I Need Africa [Rwanda, Pt.1]

I have been home for about two weeks now from Africa. Life has been crazy since I have been home. My family and friends are of course ecstatic about wedding plans and this new season for Austin and I. School is in full swing with one of my busiest semesters yet and work is as crazy and fun as you would expect it to be with 100 6 wk-6yr olds. :) Africa has been on a silent replay in my mind everyday. I have not been able to really talk to anyone about the trip. Everytime I do, pictures of girls with large beautiful smiles and dancing children flood my mind, and the tears come not long after. It's hard being home. I miss everything about Africa. Its warmth and beauty and mystery. But I'm ready for Africa to leave a mark in more hearts than just mine.

(Just a few pics from on the way to Africa!)


Probably one of my favorites!


Notice the new bling!;)


We made it!!!!

I'll never forget the first time I got off of the plane in Kigali, Rwanda as long as I live. Immediately, the smell of diesel and rain hit me. The roar of the planes couldn't even compare to the pounding beats of my heart as Africa hit me full in the face. I looked out and saw beautiful greenery with houses slopped together here and there, people milling in and out of the airport and the instant shock of accents and phrases in Kinyarwanda. I was in love at once but it came with a very heavy feeling that wouldn't leave until I was back on the plane.



Rwanda was more beautiful than I could have imagined. In the physical sense and spiritual sense. It truly is the "Switzerland of Africa." There is green...everywhere. There are exotic flowers and colors bursting our from the earth as you speed by in your 13 passenger van. I was blown away by the breathtaking beauty of the place. I was thrilled to see small children waving at the bus and women carrying baskets on their heads, it was all so much of what I had pictured and dreamed of Rwanda being like. But that feeling still just ate at me.

Rwanda has a very dark past. If you know nothing of the genocide, I strongly encourage you to go research it...like right now. The tragedies and despair of the country during that time is just very dark and disturbing. That heaviness that I felt was the immense power of what these people had been through. I felt them in every heart beat. I could hear the cries of the people and see the murderous acts as I walked through the Genocide Memorial. I cried with the deceased mothers as they watched their babies being tortured and murdered before their very eyes. It was raw and it was like God kept make the wound bigger and bigger as I read each story and looked at each grave. The grief for these people was almost unbearable. And then the joy came.

I will never forget the day we got off the bus at the Noel Orphanage in Gisenyi. Even now as I write this, I am smiling and smelling the familiar air. Children instantly grabbed my hands, several kids kissed me on the cheek and all at once, I was in love with the 603+ kids at Noel. My heart was filled each time they danced, sang, took a picture with me, hugged me, held my hand...My heart melted time and time again. I held sweet babies like this one:



And played and laughed with kids:



God loves these children. LOVES them. He brings people like me who lack faith and who forget to think outside of themselves sometimes because we need to see a pure love like this. We need to love like He does. God doesn't place these kids too far away from us. Nowhere is too far to go to let a child know that you love them-that God loves them. I will follow Him to every child that needs to be held, every woman that needs to be given grace and every man needs to have hope. Rwanda is in me. And this is only the beginning...

**All photos were taken by my amazing fiancé who just happens to be ready to snap a shot of just about everything when we travel. Mostly all the pictures you see are ones he took! He did a great job!

(Stay tuned for part 2!)