Greetings, Earthlings

It’s been so long since we have updated!  We have been almost non-stop since we have been back.  And honestly, I can probably categorize our entire two months of being back into three parts— recovery, travel, and job-hunting.

Our recovery has been interesting.  Looking back, I think that we have gone through all of the stages of grieving post-return.  Grieving for the time we spent there, and grieving in our absence.  I didn’t think of it that way while going through it, but as I’m starting to emerge out of the fog, I can see that is the case. Even though it is messy and choppy, we are slowly learning more about how our time in Africa has shaped us as we reflect upon the experience we were able to have.

I wish that I could tell you exactly how it affected us, how we think about it now, and how it will influence our future.  That would be nice.  Realistically though, we are still learning these things ourselves, and to be honest, sometimes we avoid thinking about it because of the good and painful memories alike. 

If I could describe our current over-all conditions (although our days vary of course), I would say that we feel like lost, confused people.  We have yet to find our place in this little world, and don’t exactly know even where to look.  We are occupying our time with the things that we know how to (the named categories above), but when I think about our futures, all I see is a blank slate. 

Not only have we been recovering emotionally, but as you all are far too aware of yourselves, life in the states can be complicated.  In comparison to Africa, I feel like we have to fill out a form for everything we do! 

Call this and that company, pay this fee, fill out your information to pay for a purchase, enter this form to use this website to connect you to another website which is really just a search engine to connect you to a hundred other websites that you have to sign up for individually to enter your information to connect you with jobs in your area that you may or may not qualify for and that may or may not actually exist.  Its crazy!  So much for being a discreet citizen.  I was used to it before, and now we are having to adjust to it all over again. 

We came back to a pile of unanswered mail, left-over tax and insurance problems that were supposedly taken care of before we left, and all new issues to tackle on our entrance back into this very well-recorded and well-controlled society.  After just having finished reading the Hunger Games trilogy, it makes me wonder….

Aside from our emotional, physical, and technological recoveries, we have been able to travel through NC several times to see my family, Columbia to see friends and family, and we are heading to Charleston this weekend for my cousins wedding!

Right now, we are living in Elliston, VA with Drew’s dad and step-mom, Tree.  They have been incredible.  They have been very understanding to our ever-changing lifestyle, and have done a great job of taking care of us.  We are planning on staying in this area as far as we know, and as we build up some financial credibility, we will start to look for a place of our own.

Now for job-hunting.  After submitting approximately 25-30 applications (not including temp agencies) over the last month and a half, I finally was hired last week by Ann Taylor LOFT.  Although this isn’t a permanent career choice, I am really grateful for the job and am definitely enjoying it so far (the clothing discounts won’t hurt either!).  Drew is looking for jobs in carpentry as well, and we are hoping that something comes to fruition soon.

We have started visiting a few churches and have connected with a couple of Drew’s old friends (yay Carrie and Bennett!), so we feel like slowly, ever so slowly, we will find our bearings soon. 

We are grateful for all of you who have done a great job loving us since we have returned….for those of you who have asked great questions and been interested in our time in Africa, and our recovery upon return.  We are going to attach some pictures of our goodbyes and the celebration we shared with Seeds of Hope (and have plenty of other pictures we will attach in the future), but please feel free to e-mail us, leave a comment, or call us with any more questions you have about our time there! 

Love to all,

Julianna (on behalf of Drew too)

Saying goodbye to Bishop Alexis and his children in Gahini, Rwanda.

Leaders in the diocese (from left to right):

Jered: Secretary of diocese

James: Manager of Seeds of Peace

Drew: Manager of Seeds of Hope

Alfred: Director of Seeds of Peace and Seeds of Hope

Our friend Hope with her daughter Providence.  She worked in a little local hardware shop that Drew and I frequented.

Us with our goodbye gifts, made my our Muslim friend from the market, Baraka.  

Great friends from church on our last Sunday.  The woman to my left didn't speak any English, but joined my class and did so well!  She was so diligent, and when I left she couldn't stop crying and thanking me.

My little friends from across the fence.  Teaching them how to smile BIG since they never smile in pictures.

The little one, seen above on my hip.

Us with our assistant manager, Francois, on the day we left Nyagatare.

At the Seeds of Hope celebration the night before we left.  One friend took me to get my hair done, and another let me borrow their traditional dress (a great honor).

Everyone enjoying the meal.

Drew making his goodbye speech (even the Africans told him to stop talking...it must have been long haha).

Receiving our gift of the Bible in Kinyarwanda from Pastor Bernard and a deacon of the church we attended in Nyagatare.  

Giving our second gift (the first being the meal) to Francois, the assistant manager, who was accepting it for all the employees at Seeds of Hope.  It was several pictures in a frame of us with the employees.  

I am reaching my left arm to touch my right, which is a sign of respect when you shake hands with the elderly, or those above you in status.  

Saying goodbye to our World Race friends just a couple days before we flew out in Kigali, Rwanda.

Here we are standing in front of a fun little restaurant started by a Canadian called "Mr. Chips".  It was the only burger joint in the country!

We have other pictures of before/after renovations, the town, and other people that we will post sometime over the next month or two.  Hope you enjoyed!

January 6: News

Hello Everyone,

I know that this will come as a surprise to some of you, but below we have copied a letter that we recently sent out to our supporters via e-mail.



Friends and Family,

We have mixed feelings about the following information. As you know, we have been working in Nyagatare, Rwanda since August. We committed to a year of service to the Anglican Diocese here, specifically working with the Seeds of Hope Conference Center and the Morning Star Primary School. Our time here as been challenging and stretching for both Julianna and I in more ways than we can ever express.

The initial purpose of our coming here was to fulfill an internship requirement for my Intercultural Studies degree. The second purpose was to help the Rwandan Anglican Church with some of its ministries. The time frame for the internship only required 6-8 weeks for completion, but we decided to stay a year in order to gain longer-term experience and make our work here as optimum as possible.  My internship was an involved process with both work before and during our time here.  My last requirement for the internship was a mandatory debrief session with my advisers from Columbia International University in order to process everything that has gone on during the internship; internal struggles, external struggles, successes, failures, progress made, and areas that need improvement. After the debrief, my requirements would be fulfilled, and then we would continue on as planned for the remainder of the year.

During this debrief session Julianna and I talked with three of the most respected missionaries that I know.  After speaking with them, we were surprised when they called us back. They were concerned enough about our experiences here that we should end our time and come home.  We asked further questions and discussed it more with them, and basically, they were telling us that because of various circumstantial factors, it would be unwise to stay for the entire year. Even more, they strongly suggested that we come home as soon as possible. Please note, that our lives are not in danger, nor are we in harms way physically, but they primarily suggested to come home in order to preserve our emotional, mental, and spiritual health in the long run.

Julianna and I listened to what they had to say and agreed to talk, fast, and pray about this decision. After much consideration we decided to submit to the wisdom of our advisers seeing that they are wise, experienced, and seasoned missionaries who are more familiar with the effects of cross-cultural ministry than we are.  We also agreed in our hearts, and what they said resonated very strongly with what we had been feeling for the duration of our time here.  We have discussed this with our families and they agree as well that it would be a mistake to ignore the advise of such wise counsel. So, in short, Julianna and I are coming home.

At the onset of this letter I said that we have mixed feelings about this decision; this is so true. Honestly, it is one of the hardest decisions we have had to make as a couple. There are so many reasons why we would want to stay. We had it programmed in us to be here for a year, and now we are having to pull the e-brake on our plans.  We are so happy to come home to see our friends and families, but also our hearts are sad that we will leave the friends we have here. We have been planning to come here since 2010 and have worked diligently for five months trying to minister, help, improve, grow, disciple, etc., but now we are leaving before we intended.

Proverbs 16 has been an encouragement to me remembering that "In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps."  We have planned to serve the Lord, and that we have done, but it looks much different than we had thought, and we are learning to be OK with that. Also Julianna and I agree with the wisdom a Rwandese friend gave me on this subject. He reminded me about 1 Corinthians 3. Paul says to the Corinthians,

              " I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything but only God, who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor, For we are God's fellow workers; and you [the church] are God's field, God's building." 

Julianna and I, though it is difficult, cannot be discouraged because of unfinished work, for it is all the work of God. We have done our best, and God knows that, but ultimately he is the foreman, he is the head farmer, he is the ultimate friend, lover, sustainer, helper, brother, father, mother, creator, etc. Our work pales in comparison to His, which is encouraging to us. My humanity, my finiteness is not a thing to pitied or to apologize for, because my imperfection and finiteness is what separates me from God.  Instead of seeing ourselves as weaker, we must see God as Greater. We pray that God will give us the grace to do so.

We want to also assure our friends and supporters that our time here has been far from useless.  Even though we accomplished vastly less than we intended to in details and specifics here in Rwanda, we are not leaving empty-handed.  We accomplished my internship, which allowed me to officially graduate, we learned a host of information on language, culture, and people in general.  Not only that, but we have gained a completely new perspective about the mission field and what it is like to live on it.  It has given us a new filter to use when planning for the future; in fact, our perspectives of the future have narrowed significantly, which is a very good thing when you are young and it seems like there are a world of endless possibilities.  We know ourselves, our giftings, our passions, and our abilities much more keenly than we did before (we know what we are not meant for as well).  We have been able to participate in and learn how to live in a Christian community that is very much unlike ours. 

We want to thank all of you for all of the sacrifices that many of you have made to allow us to come here.  Even though it has been a very difficult time, as a whole this experience has been a deep and meaningful one; we have learned so much.  We are praying that you all would be able to extend us grace in this time for our weaknesses.  Please continue to pray for us, not only until we come home, but also after, as we will be trying to get on our feet again and re-evaluate for the future. As far as our financial supporters are concerned, we will not be asking for support after this month. Thank you for your generosity, it has not been unfruitful.

If you have more specific questions, we would love to answer them and share more details of our time here that we have withheld.  Please either call or e-mail us when we get back, or just talk to us when we can see you in person.



We love you all, and are continually grateful for you,

Drew and Julianna



I know that many of you have enjoyed and been encouraged by our blog posts about our time here. We are sorry that we will not be able to continue that, but we trust that God will still be able to use us back in the States.


This is not the end of our blog either. I am sure that for some time to come, we will be posting memories, stories, or thoughts about our time here, as well as general life back in the states. We hope that it will be continually beneficial to our greater community even though our time here has ended.


Thank you all for your encouraging e-mails, phone calls, and comments.  Your encouragement means more to us than you can know. 


I'm sure we will post again sometime after our return, and until then, any questions that you have that you think would be appropriate to the public we would be more than happy to answer.


Grace and Peace to all!

Update

Sorry about all the posts with the holiday pictures.  I didn't realize that you could upload more than one picture on a post until the last one. 

We are doing ok, but still need a lot of prayer from everyone.

Also, Julianna has been really sick and after doing some tests, not only does she have a bad stomach infection, but also some parasites.  So pray that the medicine works and she can get better.

Photo: Our trip to Uganda

We last minute decided to take a trip to Uganda since business was almost non-existant at the Seeds of Hope.  It is something that we have been wanting to do for awhile.  A friend in Kigali told us about a rafting company called "adrift" that has a great deal on both sleeping, food, and rafting accomidations.  So the day after Christmas we left on the night bus and were gone three nights (two of which were spent on a bus) and two days.  It was not restful at all, but it was so FUN!  And we have needed that.  We will probably post more pictures of the rafting in the future. 

The bus ride was so long-- we literally left 8 hours late.  Yes 8.  With no warning or explanation....oh Africa.....Even after 8 hours of waiting we had a 12 hour ride ahead of us, which we weren't sure we would come out of alive.

A picture of the Nile river that flows all the way to Egypt!  Hopefully you've heard of it before...We stayed in a place right on it, and the rafted down it the next day.  It was incredible!  Especially after living in the hottest spot in Rwanda.  By the way, I'm really sorry that I just figured out how to post more than one picture at a time, or I would have combined all of our holiday pictures in one post.  That was my origional intent anyway...

These pictures were taken in Kampala, Uganda.  Not our favorite place in the world.  It was an absolute mad house!

Taken in Jinja, Uganda, where we stayed and did the rafting.

Photo: Christmas lunch with Eddie and Bonita

Christmas morning Drew preached in English service.  After that we got a bus to Kigali, which is about 4 hours away, and got to spend the rest of Christmas day with the family of Eddie and Bonita that we have mentioned before.  They have ministered to us several times since we have come to Rwanda.  We had such a great day eating a delicious meal and snacks that actually was a Christmas meal that we are used to!  Then we had a movie marathon and spent the night with them.  It was so needed, and we were very blessed by their hospitality and generosity.

Photo: Christmas Eve with Friends

We had the great privilege of meeting a team of Americans (a VERY rare treat) that are passing through Nyagatare on what is called "The World Race".  This is an mission organization that sends teams to 11 different countries in 11 months.  Even though they were grateful for bits and pieces of home during the holidays when they are missing home, I definitely think they blessed us so much more with their presence.  It was so incredible to be able to speak English freely, share stories and burdens, and just be with people who are part of our own culture.  This is the team in our room sharing a Christmas Eve feast.

Photo: Staff Christmas Party 2

Our staff enjoying the treats.  My mom sent enough small candy canes to share with them the Christmas beauty of hot chocolate with candy canes in it.  The funny thing was that they got really confused and most of them ended up taking the candy canes out and throwing them away anyway haha, no matter how hard I tried to explain to just leave it in there.  During the party we had food, Bible readings, songs, and speeches (you can't have a party in Rwanda without speeches).