Anyway, I've reflected at different times about my experience, and so here is a journal entry from March that highlights some of my thoughts. It is a bit strong, but real, and encompasses some of what I think of when I remember Rwanda...
3/31
Father, forgive me for my cold heart! So often, especially now, except when I remember my family, I look back to Rwanda and shed tears of regret. There was so much I didn't do, and such a wrong mindset when I lived there! I was "busy" for God and for my own "spiritual" growth, and yet missed most of the hurt and need around me, didn't see what He was really doing and what He could do through me.
Images of the handicapped at the bus station haunt me, as I ignored their plight, justifying it with the idea--as if I new or cared--that they would misuse the funds. Or the one time I did give the man a little money, I didn't even make eye contact, I merely gave him something to assuage the guilt. That isn't love!
Sure I cared about the Batwa kids, but I didn't even try to go back or have considered helping them again. Even the people who came up to me in the internet cafe, aside from Dan and Patrick, I ran away from them.
I was there to "help," but my actions showed I was seeking my own comfort and desires over the prevelance of needs around me.
I so desperately wish I could do it over. How I hope things would be different. But I can't, so I must never forget, and rather remember and do well in the future. I must look for Jesus in the eyes of those I see...
