this is Darlene. David and Travis have gone back to Nairobi, and I'm still here in Rwanda for a brief work trip. I'm really glad we came here early and had at least a short time to see more of Rwanda (especially Kigali) and meet up with some brothers and sisters here with whom we were connected through church or various organizations.
I am going tomorrow with colleagues to a site where refugees from DRC have congregated. Many of these families/individuals have some sort of Rwandaphone background. It appears that they intend to stay for a long while.
For some of the individuals who have recently crossed into the country, they are leaving the familiar for the equally familiar. Their family has owned land on both sides of the artificial, Western-created border, and they have family members on both sides as well. It doesn't make it easy to be a refugee in this context, but at least it's a bit more familiar. But others are leaving the only life they knew and a culture and language they understand to be met with a completely new language, culture, etc. Making a life here will be a constant relearning and reorienting, and therefore, a constant struggle. No wonder that God, among hundreds of commands in the Law, directs his people to consider the stranger and sojourner. He starts by commanding them not to oppress the sojourner, but goes further to direct them to leave a bit of grain ungleaned and fruit unharvested in order to leave some for the strangers among them. I think he knew that our natural state would be to take all that we "own" for ourselves and not consider anyone else.
Although it's under very obviously different circumstances, I've been thinking about what it means to be a stranger or a sojourner, away from home, as David and I spend time away from what has increasingly felt like home to us in DC. We feel very keenly the temporary nature of our stay and are thankful to be away only temporarily. Yet we also feel very blessed by kindnesses and physical comforts and know how fortunate we are to be so well taken care of in this strange place. We are thankful for the small (and large!) evidences of God's kindness and him showing us hospitality through others. Our welcome into a Kinyarwandan expression of worship yesterday was evidence of this - I hope we have some pictures/video we can post tomorrow to be able to express it in some small way. And most importantly, he shows us hospitality in that we are no longer strangers to God, but friends and sons and daughters. That is good news.
I am going tomorrow with colleagues to a site where refugees from DRC have congregated. Many of these families/individuals have some sort of Rwandaphone background. It appears that they intend to stay for a long while.
For some of the individuals who have recently crossed into the country, they are leaving the familiar for the equally familiar. Their family has owned land on both sides of the artificial, Western-created border, and they have family members on both sides as well. It doesn't make it easy to be a refugee in this context, but at least it's a bit more familiar. But others are leaving the only life they knew and a culture and language they understand to be met with a completely new language, culture, etc. Making a life here will be a constant relearning and reorienting, and therefore, a constant struggle. No wonder that God, among hundreds of commands in the Law, directs his people to consider the stranger and sojourner. He starts by commanding them not to oppress the sojourner, but goes further to direct them to leave a bit of grain ungleaned and fruit unharvested in order to leave some for the strangers among them. I think he knew that our natural state would be to take all that we "own" for ourselves and not consider anyone else.
Although it's under very obviously different circumstances, I've been thinking about what it means to be a stranger or a sojourner, away from home, as David and I spend time away from what has increasingly felt like home to us in DC. We feel very keenly the temporary nature of our stay and are thankful to be away only temporarily. Yet we also feel very blessed by kindnesses and physical comforts and know how fortunate we are to be so well taken care of in this strange place. We are thankful for the small (and large!) evidences of God's kindness and him showing us hospitality through others. Our welcome into a Kinyarwandan expression of worship yesterday was evidence of this - I hope we have some pictures/video we can post tomorrow to be able to express it in some small way. And most importantly, he shows us hospitality in that we are no longer strangers to God, but friends and sons and daughters. That is good news.
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