No One Beyond My Reach

The teary good-byes were said, final hugs were given, and last minute letters were being frantically pushed through the open car windows as we drove off the mission property for the last time this year. This good-bye stuff never gets easier . . . BUT, our time there was good. The memories are sweet. God was at work in and through our team and we saw the Lord at work in the kids as well. However, the kids are up against a lot in a ‘do as I say and not as I do,’ rough, post-war culture.  The sweet solace continues to be that God, our good, loving Father, is still in control. The kids were His long before they were ‘ours’ and he continues to have their best interest at heart.

The end of this trip did not bring me back to Minneapolis, however. Mark and I continued on to Rwanda to meet up with a team from Pennsylvania that have been part of starting Umuryango Boys’ Home. This is a children’s village that takes in street kids, primarily boys, and places them in a family-like setting, serving the kids holistically--making sure they know Jesus, providing them with a quality education, introducing them to various trades, feeding them nutritious meals, and ensuring that each child knows that they are loved. It is a beautiful model, and I am looking forward to being able to observe and ask questions and soak it in, and then seeing how God uses this experience. We will be going to the village for the first time tomorrow, and I’m excited to meet the kids and see what life is like outside of the bustling hub of Kigali.

Today was an emotional day, though--I woke up with the ache of missing my kiddos in Liberia, and then, we were off to the Genocide Museum, an emotional experience to say the least.

As I cried and prayed my way through the museum exhibits, I was struck by the human capacity for brutality toward other human beings--staggering, absolutely staggering. Ten thousand people brutally murdered for one hundred days straight. With each turn in the museum, I could feel my heart grow heavier and, to be honest, I was getting angry. Really angry. It doesn’t make sense. How do groups of people determine that they are superior to others, deeming them unworthy to live, and then hunt them like animals? And it’s not like this is the first time in the history of the world that this has happened. People who were your neighbors and friends, so brainwashed, that they turn on you and hunt you down like an animal. Living in fear every day. One thing that hit me hard was that machetes and clubs tended to be the primary weapons in this atrocity. This means that you had to be close enough to look someone in the eye, see the terror and silent pleas to be spared as you were taking their life. Then, we entered children’s room only to read about young kids--4, 5 . . . 8 years old--being hacked to death by machetes. Heavy just got heavier.

I wasn’t even directly affected by this atrocity, but don’t feel that I could forgive those involved in the wiping out of so many innocent people. I can’t even imagine being there. Seeing it. Living through it. Then there’s the strange reality that as you walk the streets of Kigali, you are moving past the very people who most certainly took the lives of people you loved. 

In all of this, I heard God whispering into my heart, “No one is beyond my reach. Not one.”

Seeing Rwanda now, nearly ten years after the genocide, and how far they have come is astounding. Forgiveness has happened. Healing is happening. Hearing stories of lives transformed is such a beautiful reminder of the power of our loving God. If he can transform and redeem Rwanda, surely He can bring Liberia to her knees and muster change there, as well. His arm is not too short. No one is beyond His reach. Not the kids at the mission. Not their caretakers. Not the people in the surrounding village. Not the ex-combatants. No one.

Please join me in praying that God’s redeeming love would be known in Liberia. That our kids stories would bear witness to God’s transforming power. That caretakers would learn to love like Jesus. That God would reach down and touch the lives of our Liberian friends, draw them close, and that they would be culture changers in their generation.