A Sunday Adventure

This post will be very, very long, because I haven't been able to post on the blog for quite a few days, due to slow internet.  So, go grab a cup of tea or coffee, or better yet, scoop up a BIG bowl of Blue Bell ice-cream in my honor (oh, how I miss Blue Bell!), put your feet up, and get ready for a long visit with the Bergs in Africa!

Yesterday was Sunday, so we were going to visit a church.  A group of 8 is here from Rochester, NY - two doctor/pastors, a respiratory therapist, a teen daughter of the doctor/pastors, a translator/evangelist, a hydro-geologist who is building these cool composting toilets, a chemical engineer and a NICU technical specialist. Also with us is a lovely couple from England - John and Carol, along with Beth, a university student from England who is here to teach for 3 months, and Janet, the fun and feisty red head with the PHD from Pittsburgh who is here to head up the nursing school.  John and Carol been coming here since 1994, and they are a great deal of help in so many ways.  We've enjoyed teasing each other about our accents!  Anyway, our crew-from-all-over decided to try the church on the nearby island this Sunday.

We all met at 8 a.m. in a central part of our compound and began our walk to the lake.  It turned out to be a 30 minute walk down a very steep hill (some might call it a mountain!) with a very narrow, dirt path, down, down, down to the water.  We went past many a mud house, with goats and chickens milling about periodically, and loads of little children walking before, behind and all around us, trying to get a closer look at the Mozungus (Foreigners).  We then paid a "water taxi" to take us across the very large lake to the island. (The lake is larger than any lake I've seen in Texas.  For instance, I can't see the other side in some directions).  On the other side, once our wooden boat was in sight, many, many people started running down the very steep hill towards the lake to meet us.  They started singing a song, repeating two lines over and over, all while clapping ang laughing and jumping and dancing.

We of course wondered what they were singing.  The translator from the Rochester team, whose name is Princess, told us their song meant, "We have prayed and prayed that they would come, and now, praise God! They are here!"  They sang it over and over, dancing and jumping and smiling so big, while we landed - feeling a bit disoriented - and got out of our boat and started our hike up the mountain on the other side with them, up to their church.  They were laughing and running and singing up the mountain, while we were all sweating, and huffing and puffing, and just praying we would make it to the top.  :-)

When we got to the top, we soon saw the church.  It had a tin roof on 2/3 of the building, a dirt floor, wooden slat sort of things for pews, open windows, and mud sides.  As soon as we showed up, they started singing and dancing so loudly!  Such JOY was in this place.  If a kid grew up in Africa, I don't think they would ever be able to say, "I don't want to go to church!  It's sooooo boring!"  The complaint of many a USA kid just wouldn't hold water here at all.   Now, perhaps a kid here could say, "I don't want to go to church, because it is just sooooo long!"  But I doubt they would say that.  Everyone seemed to be having a great time, and it appeared to me, the newbie, that this just might be the absolute highlight of everyone's week - the social event of the entire community, the thing no one would want to miss.

The dancing and singing went on for forever.  In the middle of it all, a little 3 year old walked up to me, climbed on my lap and sat there for about 40 minutes, then he (or she) stretched out on my lap and fell asleep for the rest of the service.  The service lasted 3 hours and 45 minutes (Stephen timed it).  Evidently, they "shortened" it for us, b/c they have heard that USA services are shorter than theirs, and they didn't want to wear us out.  Ha!

They placed white satin material, obtained from who knows where, over our wooden slats, b/c we were their honored guests.  They also spread pink and white satin over our heads, suspended from the tin roof, to make a sort of canopy thing over our section of the front of the church.

Speaking of choirs, five separate choirs (or maybe six) had prepared three songs each for the service. They each took turns performing their beautiful songs.  Speaking of songs, just before the service started, we realized we were supposed to have a song prepared, as well.  After a brief time of panic, we all tried to come up with a song that everyone, from young 20 year olds in England, to middle aged people and kids from Texas, to all sorts of ages from New York, knew well.  It seemed we all knew different songs by heart - probably we know a lot more, but it was hard to think under pressure!  Finally, I remembered the old chorus, "This is the day, this is the day that the Lord has made".  Everyone knew it.  Yay!  Later, when we sang it for the church,  it went so well!  No one would have guessed we had been completely unprepared.  Whew!  We even had the whole church sing along the last time through, some trying it in English, and others singing in KinyaRwandan (we'd mentioned the verse, Psalm 118:24, so they read the lyrics from their Bible).  It was beautiful.

Afterwards, the leaders of the church took us to a different building, which turned out to be their village schoolhouse.  It, too, had open windows, mud walls and wood floors.  But it also had a chalkboard which desperately needed a new coat of chalkboard paint and a bunch of math books in the back corner.  Being a teacher, I couldn't resist checking out their textbooks.  It seemed like a very solid program.  Made me want to go teach!  Anyway, in this room, they had prepared a long table with a tablecloth, and so much food on it, just for us.  What a surprise!  It was all so very delicious.

From Left to Right: Sam Berg, Cheryl (respiratory therapist), Beth (university student/English teacher), Carol, Stephen, Tim standing in corner, Janet the feisty and fun redhead, Amy the chemical engineer, Amelia, the OB/GYN-Pastor, her husband Mike, the pediatrician-Pastor (don't ask me how they each manage to do two full time jobs, I don't know!), Michaela, their 16 year old daughter, standing in the front corner, and Ruthie.

Just imagine how difficult it is for the teachers and students!  This is a 4th grade Arithmetic book.  They switched to English textbooks in this province about 3 years ago, yet most still either struggle or do not know English at all.  It is so impressive the way everyone is striving so hard to learn English and to advance educationally.  These are great textbooks.  The students know that education is a privilege and so very important.  They take it all very seriously.  So cool!

We could definitely learn something about how to treat guests from these people!  What amazing hospitality!  It was all very wonderful, and also very humbling, at the same time.  I will never forget that delicious lunch, as long as I live.

After we finally finished eating, it was time to descend the mountain or hill (30 min walk), board the wooden boat (this boat looked like something you'd see on a Sunday School flannel graph story about Jesus on the Sea of Galilee.  It was pretty cool!) .  We took the boat back across the lake, trying not to notice them bailing water out of the boat the whole way, and trying not to think about this being the deepest lake in all of Africa - or so I've been told -  and which part of the partly submerged boat we'd hold onto should the thing sink or tip over.  :-)  Ha!  When we got to the other side, there were some kids swimming in the water, and having a ball.  We were all so hot, quite a few of us were tempted to jump in and join them, church clothes and all!

We got out, and began our steep ascent back to the hospital.  Going up took an hour, and it was much harder than going down at 8 that morning, especially with our stomachs so full from the delicious lunch, and with our bodies thinking it was nap time.  It was hotter, and of course going up is always harder than down.  When we finally got home, around 3:30 p.m., we were all ready for a rest from our big adventure.  Later, we downloaded our 200 pictures we'd taken during our day and enjoyed reliving the whole thing.

It was truly an adventure and super fun!   But my legs don't want to do it again next week!  I think we will visit the village church here, just a 5 minute walk down the road, next Sunday.  :-)

Here are a few other random photos from the day.  We have a new hobby of taking pictures of folks when they are wearing a Texas-related T-Shirt.  It's amazing how far these t-shirts have travelled!

The TAKS test is a standardized test for public school students in Texas.
It was replaced last year by the STAAR test, but is still remembered well by
students, parents and teachers all over Texas.  

Ruthie gives the Gig 'Em (Texas A&M) sign in response to this handsome young man's Longhorn (U. of TX) t-shirt.  

Always keeping her options open, Ruthie now gives the Baylor Bear sign -- I don't know, but I don't think this young man was convinced about her differing opinions about college choices!

The sweetie pie who came to sit on my lap in church.  

So, these aren't Texas T-shirts, but Ruthie and Sam enjoyed meeting these Super Heroes anyway. 

We saved the best T-Shirt for last.  Go, SPURS, Go!!!!!
I guess it's no surprise that there are Spurs fans everywhere.  They're the greatest, after all!

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In other news:

Today, Tim will try a closed reduction (boy, I hope I'm getting this terminology right) on a little boy with a broken arm - I think he has broken it in more than one place.  He is doing all of this in an OR that has the equipment of a US hospital in the 1940's.

Also, he is fixing a few hernias and, the biggest surgery of the day will be skin grafts he will do on Daniel, our friend with the infected leg.  The skin grafts are a big deal, and so is the closed reduction - so please be in prayer for that.

We are so thankful for all your prayers, and for the way God has been working to help Daniel, and others.  It is hard to believe that he still has his leg at this point.  He is not out of the woods by any stretch - it could still have to be amputated.  So, please keep praying for healing.  Thank you!

This is the mom of the twins born in the road.  Please pray for her!


Because I can't reposition the following photos to the end of the blog, where I meant for them to be, I am now giving you a commercial break to view some of my favorite, random photos.  No real stories attached; they are just pretty pictures, I think!  So, I wanted to share them with you.  :-)  Enjoy!  After the three fun pics, you will see more NICU photos.  Sorry for the photo confusion.  I am running out of time to try to get the pictures placed correctly! 

These are not the twins born in the road, but another set born a few days later.  They are doing pretty well.  I never got a picture of the roadside twins.  :-( 

The surviving twin.  Please be praying for him. 

Also, the surviving twin of the lady who had her babies in the road is struggling pretty hard.  There have been a few times we thought he wouldn't make it, but he has pulled through.  He has way too many red blood cells (the twin who died hardly got any blood in the womb, and his twin got too much).  He has been under bili-lights to help with his jaundice.  We don't know how he will do, or if he will survive, either.  Please keep this mama in prayer as well as her baby.  She didn't really want more children before, but of course now has fallen in love with her child.  She has already lost one, and it would be so hard to lose this other one after all of this.  She never leaves her baby's side, but is in the NICU 24/7.

Tim is having such a challenging introduction to African medicine.  So many cases that he's never seen before, and so many dire situations.  And add to all of this the fact that he is working with very few people who understand English!  He is of course handling it with grace and with joy - and he is working extremely hard.  But he did say one night with that sly little Tim-grin and a twinkle in his eye, "Doesn't anyone just need their appendix removed around here?"  It seems he isn't really getting any cases that are familiar and second nature to him - but everything is always something new.  That can get pretty stressful!  If anyone can handle this, Tim can - but of course, he needs the Lord to walk with him in this, and he NEEDS the strength and encouragement that can only come from God.

Tim with some of his colleagues. 

Tim with the Chief of Staff. 

"The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in Him and I am helped." ~ Psalm 28:7  "The Lord gives strength to His people; The Lord blesses his people with peace."  ~ Psalm 29:11  "The Lord is my strength and my song" (Psalm 118:14a) "He determines the number of the stars, and calls them each by name.  Great is our Lord and mighty in power, his understanding knows no limit.  His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse, nor his delight in the legs of a man; the Lord delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love."  

One awesome thing about being here, and about watching Tim practice medicine in such a new situation, is the opportunity it gives us to remember much more easily that we are not in control - God is.  We know that any strength we thought we had is just silly:  it is as the strength of a two year old, arm wrestling with his Olympic Champion daddy.  It is nothing compared to the strength and wisdom of our God.  So, we pray for these patients, and we pray for God to help Tim, and to heal the patients, and to help our whole family to be used in whatever way He wants.  It is both humbling and also such a joyful thing all at the same time.

More News!

Last week, Ruthie, Sam and I began teaching an English Club for the children of the hospital and mission staff.  It started with 10 kids and now we've grown to about 16, as they have been surprising us by showing up with their friends.  It is so much fun!!  The kids are great, and so incredibly sharp and eager to learn.  After we were asked to teach this class, and were trying to figure out what on earth we would do with them for an hour and a half, Ruthie had the idea to structure our club in the same way her Wyldlife club back home was structured.  Wyldlife is the jr. high version of Young Life, one of my favorite things.  So, I was more than happy to oblige - especially since that structure is something very familiar to me.  Heck, no reason to reinvent the wheel, right?  Anyway, we play games, we sing songs, we have a "conversation time", where I ask them a question in English such as, "What is your favorite subject in school?"  or "Describe what you are wearing in complete detail", and they take turns answering the question in English.  At the end, I give a talk, much like a Young Life club talk, in English, and various kids take turns repeating what I just said in KinyaRwandan.  Some of the kids know a good bit of English, some know hardly any.  Our club has been meeting from 1:30 - 3, but this week, we are changing to 2-3:30.  That would be 7-8:30 a.m. Texas time, or 8-9:30 a.m. Eastern time, in case anyone wants to lift up our English club in prayer.

I can't help but be amazed and overjoyed at God's sense of humor at giving us this club.  It was proposed to us to have this club by one of the nurses here.  We thought it would be 4 and 5 year old kids, but then a bunch of teenagers showed up.  Then, Ruthie asked if we could make it like her Wyldlife club.  Next thing I know, I'm an unofficial Young Life leader again, even though I said over and over I wasn't going to do YL here, but was going to focus on my own young lives (my own children) while in Rwanda.  However, this feels like such a gift, because we are all three doing it together and having a great time, making new friends, and even ministering together - all while doing what we love to do.  And none of it was orchestrated by me at all - it just truly fell into my lap.
Ruthie and Sam make great leaders!

Stephen joins us for some of this, but he is also quite busy with last minute preparations for his own English class that he is teaching to about 7 of the men who work at the mission.  They came and asked him, after we'd been here for only 3 days, if he would teach them English.  He was honored that they would ask him, but was quite unsure if he was up to the task.  However, he dove in with great enthusiasm, and is enjoying teaching immensely.  He has even emailed an old teacher, his 9th grade Spanish prof, for some ideas on teaching language.  Stephen's class partly overlaps our English club, so he helps us with the games and some of the singing, and then goes to get ready to walk to his class.

All in all, you can see we are already pretty busy here!  And we are loving it.  Our only sort of hard thing is that our internet is so much worse than we'd expected, due to the cables being cut while road work was being done nearby.  Our connection is a little better than dial up (remember dial up? No?  Well, let me assure you.....it is s.......l........o...........w!  (I got a rare chance to post with a faster internet Tim just found today, which is why I could upload these pictures!!!!)

If and when we ever get this glitch fixed, you will be seeing many, many more pictures of this place!  We are looking in to the possibility of possibly sharing a satellite dish with some other missionaries here, if it's not too expensive and if we can afford it.  This would get us to a much faster speed - not as fast as in US, but much more do-able.

Thanks for all your prayers and for your emails of encouragement to us.  We love hearing from so many of you!