To Sleep or Not to Sleep

November 25th, 2007
I start this entry with a confession—I am not a morning person. Now, I try to keep my morning grumpiness on the inside-and I like to think I do a good job at this (though in less than a week I’m guessing the rest of the team could give the true call on that one). But let me say this—waking up to your first glance of Africa is a very exciting thing! In fact, though we’d only had a few hours of sleep I think most of the team popped out of bed bright and early to get our first peak at our new home. We woke up to a beautiful sunrise in a beautiful country! Rwanda is a land of lush green hills, gorgeous flowers and trees, and beautiful people.

After a delicious breakfast, our team piled into the vehicles and headed to New Life Church. As you drive through Kigali, it’s amazing how many people you see on the red dirt roads. Men, women, and children walk along the sidewalks and on the road, as cars, motorcycles, and vans weave in and out of each other in an impressive almost choreographed fashion. Soon we arrived at the church and were ushered to the front side of the church. If we were sleepy, this was no time for napping. I don’t think even an “amen” prayer gesture could get us out of the awkwardness of falling asleep while we were on display like this.

As a believer, there is something so comforting, powerful, and incredibly unifying to sing worship songs with other believers all the way across the world. As Maggie described it, it was like “being home” even though we were so very far away. Here we were, different people, different countries, different cultures and lands united together singing praise to the One True God! The feeling was almost overwhelming! The people in the church were incredibly warm and welcoming, and they made us feel more like family than visitors. Church in Rwanda—what a great way to start off our time together!

So I said I wasn’t a morning person, the good news is I am incredibly gifted in the area of napping. I have just learned that my talent is not only matched-but exceeded by one of my teammates. Li Hoffman is one of the most gifted nappers I’ve seen. She slept on all of our flights, she could fall asleep in the van, and she easily fell into a deep sleep after lunch today (as a few of the rest of us did as well). I would guess that waking from our afternoon nap was as difficult for her as it was to wake from my own. But again it was adventure time, so we piled into a van and headed out for a tour of Kigali. As I sit here staring at this computer screen, it is so hard to try to find words to describe the sites, the smells, and the feels of Rwanda. So many times on our driving tour one of us would point to a Kodak moment, a woman with a baby ingeniously tied on her back, a gorgeous Rwandan child all dressed up for Sunday church, a woman at the market with a basket of fruit on her head. All these moments were quite impossible to capture on film in a crowded moving van, but were burned forever in our memories.

Going back to the sleeping theme—jet lag is a very present reality for us all today. That’s why going to the youth service tonight was just PERFECT. If you want something to get you up and moving, get you singing and dancing, inspire you to worship and praise, well the New Life youth service is the thing for you! We performed our drama for the first time, and we were blessed by having Enrich write a song just for the drama. His talent is such a gift of God, and though he wrote the song separate from us and our drama plans, it couldn’t have been more ideal. We were also able to see God use talents of specific members on our team tonight. LuLu Hoffman introduced the drama and though she said she was nervous, her words were so impacting that we really couldn’t tell. Scott Modrall (who was only given about an hour to prepare) preached a very powerful message on the armor of God and the shield of faith. And finishing up the night Fred got us all fired up with a message I only wish all of you back home could hear. Needless to say, we were FAR from sleepy during his message. We finished up with some good ol’ worship dancing, which Fred described as “disorganizing our bodies”. Personally I think he described it this way to put all of us white folks (with our lack of dancing skills) at ease. I don’t know, I think we “disorganized” ourselves pretty well for our first try!

After another delicious meal, we finished up our night with a sharing time. This time was precious as we got to hear all the many ways the Lord has been working in each of us during this journey. Craig shared something very profound. We can’t help but see this trip to Rwanda as a “mountain-top experience”. During mountain top experiences, we are able to climb above the tree-line, and gain a new perspective and vision of our surroundings. We feel blessed to be able to ascend this mountain, for the view up here of the Lord, His work, His children, His love—it’s amazing. Craig also pointed out that though these experiences are wonderful, the valley is where the lush growth occurs. So while we are ascending this mountain, we will drink in as much as we can. Our prayer is that the lessons learned up here will change us, and better prepare us for the valleys and mountains which lie ahead.

Towards the end of our sharing time, the eyes began to glaze, the comments slowly died down, and we all approached that inevitable jet-lagged sleep-deprived wall. But it was 8:30-so we had made it! I can’t think of another night where a 9:00 bedtime sounded so sweet! We said goodnight, took our turns in the bathrooms, and finally allowed our eyes to close. LM