a wedding, a funeral, and two births. oh, and a near-drowning experience.

 [folks, wordpress refuses to cooperate with me, and will not show the last 6 pictures i’ve tried to post from the wedding (hence the super-long caption…you’ll see.  after 3 hours, i give up!  😦  maybe another day.  so bummed!]

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one of my favorite times of the day is a little past 5pm, when j picks me up from work on our little red scooter (or “scooty,” as we affectionally call it) and we ride down the bumpy cobblestone road just as the primary school kids in our neighborhood, in their blue uniforms, are getting out of school.  some of them know us and will call out to say “muzungu!  mwiriwe!” (white person!  good afternoon!) and the younger ones will sometimes try to give us high-fives or yell “good morning!” or “give me chocolate!”–probably the only two phrases they know in english.

as we zip through the sea of smiles, with the cool afternoon breeze blowing over my face and the sun setting over the hills beyond us, i often have the same thought cross my mind.  rwanda has changed us forever.  rwanda will always be in our hearts.

six months into our journey, and boy, has God allowed us to experience so many things.  moving experiences.  a wedding (which was really an answer to prayer, as we had really wanted to be able to attend a rwandan wedding before our time here was up!), an unexpected and deeply moving funeral, and the celebration of two lives entering into this world.  and why not–let’s throw in a near-drowning experience in there as well (a story which i will let j tell).

the wedding
so, not only did God simply allow us to attend a traditional rwandan wedding–he allowed us the privilege of experiencing being in the wedding!  daniel* and caroline* are both teachers serving as missionaries with ywam.   their wedding, like most rwandan weddings, was a three-ceremony, two-day event that involved lots of planning and coordinating, driving around and shuttling people to different venues, singing, dancing and drinking fantas (they love their fanta here).  i think j drank a grand total of six bottles citron fantas in a day!

with three ceremonies and hundreds of family, friends and neighbors to invite, it gets pretty expensive to put on a wedding.  daniel and caroline work full time as missionary teachers and they are not paid for their time and efforts; they rely completely on the the contributions of the people who support their ministry.   it was really amazing to witness how God provided for all of their needs in planning and executing this wedding. 

day 1, part 1: the civil ceremony (the least exciting and smallest of the three)

day 1, part 2: getting ready for the traditional ceremony procession (can you tell i was super excited?)

j in the procession, looking quite manly in a leopard-print skirt

the bride's family, presenting the beautiful bride

the "king" and his bride

day 2: the religious ceremony (ps, j's entire outfit was rented from a shop downtown, and surprisingly fit!)

here comes the bride! (being walked down the aisle by a fellow ywam'er)

day 2, part 2: the reception (on the other side of town from the church ceremony)

cake and fantas for everyonej, fulfilling his duties as a groomsman by serving cake to the guests (and with such a handsome smile!)day 2, part 3: the second reception @ daniel's home, for close friends and family. let the singing and dancing begin!my two little friends, a & efriends & fam bringing gifts to the newlyweds: dishes, cooking oil, sacks of potatoes, a mattress! (not pictured)8pm: our first meal of the day. we were eating in the dark and j accidentally dropped his piece of meat on the ground, in the dirt. wanna guess what j ended up doing?the guests. a bit blurry, but i like this shot.

 

the funeral

j wrote about a funeral he attended when we first arrived in rwanda, but the first funeral attended that involved a personal connection with us was the funeral of eva,* a seven-day-old baby girl.  she was the firstborn daughter of phil,* a co-worker of mine in our legal department.  we were still rejoicing over her birth when we received word one morning that baby eva had died during the night.  it was awful.

the tiny coffin. seeing it made me cry.

 

the beautiful thing about this whole experience, though, was to witness how everyone in phil’s life pulled together in his family’s time of need to make the appropriate arrangements for the funeral and service, and how they left their jobs, their families and whatever responsibilities they had for that day and immediately responded to the family by being with them.  eva passed during the middle of the night and her funeral and memorial service took place at 2pm the following day without a hitch.  it was amazing.  family and friends bringing fantas and food, chairs for the service, pitching in for the coffin and securing the plot of land for the burial…this kind of quick, thoughtful organization would not happen in america.  i kept thinking to myself, over and over again: this is community, this is love.  and it is beautiful.

 

the births
i already mentioned the birth of marcus’ baby boy (the one with the adorably plump cheeks) but lucky us, we had the privilege of celebrating TWO births in one month!  my co-worker christine* had a beautiful baby boy a week after marcus, and he is so, so beautiful.  and what makes this baby extra special to me is that i named him.  (:  “david” means “beloved.”

 

so precious.

david looks just like his beautiful mama. sooo want to kidnap him! (:

 a near-drowning experience
we had the privilege of spending a week @ kumbya, a retreat center by lake kivu on rwanda’s western border, for a missions conference.  we’ve already mentioned how nice it was to have a break from our “work” and to get to know so many wonderful  people, but what we didn’t mention is that we had a very scary experience one day at the lake.  we definitely walked away from it with a deeper realization of the fragility of life and, at least for me, i wake up every morning now with a more grateful heart for the day he has given us to live.  i’ll let j tell the full story some other time, but for now, i just want to praise God for keeping us safe and holding us so close.  i feel like baby david in his picture above, snuggled safe and cozy in his little crib.  God has us in the paln of his rwanda-shaped hand, and it feels sooo good.  (:

beautiful kumbya

thank you, God, for the celebrations, sorrows and the very-close-calls in our lives.  they all connect us closer to you.