Compassion Visits at Runda & Gikomero (Day 4 & 5)

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice! -Philippians 3:19

The Team has experienced a wonderful 2 days learning about Compassion and how important their work is in the local parishes of the Shyogwe Diocese. Through Compassion, their children are being released from poverty and receiving the gospel. They have an opportunity to receive Jesus Christ as their Savior.

Tuesday the team went to Runda Parish and were blessed with the opportunity to spend time with the children we sponsor from Runda Parish, Shyogwe Parish and Gikomero. Our hearts were overflowing with joy, as our children came down a hill and into our arms. Witnessing Ford and Sarah meet their children for the first time was a special treat.

We learned about the Runda Parish’s Compassion Project, looked at the children’s records, exchanged gifts, of course Ford’s child received a UNC T-Shirt! With the help of a Translator, we had a special time of speaking with our children and learning about their lives. The children, Ford, Sarah and I enjoyed playing games and football (soccer) with them. Runda’s Compassion staff had fun jumping rope with the girls! After this we shared a snack with them. Pastor Jean Baptiste and Runda’s Compassion are serving God well as they love and provide for the children.

We learned one of the girls, Alexia, age 13 from Shyogwe Parish, is loosing her eye sight. Her eyes are cloudy and yellowish/red. She requested prayer for healing. With the help of a translator, Alexia received healing prayer. This was a very powerful moment as we experienced the presence of Jesus. The Compassion Project will take Alexia to the hospital for an examination. Please pray Alexia will be able to see a Doctor soon, also for guidance and wisdom for a correct diagnosis, so she can receive treatment and her eyesight will be restored. Alexia is a precious, vibrant and gentle young girl.

Today, we visited Church of Gikomero to visit their new Compassion Project. We attended a Thanksgiving and Praise service for their new Project. They have 270 children, with 55 children being sponsored. Ford shared with everyone, “God hears our prayers for Him to have pity on us and help the children! God has heard our cries and answered prayers. He did a great work in giving Gikomero a Compassion Project.” Gikomero came together today to honor and thank God. Praise the Lord from whom all blessings flow! God is faithful!

The Team has seen first hand the amazing work and dedication the Compassion Staffs are doing for these precious children! We have heard from Bishop Jered, Pastor Jean Baptiste of Runda, Pastor Alfred of Gikomero, Pastor Prosper and Zibre how important Compassion Projects are to the Shyogwe Diocese. The many Sponsors from Redeemer and Apostles are living out the gospel, as they go and make disciples of Christ by helping to bring these children out of darkness into the light of Christ. Children are being fed, clothed and their bodies are being restored to health. Matt. 25:34-39 is being lived out among the children. Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.”

We praise God for the very generous and compassionate hearts of Redeemer Anglican Church and Church of the Apostles!

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!

And you thought a Unity Service was long...

Rwanda Team - DAY 2 and 3

Today, our 2nd day in Runda, was simply amazing. We were able to break out into the people and spend special time with many of their groups from the youngest to the oldest. We were part of talks about honoring our parents, not being looked down on because of our age, how to live as a chosen people, and even a little sex education. We were full of laughter and joy while playing 20 questions with the compassion children, learning their games, and letting them touch our Muzungo hair J!

We taught over 100 children an oldie but a goodie; “This is the day that the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it…..”. Later in the afternoon we got to preform our hit for the convention. It was great. It may not be playing on the local Kigali airwaves anytime soon, but it’s a version we won’t be able to forget.

And even though the videos of us dancing and singing should definitely fall under a “What happens in Rwanda stays in Rwanda” category we will be sure to share them with you. What a great joy it has been to be worship and be with our sister church. It is only the beginning of our relationship but strong bonds are already being formed.

The cherry on top of today was being reunited with our luggage. All of the women are rejoicing with their products and Benji and Ford now have razors. You should all be disappointed that you did not get to see Ford with a mustache.

Sunday began with some morning exercise (squats) by using a traditional toilet in Keyenzie. Things were all up hill from there. While in Keyenzie we were able to participate in an inaugural church service for a new Chapel. We witnessed a confirmation service, partook in communion, and worshipped together. After the 6 hour (no seriously) service we were revived by lunch at the new pastor’s home. It has been wonderful to be with them as they embark on the same journey we have been on for the past year. We felt a special connection with them sharing similar feelings and challenges that come along with planting a church.

So after 3 days in Rwanda, and 20 church service hours later we now have the equivalent of 4 months of church. So see you some time in November!

Day 1 in Rwanda

The sun peaked through from behind the clouds of an evening Rwandan sky; God was smiling down upon us as we sang praises, danced unto the Lord (especially Ford, ask to see the video evidence), and heard the gospel anew. It was our first full day in Rwanda with our brothers and sisters at the Runda Parish. We worshipped together with them at an “evangelism convention”, planned to reach out to more folks in the community. One particular moment stands out from the rest. Pastor Charlotte preached an evangelistic sermon in Kinyarwanda, the language of Rwanda, to those who were gathered together at the close of the day. As I sat listening to a language I could not understand, I was moved by the power, passion, and conviction in Charlotte’s preaching, clear evidence of the Spirit’s presence in this place. This reminds me that God moves in ways that are far beyond our comprehension and that he is truly a God to be seen and experienced all throughout the world. Imana ishimwe (God be praised).

We Made It!!!

Well, we made it. After 24 very long hours of travel and 6 hours of time change, 5 weary travelers arrived in Rwanda. Traveling always seems like a necessary burden of the trip given how long it takes and how draining it can be, but it is actually an important part of team bonding as you’re trapped together (either inside the security boundaries of an airport or in a metal box in the skies) with no where to go and nothing to do, but get to know one another- and we’ve had plenty of time for that.

After a smooth start at RDU, we had the ‘opportunity’ to sit on the tarmac in Chicago for 2 hours. I (Ford) watched almost an entire movie before the plane even took off. Of course, this lengthy delay began the ongoing transatlantic conversation of whether or not we would make our connection in Brussels.

When we landed in Brussels we sprinted all the way across the airport to a bus, which took us to a different terminal where our flight to Rwanda was boarding. It looked like Teresa was making a last minute bid for the US Olympic Track and Field team as she sprinted across the airport. As is so often the case, it ended up being a situation of hurry up and wait. Relieved to get to our terminal on time, we ended up standing in line for more than half an hour before we got to board our last flight. (If only the ground crew at the Brussels airport had hustled like we did. Our bags didn’t make the connection so we’re without all of our things for the next 2 days. Everyone’s spirit is great and we’re using it as an opportunity to lean on the Lord in dependence for what we need. It’s also a good reminder of how unimportant our ‘stuff’ really is!)

More movies (and the excellent services of a European International Flight) got us to the continent of Africa. Before we landed, we practiced our Kinyarwandan words and tried to remember the names and faces of many of our Rwandan friends that we were about to see.

There were several familiar and friendly faces at the airport, including a surprise visit by Rev Jean Baptiste, the Pastor of Runda. It was a joy to meet him!

Throughout the day, we reflected on Psalm 121 which states:

1 I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? 2 My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. 3 He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. 4 Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. 5 The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand. 6 The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. 7 The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. 8 The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.

We reminded ourselves that as we head to the Land of a Thousand Hills, the Lord is the one who will be watching over us. And we reminded ourselves that as we grow weary from travel and time changes and the discomforts of Africa, our Lord never grows weary. He never slumbers or sleeps. He will be watching over us when we are aware of Him and when we are not; when we are sensing His presence and when we are not. He will keep us secure in our going out and in our coming in. For that, we are thankful and in that we will rest tonight….really, really well.

Highlights of the Day:

• FOOD….LOTS and LOTS of FOOD
• French fries on national French Fry Day (July 13)
• Deep Dish Pizza in Chicago
• Actual (mulitiple) meals on each of our international flights
• Ice Cream Bars before we landed in Uganda for a pit stop
• Teresa & Sarah’s bites of chocolate after each meal
• A full 7-item meal ready for us when we arrived at the Halleluia House at 12:30am (after we’ve been up for 36 hours straight)
• Having too much luggage for the White Horse Van that picked us up at the Kincaid’s house
• Everyone getting TSA pre-check status - except for Ford
• Ford trying to be discreet at security while wearing a money belt with A LOT of cash strapped around his waist
• The smiling faces of our Rwandan friends waiting for us at the airport

*We want you to get to know the Rwanda Team over this trip. Below is a brief quiz from our discoveries today that we thought you might have fun with. Answers are below. Enjoy.

1. Who was most excited about the possibility of missing our connection and spending a day in Belgium?

2. Who saved the day by bringing laundry detergent in their carry on so that we could hand wash our underwear?

3. Who read the most on the airplane?

4. Who sacrificed the most on the airplane in order for Ford to have an aisle seat? (hint: It wasn’t Ford)

5. Who is most afraid of turning into a monster when they are tired?

6. Whose favorite genre of literature is ‘Amish Romance’?

a. Ashley

b. Teresa

c. Ashley & Teresa

Answers: 1. Ford 2. Sarah 3. Benji 4. Teresa 5. Ashley 6. C

Sermon Audio - July 10, 2016

Sermon Audio - July 3, 2016

Rwanda Team Request

In a few short weeks, Redeemer is sending it’s first official missions trip to Rwanda to connect with our sister church, the Runda Parish. Below is a short video from our team making a request for help in getting to Rwanda. You won’t regret spending a few minutes watching this one. Enjoy.

On Sunday, June 19th, we will be collecting a special offering for the Rwanda Team. If you are able/willing to help support the team, please make checks payable to Redeemer Anglican Church and write Rwanda Team in the subject line. Checks can be given at the offering on Sunday or can be mailed to the church (Redeemer Anglican Church, PO Box 28105, Raleigh NC 27611).

Thank you for your prayers and support for this partnership.

Redeemer Anglican Church

PO Box 28105

Raleigh, NC 27611

(919) 358-6375

The Search for Jesus

Most people reading this post can tell the Biblical story of Easter. “Jesus died for our sins on the cross. He rose again three days later, so that if we believe in Him, we will live forever.” Even our kids can recant the story with endearing Sunday school splendor. Indeed, the glorious Good News has been received loud and clear by the church and beyond. Yet, still, I have this unsettled feeling, that I (and my people) may be missing something. The words of the story roll off our tongues so effortlessly that I wonder if we mistakenly assume that knowing the story - and even believing it to be true – makes our faith complete.

Believe the story of Easter – check. Christian – check. Heaven – check.

The truth is that we have the story of Easter recorded in the Bible not simply for us to know what happened, important as that is. But point of the Easter story – and all of scripture - is to introduce us to God, and to offer an invitation to live life with His Son. Every… single…word… has the power to woo us into radical intimacy with God. Did you hear that? Radical…intimacy…with… GOD. So, if we have stopped short of true relationship with Jesus, His Son – the kind of relationship that talks and listens and trusts and obeys and waits and wrestles and loves and cries and rejoices and hopes – then no matter how well we know the story, we have simply missed Easter.

It turns out that we are not the first to miss Easter and the presence of Jesus in its aftermath. After the first Easter, there were many who had knew the story by having seen it first hand, but were nevertheless left somewhat baffled about how their life would work with Jesus going forward. When I look back at them I am touched by the way they stayed with their longing, their sadness, their confusion. They didn’t just return to business as usual. It was like they couldn’t quite move on until they got to Jesus. They had doubts, questions, fears, and heartache; but they could not let go of looking for Jesus, making the story personal. And the great news is that Jesus came to them. To all who sought, to all who wondered, to all who wrestled with what Easter really meant – Jesus appeared. After He died on the cross, after He rose from the dead, Jesus went and appeared to His friends who were searching for Him.

To Mary Magdalene who ached with sadness at the loss of her Lord and who wanted to see and touch His body, to the disciples who were afraid of what would happen to them as believers and who needed the peace of Christ’s presence, to the men walking along the road who needed understanding about what had really happened that first Easter, to Thomas who could not believe His God lived until He could touch the holes in His hands, to Peter whose shame must have made him feel like half a man – to all of these people seeking Jesus for proof, for love, for intimacy, for purpose, for peace, for redemption – Jesus appeared. He met them in their search for Him and He gave them what they needed.

The story of Jesus’ time on this earth ends with a great commission and the eternal promise that only Easter can offer. Before Jesus returns to Heaven, He speaks life and purpose and relationship into His disciples. He commissions them to share the marvelous invitation of Easter with the world. It is an invitation not to hear a story, but to live a story in great love and intimacy with its Hero. He promises them that they are not alone, that Easter, in fact, is about never being alone again. And before He departs into the clouds He promises, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Ladies, this story is to be your story. Its Hero is to be your Hero. The Jesus who appeared to all those who searched for Him desires to come to you. Are you searching? Are you seeking? Are you expecting Him to come? He is with you now, as He will be tomorrow. What would it look like in your life today, in this moment, if you simply turned to Him?

Pray for Raleigh

Church -

Please be in prayer for our city. The news is reporting that police were involved in a shooting in SE Raleigh this afternoon. Crowds of protestors are beginning to gather. Please pray for God’s protection and covering over the entire situation and for everyone involved.

Below is a prayer from our Prayer Book for God’s help in the midst of conflict. It may be helpful to guide our prayers for our city during this time.

Prayer In Times of Conflict

O God, you have bound us together in a common life. Help us, in the midst of our struggles for justice and truth, to confront one another without hatred or bitterness, and to work together with mutual forbearance and respect; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Live Like You Believe

It is beyond bizarre that I am writing about the prophets. They have always seemed too- heavy-to-grasp. It has been easier to pull out the power verses from these chapters than actually pay attention to what they are saying. But God. He is a real funny One. So, here I am writing about those radical, strange-to-their-culture, weeping-for-their-lost-peeps men and women with awe and reverence. I do not claim to understand any more than a smidgeon of what these visionaries teach, but I will say without hesitation that I believe their words are deeply important for us to hear as women in 2016.

As a backdrop, after God had faithfully delivered His beloved people out of captivity and established them as a nation and after He had shown up in miraculous ways revealing His power, provision, mercy and grace, His people were pretty much ignoring Him. It was not that they did not believe He existed. They simply did not pay any attention to the words of God. So, God sent the prophets to urge His people to turn back to Him, to obey His word. Essentially, God sent the prophets to tell His people to live lives that look like you believe. And the message is the same for us. If we believe in God, our lives should look like we believe. Do they?

I have heard so much of God’s instruction for my life. I have heard His stories, and I know His promises. I can say confidently that I believe in God; but I confess that the actions of my life often look like I do not believe. I have heard the message of ‘love your neighbor as yourself’, but I dismiss the unpopular and drive past the poor. I know the command of having no other gods before Me, but the idols of our culture are so entrenched in my daily rhythms that am often unaware of what I worship. The shape of our bodies, healthy eating, social media, looking the part, acting the part, raising impressive kids, doing church well– all these things greedily vie for our attention. Within seconds of closing my Bible, my God slips to the background my eyes hone in on the worries of the world.

The Israelites were condemned for not keeping the Lord’s commands and offering sacrifices for show. Their behavior was compared to infidelity, prostitution. Are we that different? If you could print out a transcript of your thoughts or if you had a tracker for your footsteps, what would those reveal about who and what you worship? By the things I think about, by where I spend my money, my time, my energy, what does this say about who or what is my god? I sit with God in the morning and then I dance to the beat of the world all day long. The words of the prophets ring so true they make me shudder.

These prophets were wildly unpopular, because their message, if looked at squarely, stings. Like my mom used to say, “The alcohol stings when it hits the hurt because there is an infection that must be cleansed.” So, I have sat with the words of these prophets and asked God to speak their cleansing truth deeply into my wayward heart. This idea of where we have relegated God is deeply important if we want to lives as women of faith. He is not to be King of a closed Bible, King of Sunday church, He is to be King over all our lives. King in our parenting, King of our marriage, King of our friendships, King of our calendars, King of our bank accounts. King of our words. Even King of our thoughts. And if He is King over all that we say and do, our lives will look radically different. We will live lives that look like we believe in a God who is Good. The glorious promise on the flip side of the prophets’ solemn cries was this: there is a wonderful Counselor, an everlasting Father, a Prince of Peace, a Comforter, a Healer, a lover of our souls waiting with arms outstretched to receive us, when we turn to Him and live like we believe. I think it’s worth a shot.

Eugene Peterson:

“These sixteen writing prophets provide the help we so badly need if we are to stay alert and knowledgeable regarding the conditions in which we cultivate faithful and obedient lives before God. For the ways of the world – its assumptions, its values, its methods of going about its work are never on the side of God. Never. One of the bad habits that we pick up early in our lives is separating things into secular and sacred. We assume that the secular is what we are in charge of: our jobs, our time, our entertainment, our government, our social relations. The sacred is what God is in charge of: the bible, worship, heaven and hell, church and prayers. We then contrive to set aside a sacred place for God, designed, we say, to honor God but really intended to keep God in his place, leaving us free to have the final say about everything else that goes on. Prophets will have none of this. They contend that everything takes place on sacred ground. God has something to say about every aspect of our lives.”