Radical Hospitality

We have been waiting for you.

Those words sounded so good to the six strangers who showed up at the Kigali Lutheran Parish Sunday morning.  Lars, Luke, Ryan, Emily, Jake, and I should have felt out of place.  We didn’t look like everyone else.  We didn’t speak like everyone else.  We were far from home.  But we didn’t feel out of place.  “We have been waiting for you,” said one of the men of the congregation as he shook my hand.

The congregation didn’t let us sit alone.  They sat in between us so we would have someone to translate.  The bishop spoke in Kinyarwanda.  He told the congregation to welcome the “big, strong” visitors. (We are arguably the tallest bunch of YAGMs to be deployed.)  “They are tall but they are young,” the bishop continued.  He told the congregation that we had left our parents, so now they needed to be our parents.  He told the youth that many of us had left behind brothers and sisters, so now they needed to be our brothers and sisters.  Looking at us he said,”We will be your parents, your pastors, your bishop.” As he continued his sermon, he talked about unity.  He shared his excitement about building this relationship between the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America and the Lutheran Church of Rwanda.   He addressed the six of us directly and urged us to work hard so that our time here would be a testimony to the future of this relationship.  When he finished, he invited us to the front to introduce ourselves.  He had the congregation turn to us with open arms, as if in a hug.

After church we had lunch with the youth of the congregation.  (In Rwanda, when they say youth, they mean people in their twenties.)  We were overwhelmed by their hospitality.  They were eager to help us learn Kinyarwanda.  They gave us their cell phone numbers in case we ever needed help.  They tried to provide us with the insight to their culture that you can’t learn about in books.  We talked about college, about the careers we want, about what we like to do for fun.  I was amazed by the ownership these peers of mine took in not only their church but also their country as a whole.  After we ate, one of the girls stood up to offer us an official welcome from the youth group.  “We love you,” she said, “We already love you.”  She said she hopes we will become like twin sisters and twin brothers.  Smiling, she pointed to me and said, “You are my twin sister.”

This is an exciting time for the Lutheran Church of Rwanda.  It’s still a relatively small church and less than twenty years old.  It’s roots are in Tanzania, Rwanda’s neighbor to the east. Many Rwandans were refugees in Tanzania during the genocide in 1994 and the violence prior to that.  When the refugees returned to Rwanda in the mid-1990’s, they brought Lutheranism with them.  What’s cool about the history of the Lutheran Church of Rwanda is that it was not founded by foreign missionaries but by Rwandans. 

Welcoming foreign missionaries is new to them. 

Being a missionary is new to me.

This is gonna be cool.

ELCA and LCR youth.

My twin sister and I.  See the resemblance?

Waiting for the Sun

I’m not sure if it’s the jet lag or excitement that has caused me to wake before the sun this morning.  I lie here awake, snuggled under my mosquito net, reflecting on the last week and a half, ready for the day to start.  After many weeks of preparation and anticipation, the journey officially began last Wednesday as I said my goodbye to my family and boarded a plane to Chicago.  Thankfully a few teary goodbyes where followed by many more hellos.  The YAGM program staff excitedly welcomed the 63 of us at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago.  We discussed themes of accompaniment, racial justice, and religious pluralism, among other things.  Throughout the week, I was continually amazed by my peers.  I was amazed by the experiences that brought them here, the hard questions they asked, and their desire to connect with those around them.

One of the highlights of the week was the scavenger hunt Saturday night.  To practice navigating unfamiliar cities without GPS to guide us, each country group was given an envelope of clues that would lead us to various restaurants of our host countries’ cuisine.  The clues led us all over Chicago and the six of us going to Rwanda eventually found our way to a little African restaurant downtown.

Another highlight was our final night in Chicago.  The evening began with a closing worship service.  As we were commissioned for a year of service abroad, I know I was not the only one overwhelmed by the journey ahead and hesitant to leave this community we had formed in the last week.  But one of my favorite things about these new friends I have made is the energy with which they approach life and with which they worship.  So true to form, as the tears dried, the service ended in a dance party.

Wednesday morning brought another round of goodbyes as we left for new homes all over the world.  One of the songs we had been singing throughout the week was a swingin’ African tune with the lyrics, “Come walk with us.  The journey is long.”  This song took on a whole new meaning as our group sat on the tarmac in Chicago waiting for engine problems to be fixed.  And then as our plane flew circles waiting for a storm to pass over Washington D.C.  And then as we turned around to refuel in Pittsburg.  And then as another lightening storm lit up the Pittsburg runway.  Long story short, we arrived in Kigali a day later than planned but in good spirits and with all of our luggage.  Kate, our country coordinator, greeted us at the airport and brought us to a guest house in Kigali where we will be spending the next three weeks learning more about the country and trying to master Kinyarwanda before we go to our various placement sites throughout the country.

Now, I’m just waiting for the sun to rise so I can begin to explore my new home.

He tricked me into being a missionary... I think.

"At first I was expecting Him to show me my entire future all at once - maybe with a flash of lightening and clap of thunder thrown in for good measure.  But I came to learn that God never shows us something we aren't ready to understand.  Instead, He lets us see what we need to see, when we need to see it.  He'll wait until our eyes and hearts are open to Him, and then when we're ready, He will plant our feet on the path that's best for us... but it's up to us to do the walking."
     - Immaculee Ilibagiza, Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust 

I had already told my friends and family that I was being sent to Rwanda.  I had already started to think about what to pack.  I had already signed letters of agreement, applied for a background check, and started fundraising before I realized what He had done:  God had tricked me into being a missionary.  He had lovingly and cunningly manipulated me into being a missionary before I even realized what He was doing.

As any oldest sibling knows, a little loving manipulation can go a long way in getting a younger sibling to do what you want.  I like to think that I was pretty good older sister to grow up with but I will admit that I used the whole "being older and wiser" thing to my advantage... getting Kirsten to pick the Disney movie I wanted to watch, getting Anna to give the cooler dollhouse to me, etc.  But I also used my trickery for their own good... getting Kirsten to eat her vegetables, teaching Anna to ride a bike.  Likewise, God (who is more than just a little older and wiser) had been guiding me for His purpose and for my own good.  He was sneaky about it, only revealing what He was up to when He knew I could handle it.

A few years ago, I went on a ten-day mission trip to Ecuador.  It was a call that was easy to answer.  Ten days almost feels like you're on a vacation and before you know it you're back home.  However, it was a week and half that changed my life.  One of the first mornings in Ecuador, I had lunch with a group of missionary woman from the area.  They all shared their stories about how they had come to be missionaries in Ecuador.  I was amazed by their stories of faith.  The women were from all over the world; some had been in Ecuador for a few months, some for a dozen years.  One thing their stories all shared: none of them had planned on being a missionary in Ecuador.  It was then that I realized that what I had planned for myself might be very different from what God had planned from me.  I wanted to embrace His plan but I was hesitant to let go of the reins.

I returned to Minnesota more aware of how God was at work in my life and where he might be calling me... but a missionary? No. I was going to graduate, practice medicine, and live right here in the U.S.  That was going to be my ministry.  I wanted to have a faith like those women in Ecuador but not necessarily be a missionary.  Being a missionary meant moving somewhere far away, leaving behind friends and family, and getting sick to your stomach as your gut microbiota welcomes unfamiliar microorganisms that aren't present in the tater tot hot dish, lefse, and Lutheran Jell-o you were raised on.  Nope.  I could do God's work right here.

But God was at work on something bigger, guiding me through conversations I had, books I read, people I met.  Some of these conversations were about Young Adults in Global Mission.  These conversations turned into a call.  Both literally and figuratively.  God was calling me to forget about my comfort zone and submit an application which turned into a literal phone call from the ELCA inviting me to spend a year in Rwanda.  You would think at this point I would have realized that God was calling me to be missionary.  Nope, I just saw this as God calling me on a year-long faith-strengthening adventure.  Missionaries, I believed, were very wise pastors who introduced people to Jesus.  I am not a pastor, I'm not all that wise,  and I am being sent to a place that already knows Jesus very well.  So I was surprised when I arrived in Chicago for orientation in May that they were calling us missionaries.  They told us that Young Adults in Global Mission makes up a third of the ELCA's missionaries that are abroad each year.  They told us that in some situations we should not label ourselves as missionaries because in some places "missionaries" have done more harm than good.  They reminded us that we served under Young Adults in Global Mission not Young Adults in Global Missions because there is only one mission we are after and it is God's.

With the new title of missionary I realized that this call is not about me and God's plan for my life.  Rather its about how God can use me in His plan for the world.  As a missionary, I recognize the responsibility that comes with representing not only God but also the community that is sending me.  I have been overwhelmed and humbled by how my community has embraced this new call and accepted it as theirs to share.  Perhaps it wasn't that God tricked me into being a missionary.  Maybe I already was one.  Maybe being a missionary doesn't mean leaving your home and expanding your gut microbiota.  Maybe we are all missionaries... yet somehow it took sending me to Rwanda to realize this.