Aslan, your bigger.

"Welcome child," he said.

"Aslan," said Lucy, "you're bigger."

"That's because you are older, little one," answered he.

"Not because you are?"

"I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger."

Hello all. I know that I have been out of touch with the world for two weeks now. Sorry about that. During that time I have done, seen, and experienced many new things. I think I will probably post a couple separate posts just to keep things under control.
This post will be focused on the Rwanda trip and what I learned and saw. The quote I started with is a theme that I felt during my time there. Everything I saw and heard pointed me toward a big God. I was amazed at his power. So give a run down on what we did... We packed into a van and drove for 13 hours or so to Rwanda. On the way we stopped at the Equator and in a couple towns to eat. Let me tell you, I don't like cities anymore in Africa than I do in the United States. The roads in Uganda are horrible and very dirty. On the other hand, in Rwanda they are nicer than in the US and they don't allow plastic or anything. We stayed on the hill where the East African Revival started and listened to a couple speakers on what that meant and how the church is responding to the genocide restoration.
We then went to a church in groups of five and had a member of our group preach and give a testimony and sing a song. The service was really long and contained a lot of dancing and singing. The people were so excited to have us there, but the little children were scared to come touch us. Unfortunately I didn't understand most of the service because it wasn't in my language. The thing that blew me away about meeting with the people talking about the church is that we are struggling with the same things in church in America and in Rwanda. I expected to come in seeing the way that we should be doing church, what I saw is that it is completely not perfect here. People still go to church as a cultural tradition, there are still rifts between the old and young generations over style of music and such. It was encouraging for me to see and made me excited to go home and worship at hope.
One of our big focuses while we were in Rwanda was the genocide. This is where God really came alive to me. We went to the Kigali national genocide museum. It is set up in such a way as to go through the entire genocide story, along with the role of the west in the whole thing. Then I went through all the genocides of the world followed by a room dedicated to children killed in the genocide. It was really hard and I totally wanted to cry. As I walked out there were memorial gardens around mass graves. They were so beautiful and a song by Kathryn Scott came through my head over and over. It is

"At the foot of the cross where grace and suffering meet,
you have shown me your love by the judgement you received.
And you've won my heart, yes you've won my heart.
Now I can trade these ashes in for beauty and wear forgiveness like a crown.
Coming to kiss the feet of mercy, I lay every burden down at the foot of the cross."

I couldn't get over how God could create such beauty and forgiveness in the hearts of the people after so much pain and suffering. We got to listen to a Tootsie woman sit next to the man who killed her entire family and speak about true forgiveness only coming from the power of God. I was amazed. My God grew before my eyes.
Along with that we went to a couple memorials that had the bones and clothes of 10,000 people killed. It was very powerful.
On the ways of restoration, we visited businesses that are employing orphans or children heads of families or women sold into the sex trade. I strongly urge people to look into kingdom businesses and support such things. For example Cards for Rwanda.
On the last day we stayed at an amazing resort and reunited with the entire USP group to debrief and such. It was beautiful and fun. Ok I think that is about it for the Rwanda trip. Feel free to ask questions. I'll do my best to answer. Stay tuned for a post about my family as well as some cultural differences that stick out to me! Much love from Africa.