is so small that I actually know Tara's half sister because we were on the first year student mentor staff together in college!] It was on this first trip that Tara fell in love with a young boy named Innocent. You can read about their first meeting in this blog post. Long story short, Tara decided to move to Africa to work with Noel. She has since begun working on getting Innocent a student visa to get an education in the United States (and avoid being "reunited" with a family who might not be able to properly care for him.)
As Tara was working with Noel, she saw two needs and decided that she needed to help. First, the futures of the older children in the orphanage are uncertain, so she wanted to help prepare them for life after Noel. Second, many students have to walk over an hour to school, but the schools do not serve lunch; because these older students who are at school all day (the younger ones only go half days) cannot walk home and back during their lunch break, they do not eat lunch. Tara decided to do what she can to meet these needs, so she started a sewing school called "No. 41," which she first wrote about in this post. The sewing school trains the older girls of the orphanage to sew and make paper bead necklaces so they can make a living. They sell these products to give back, and the sales will help fund the start up of lunch programs in the local schools! The bags, which will be launched online soon, are sold for $60, and the purchase of each bag will feed one student lunch for an entire school year. Once 250 bags are sold, the lunch program will start at one school, the next 250 will launch another school, etc.! [Check out their Facebook page here!]
Through only the grace of God and her obedience to Him [she has never sewn a stitch in her life!], Tara is currently running the sewing school out of a home she rents a few houses down from the orphanage. The ultimate goal is for the school to eventually be taken over by the Rwandan girls. Every morning, the girls will file into the house (usually long before work officially starts!), sit down at their sewing machines, and get to work! Each girl makes an average of one bag per day. The girls have sponsors who contribute to their salaries, and each girl gets a commission for each bag made as well as each bag sold. The girls love what they do so much, when it is closing time, someone will yell, "Time is over!" and everyone else will chime in with a resounding, "NAHHH!!!" Up until this week, seven of the thirty girls in the school lived with Tara, but they just got a new house and will be moving in at the end of the week! They are all very excited!
We hired two ladies to cook lunches for us at Tara's house for the four days while we are at Noel. [One of the ladies is Jane's cousin!] This is a blessing to us to be able to spend time with the girls, have cheaper meals than we would get at a restaurant, and know that all of the food is safe to eat. It is also a huge blessing to the women who we are paying to do the cooking! Win-win! :o) That being said, it was GLORIOUS to be able to eat cold vegetables for the first time in several days! I missed fresh vegetables so much! I just crave cold vegetables when I spend time in warm weather.
And Ange made the smaller purse-type bag I bought:
Some of the necklaces were tagged, too, but the one I picked up did not have a name on it. I asked around to see if any of the girls knew who made that particular necklace. The first girls I asked were unsure. Then, suddenly, I saw one of them run out of the room while a cartoon bubble with a light bulb in it hovered over her head. Lo and behold, she came back into the room a few seconds later pulling Patrice by the hand. Patrice and I just laughed that we must have been on the same wavelength as she was designing and I was buying! She was overjoyed that I kept picking out her items! Heck- her outfit even looked like something I would pick out to wear! [Green and purple are my favorite colors in case you haven't noticed. Even the bags I picked out were green and purple!] I think I have found my long lost Rwandan sister! We kind of look alike, don't you think?! :o)
After I did my shopping, I sat down with some of the girls who were making the paper beads to watch them for a while. I was so intrigued that I asked them to teach me. They happily to showed me how they cut triangular strips of paper, roll it tightly, and get it to seal with liquid glue. After they have exhausted a certain color of the paper supply, they string the same color beads onto one strand, apply lacquer, and let them air dry outside for four days. Once the beads have dried, they take them off of the strands, and use different color combinations to string them into necklaces.
The sewing school is just one big happy family- literally! Some of the women have children, so their little tykes run around the house and yard while their mommies work all day. :o)
Frank, the trip leader, and his wife sponsor one of the girls, Amelie. Since she has never had a father figure in her life, she requested that her sponsor be a male. Tara matched up Amelie and Frank, they have been skyping with each other regularly, and they just got to meet each other for the first time today! He was so excited to meet his Rwandan daughter, and she was so excited to meet her dad! It was a beautiful union. He even called his wife internationally so the three of them could talk on the phone. And of course, Frank made sure the bags he would were ones that Amelie made!
Two more American girls, Allison (Texas) and Elise (Maryland), moved to Noel after going on a Visiting Orphans trip in January of this year. Tara is taking Allison under her wings and is teaching her all she needs to know to be able to take over the sewing school when Innocent gets his visa and he and Tara leave for the US. Tara hopes that this may happen as early as July, but she is prepared to stay longer if need be. Allison is also a gifted photographer, so she is helping get the No. 41 website up and running. Elise has been helping out around the orphanage wherever she is needed, but Tara is secretly hoping to get her involved with No. 41.
8:15 PM Central Africa Time - Hotel Dian Fossey; Gisenyi, Rwanda
"Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth." 1 John 3:18
I have never heard more Justin Bieber in my life. It is beginning to be rather humorous. It seems as soon as we sit down for dinner, the servers intentionally put the Justin Bieber CD in specially for us. The sweet part is, I think that they believe they are doing us a favor by doing so. The Rwandan culture is a very honoring culture. It is a culture that revolves around always saying "yes." They want nothing more than to please others. That being said, I think that they are trying to honor us as guests by providing familiar music as a comfort. There is either a huge stereotype that Americans love Justin Bieber or it is the only American music they have. Either way, I think there must be an unwritten rule that says, "See a Mzungu? Turn the Bieber up." As hysterical as it is, it is rather endearing. :o)
I wish the United States had a more honoring culture. The Rwandan culture certainly provided me with a fresh perspective on loving "your neighbor as yourself." We Americans give much less than we receive, and often do not even realize it; and when we give, we expect to receive in return. We care about our own needs far more than others. We are not only not afraid to say no, but we use the word carelessly. Even as babies, we are brainwashed with hearing "no" all of the time. Discipline is good, and taking care of oneself is great; but when the no's go beyond that is where the problems begin.
We say "no" to loving others on a daily basis. We say, "I am too busy." We ask, "can we talk later?" We see someone who looks cold and fail to lend them a jacket. We walk past homeless people begging on the street. We purposefully avoid people we do not feel like talking to. We ignore people's phone calls, emails, text messages. We think about our own agenda while merely pretending to listen to someone else speaking to us. We certainly do not go above and beyond to love.
I do not want to be that way anymore. I want to consider others comforts before my own. I do not want to be "too busy" to love. I do not want to withhold my heart from anyone. After all, what good does it do to have God in my heart if I keep it to myself? I want to love big. I want to love loudly. I want to love with reckless abandon. All in all, I want to get rid of the selfishness that distracts me so I can simply love.
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