The country of Rwanda is known as the land of a thousand hills.
As it turns out, this nickname is no joke.
I experienced these hills on a recent high school mission trip to Rwanda. While there, we traveled from one side of the country to the...
I hate international mission trips.
Not all, but some.
More specifically, I hate international mission trips that plop teens down in an exotic location far from home and fail to make the connection between what goes on there and what goes on at...
A well-meaning woman at church recently asked me, “You're not still taking kids to Rwanda, are you?”
Unsure what she was referring to, I said. “Yep! We leave July 19.”
She then proceeded to tell be about the “border war” between Rwanda and the...
My husband and I recently visited the Field Museum in Chicago. Knowing we'd soon be leaving for Rwanda, we made a point of visiting the museum's Africa exhibit. Near the start of the exhibit, there was a room intended to equip people with basic...
I'm thrilled to be guest posting at Rachel Pieh Jones' today as part of her fantastic series, "What I Learned."
Ask me to describe a refugee camp and I’ll start with the smell.
It’s the smell of far too many people living in far too...
A month from today, I'll be leading a team of high school students on a short-term mission trip to Rwanda through International Teams. In honor of that, today, I'm linking up with Modern Mrs. Darcy in this month's edition of Twitterature in...
Our friend, Emile, is a Congolese refugee. He was resettled in the United States three years ago, after spending more than a decade in Kiziba Refugee Camp in Rwanda.
Since being resettled, Emile's English has improved immensely. Nevertheless, he...
Today, I'm linking up with Lisa-Jo Baker‘s Five Minute Friday. The rules: Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
This week's prompt: Mess.
I woke up this morning to a mess. The bathtub was filthy. Wet towels...
The other day, my new passport arrived in the mail.
Upon opening the envelope, the first thing I noticed was the absence of my previous passport. I grew immediately irritated as I reflected on the places that passport had taken me – Nicaragua,...
I'm currently knee-deep in mission trip preparations for my team's 2014 trip to Rwanda. As part of this mission trip preparation, I'm working hard to shatter any Messiah complexes my team members might have.
That Messiah complexes exist in teens...