My talk from church last night...

I wrote this whole talk last night, and I was planning to read through it a few times and be able to deliver it without just reading off the paper, but when I got home from church this afternoon, I received tragic news that one of the most influential people in my life and a future leader of Rwanda, my dear brother, child, advisor, and advisee drowned in a swimming pool in Kigali this afternoon, so I’m just going to read what I wrote verbatim and hope I can make it through.

Yesterday, I flew home from Alaska and had a similar bout of culture shock as when I flew home from Rwanda a few weeks ago.  People were wearing shorts!  In Rwanda, shorts are taboo.  In Alaska, it’s just too cold for shorts.  In honor of that experience, I’ve worn the shorts that a tailor made for me in Rwanda.  He was a bit bewildered to make them ::gasp:: so short.  I told him not to worry; I would wear them only in America. 

As I was flying “home” from Alaska, I started to really contemplate that word:  home.  What does it even mean? 

The Oxford English Dictionary’s first definition of the word is “the place where one lives permanently.”  I guess, by that definition, I’m homeless.  Another definition is “a place where something flourishes, from which it originates, or is most typically found.”  There are a couple places I have flourished:  Clemson, SC, Ridgecrest, NC, to name two.  Technically, I originated from Akron, OH, but I am most typically found in Kigali, Rwanda.

My primary job in Rwanda is working at Kigali International Community School, an international school whose mission is to provide a Christ-centered, U.S. accredited primary and secondary education to children of missionary families – and other international and national children – that challenges students to excel academically and live out a biblical worldview.  The vision of KICS is to impact the world for Christ by preparing servant leaders who choose character before career, wisdom beyond scholarship, service above self, and a lifestyle of participation over apathy.

Only one third of the student body at my school is Rwandan, which means the remaining two-thirds are growing up as global nomads or third culture kids.  A third culture kid (or TCK) is a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside the parents’ culture.  The TCK frequently builds relationships to all of the cultures, while not having full ownership in any.  Although elements from each culture may be assimilated into the TCK’s life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar background.

After living in Rwanda for two and a half years, I’m beginning to identify with third culture kids.  While I didn’t spend my developmental years in a foreign country, I have spent most of my mid-twenties there.  Research shows that 90% of TCKS feel “out of sync” with their peers but also as if they understand other people and cultural groups better than the average American.  Eighty percent believe they can get along with anybody, and they often do, due to their sociocultural adaptability.  Depression is comparatively prevalent among TCKS.  TCKs’ sense of identity and well-being is directly and negatively affected by repatriation.  TCKs are highly linguistically adept and have a lower divorce rate than the general population and are 4 times more likely to get a bachelor’s degree than non-TCKs. 

The WORST question to ask a TCK is, “Where are you from?”  I had my own glimpse of what this feels like at a wedding a few weeks ago.  At least 5 people must have asked me, “So, where are you now?”  I didn’t know if I should answer, “I’m in the same place as you, at this wedding in Asheville, NC” or if I should say “I’m staying at my parents’ house in Simpsonville, SC” or “I’m on my way to Alaska via Washington, DC” or “I still teach at an international school in Rwanda.” 

It’s a really tricky place to be.  It’s tricky to learn the ins and outs of a new culture, but it’s even trickier to try to re-assimilate into your passport country’s culture, especially when you may have 2 or 3 passports.  While it was initially bothersome for me to never be understood in Rwanda because of language and cultural barriers, it is becoming increasingly wearisome to not be understood in my “home” culture because I’ve adopted some of my host country’s culture.  When I come to the States, I understand life here.  I lived it for 22 years. I can go a year without seeing my friends and family, but I generally understand the lives they’ve lived.  They, however, can’t possibly understand me and the life I’ve lived.  Transitions are hard. 

This year I’m transitioning into a new role at my school which will also attempt to help students ease into the major transitions in their lives.  With my newfound identification with Third Culture Kids and a week’s worth of training in Washington, DC, I hope to become an effective international school counselor.  What does that entail exactly?  Good question!  I know that I will be responsible for admitting and welcoming new students to KICS and that I will be guiding high schoolers through the college selection and application process, but beyond that, each new day is likely to be a huge adventure- and I like it.  I look very much forward to continuing to build relationships with the students I have taught for the past two years and broadening those relationships to envelop their families as well as I help them send their kids far, far away to college.  Not only will I serve as the school counselor, but I will also reach out and enter kids’ lives by being a YoungLife leader this year.  YoungLife is a relational ministry that seeks out kids where they are and shares the love of Christ with them. I served on a committee that supported and prayed for YoungLife last year, but I look forward to being more personally involved in students’ lives outside of school as a YoungLife leader in the coming school year.

Another big transition in my life will be moving from living alone in the servant’s quarters of another family’s home into a big house full of fellow global nomads.  I was able to develop an exceptionally good community over the course of this past school year, and I’m thrilled to be moving into a house with a few of my new friends.   You can be praying for us that our community will continue to thrive and also that we can find a 5^th roommate who can fit right into the mix.  We’re a relatively hospitable bunch, and we have a whole guesthouse complete with bunk beds and hope to host visitors with some regularity.  You can, therefore, consider this your formal invitation to come spend some time in Kigali, Rwanda.  Seriously though, you should come stay in our home.  Not only can you stay with some exceptionally gracious hostesses, you can also spend some of the most exceptional people you will ever meet.

Who are those exceptional people, you might ask?  My boys, of course.  If you’ve ever heard me talk about Rwanda before, then you know that there are about 15 young men who live there who have a very special place in my heart.  I volunteer to teach English to a traditional dance troupe comprised of former street boys in Rwanda.  They all survived the 1994 genocide and have lived together, many of them for the 18 years since the genocide ended.  Another definition of the word “home” is “a house or an apartment considered as a commercial property.”  By that definition, these boys spent most of their lives homeless, living together in a parking lot in downtown Kigali.  They have since been housed by the generous sponsorship of LEAF International, an organization based in Black Mountain, NC.  I have known these boys for almost 2 years now, and have visited them regularly in three different “homes” over the course of those two years.  I go twice a week to teach them English.  Two years ago I was teaching them “good morning,” “good afternoon,” “good evening,” and “good night.”  Today, I have real conversations with them about life and money and Jesus.  Not only am I their English teacher, but I am also their financial advisor, banker, counselor, mediator, and yes, even though most of them are older than I, their mother.  This year Easter Sunday fell during Genocide Memorial Week in April, and it provided a unique platform to discuss Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection whilst remembering the atrocities that occurred in their country when they were small children and which took from most of them their entire families.  As you might imagine, the gospel is so desperately needed in their home but so hesitantly accepted.  How can you trust a God who would allow your whole family to be slaughtered with machetes before your eyes?  How can you believe that Jesus changes lives when you see your fellow street boys running to churches to repent and beg for money then turn right back around and steal from the rich men in the streets again?  Why would you want to be a Christian when so-called Christians are ignoring your deep hunger pangs and your desperate poverty?  When the church leaders are driving around in hordes of Land Rovers and claiming they are gifts from God?  How can you trust in Jesus when your society tells you not to trust anyone, not even your own family, if you even have a family?  These are the hurdles my boys face. 

My boys are survivors and they don’t need much, but they do have the same needs we all have and deserve the same rights we all enjoy.  Food, emotional support, healthcare, education…  Most of them have been out of school too long to return, and are receiving their entire education from me, but I am presently paying the school fees for Patrick Mbonyinshuti, and Lord willing, he will graduate from high school next December.  If you would be interested in helping me pay his school fees, he and I would gladly receive your support, and you can make a check payable to Rocky Creek Baptist Church and put Kelly in Rwanda in the memo line.  A good portion of the money I receive from supporters like you goes directly to bettering the lives of these boys.

There’s one more very special boy I would like to introduce you to before I finish tonight, and his name is Emmanuel Manirakiza, he's the one I referred to at the beginning.  His last name means God saves, and God has definitely saved him and for a very special purpose.  I wanted to tell you a little about him now so that when you heard in a few years about the Rwandan who won the Nobel Peace Prize or became the next president of Rwanda or became the world’s next best evangelist, you’d have heard of him here first.  Emmanuel was coming to the States in one short month to attend the University of Rochester on a full scholarship, and after you hear his personal statement, I think you’ll understand why:

It’s entitled “My First Pair of Shoes.”

I was about 13 years old when my feet first tasted a freedom that most people take for granted:  a pair of shoes. I grew up wild in the bush of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, because of the war that deprived me of my parents and separated me from my sisters.  I had no chance to wear shoes until I was put in an orphanage school in 2001.  Here, the parents of some of the fee-paying children I took care of gave me small offerings to give to the school church on Sundays.  I did not spend this money for two years; instead, I saved it.

During school breaks, I traveled ninety-six kilometers, mostly by bare feet, to get to my village with this money in my pocket. On my journey home I tied the string I used to hold up my torn shorts around my concave stomach.  Hunger struck me, but I didn’t buy food because I wanted shoes. Wearing shoes will save me; it will allow me to sit freely in a crowd of other children or to enter people’s houses. Wearing shoes will relieve my knee pain.  In class, I usually sat with my knees bent acutely, my feet bent upside down and backwards. I hid them so that people could not see the cracks, literally deep enough to hide coins, in my heels.

I remember the first day my friend Karamu’s mother invited me to her fancy house. She coaxed me to enter, but my shame would not allow it. I looked at the spotlessly clean tiles on the house’s floor and then down at my filthy feet.  A voice in my head told me, “Do not enter! Your feet stink!” I had never been to a house with a cement floor before; I lived under a bridge or in a tent or in an animal’s den.  I could kill a snake, find water in the roots of a plant, and survive machine-gun fire, but I could not enter a house with a cement floor.

After a while, Karamu's mother realized that I was ashamed of my dirty, cracked feet and gave me water to wash. I went and washed them for over an hour, until they bled.  Formerly, my body knew water only on Christmas Day. Now, I sat at Karamu’s house, water and soap at my disposal. I spent almost all day washing my feet. My feet became less scaly, but the cracks and holes remained. 

After saving my offerings for two years and finally accumulating sixteen thousand francs, approximately thirty dollars, I ignored the fact that I carried my clothes in a polyethylene bag, I deliberately forgot the long distances I traveled on foot rather than paying the small bus fare, and I bought shoes. I believed shoes would free me, and indeed, when I wore them for the first time, they broke through chains of inferiority. I escaped the emotional prison I was in. For the first time since I arrived at this orphanage, I sat with my legs straight, feeling free. There is nothing like self-bondage. I had been bound by my history and my emotions for thirteen long years, and I was finally free.

Because of my new shoes, I gained the boldness to visit friends in towns and to call on businessmen to request a job. The shoes opened for me new doors of exploration and diverse experience; they not only broke my chains of bondage but sparked a realization that there are no small things, if we consider the impact they make.  Indeed, that first pair of shoes sent me flying.  On September 4, 2010, I flew to South Africa to attend the African Leadership Academy with some of the smartest young students from all over Africa. I took with me three pairs of shoes.

I helped him edit it, and I’ve read it dozens of times since then, but that last line still gets me every time…

I got an email from Emmanuel last week boasting about breathing familiar air, eating the foods he has missed, and spending time with people he loves. In his email he beckons me to “please come back home.”  I think Emmanuel knows better than I do that home is where the heart is, and clearly, my heart is in Rwanda.  It comes as a huge surprise to some people and no surprise to others when I tell them that I don’t see myself living here in the US for any significant amount of time any time soon.  But hey, this world is not our home. I want to read some Scripture about our mutual future home, and Emmanuel’s current home, as I close tonight.  1 Corinthians 5:1-10

5 For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands. ² We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing.³ For we will put on heavenly bodies; we will not be spirits without bodies.^[a]4 While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and sigh, but it’s not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us. Rather, we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life. ⁵ God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit.

⁶ So we are always confident, even though we know that as long as we live in these bodies we are not at home with the Lord. ⁷ For we live by believing and not by seeing. ⁸ Yes, we are fully confident, and we would rather be away from these earthly bodies, for then we will be at home with the Lord. ⁹ So whether we are here in this body or away from this body, our goal is to please him. ¹⁰ For we must all stand before Christ to be judged. We will each receive whatever we deserve for the good or evil we have done in this earthly body.

Finally, I want to thank Rocky Creek as a church for continuing to support me as I serve in Rwanda and for letting me share from my heart every time I come “home.”  Next, I was going to tell you that I need a computer, and ask you for money, but that seems really silly in light of the present circumstances.  All I really want from you is your prayers and support as I grieve from afar the loss of a dear, dear friend.