inRegister Magazine.."Glimpses of Hope" Feature Story

Many thanks to Kelli Bozeman at inRegister Magazine for telling this story and the stories of those we've been given the honor to serve.

Please take some time to read an article about the humanitarian efforts we've been a part of in the last year and how you can help. If you’re in the area, please pick up a copy of the magazine and support inRegister as well.

I am thankful to be a part of something much bigger than myself and I look forward to more ways of using what God has given wherever, in whatever way he has & for however long he has.

To him be the glory.

You can read the article here: http://inregister.com/62014/Glimpses-of-hope

Thanks for stopping by!

*Claire

From the start...Kigali, Rwanda

 

When thinking through where to start with telling the stories of my time in Rwanda, I can only think it appropriate to begin where we did. We arrived Saturday and by Sunday afternoon we were walking around the Kigali Genocide Memorial. I hesitate to start here because Rwandan’s have worked so hard to move past what happened during the genocide and leading up to it. It seems to be the first thing that anyone who has heard of Rwanda thinks of. At first, I wanted to go against the grain and only write about the great things about Rwanda & the people there. The truth is, God uses tragedy to bring us into a greater understanding of who he is and our need of him and it is my hope that Rwandans have experienced such light on God’s character in the aftermath of it. In addition, one cannot go to Rwanda without realizing that many they have come into contact with there...almost any native, man, woman, child that you see and work with have experienced this genocide in one way or another. Many have lost those they love, some of them their entire families. I was only there a week and so I can’t pretend to fully understand what happened in 1994 or the aftermath of it all. But I came in contact with some who were willing to talk about it in order to humbly allow others to step inside and get a glimpse of what happened. I learned from the memorial that many Rwandans are willing to do this in order to prevent such a thing from happening again or anywhere else. And so for that goal and in order to understand and see what God has done in the lives of some Rwandans, particularly those we met, I’d like to start this journey from that standpoint.

The genocide of 1994 began April 7^th and lasted for roughly 100 days through mid-July. During this time between 800,000 to 100,000,000 Rwandans were killed. An estimated 6 men women and children were murdered every minute of every hour for 100 days straight. The genocide was described as a civil war to the majority of the world in that time, but was a planned and organized attempt from the Hutu tribe to eliminate the Tutsi tribe race. This conflict arose out of issues of racism on both sides since the colonial era. In a back and forth struggle for governmental power, perceived agreements that further angered some Hutus, and a Tutsi army of refugees that Hutus used as an argument to justify termination of the Tutsi race, a plan was made and was implemented after Rwanda’s president’s plane was shot down on April 7^th 1994 . For months members of the Hutu-led government had used radio stations and other propaganda to communicate to Hutus throughout the country that the Tutsi refugee army, the RPF, would enslave and kill the Hutus and the only way to stop them was to eliminate all Tutsis.

For 3 months machetes were used to seek to eliminate an entire race from all corners of the country. Neighbors turned against neighbors. In some cases siblings killed siblings and children killed their own parents while others were forced to kill their loved ones before they themselves were murdered. Roads were blocked off in order to prevent any route of escape. Those who helped Tutsis received the same ultimate fate as the Tutsis themselves. To learn more about the actual events of the genocide and what exactly occurred before, during, and after be sure to check out this site.

http://survivors-fund.org.uk/resources/rwandan-history/

We spent one day of our time in Rwanda in a village a couple of hours outside of Kigali. I’ll explain more from that day later on, but we spent it with a group of women who create baskets and jewelry for a co-op in the city close to their village. They humbly welcomed us into their lives for the day and at one point volunteered information about their experience with the genocide. As we took an afternoon walk with the women I noticed a home that seemed to  have been burned with a few graves in the front. I had resolved to not ask about the scene, but as we walked closer to the house one of the women turned to the translator and began to speak and point to the graves. She was telling us that the home was that of some of their neighbors and close friends who were murdered in the genocide. It was an all Tutsi family, including children, who were slaughtered with machetes in the night. The house had been burned in the process. I later learned that the burning of Tutsis' homes had been occurring for decades. The Hutus first encouraged one another to burn the homes and then when the families fled, they would find them and kill them.

 As we went forward down the hill the woman stopped and pointed to another home and began to speak to our translator. She explained to us that the man who once lived there had killed the members of the previous household. These houses were right next to each other with just a small garden in between. These families had lived next to each other for generations. They had built houses together, shared pigs on special occasions, and had taken care of one another. Their kids had attended school together. This house too was burned. She explained that the man had fled with his family after he had killed the neighbors. Other members of the family he had killed had returned to the village to burn his house for what he had done.

Later in the day we walked to cut the leaves of a plant used to make the jewelry and baskets these women sell. As we walked I suddenly noticed something I hadn’t...even after being there the entire day.

I saw another house that had been burned down to its base. All the translator could say as I had my eyes fixed on it was “same story as the house before.” He pointed to another “same story”…”same story.” I looked around and saw still another…and then another….and another. Soon I noticed that the same land I had been looking at all day that seemed so beautiful and rich with banana trees and rolling hills…that same land was sprinkled with burned down houses. What before had seemed like empty plots of land or just a pile of bricks I hadn’t thought twice about…suddenly every place I saw the base of a house, broken bricks, and overgrown grass…I knew. This was a place that someone, a family, a child had seen and experienced the unthinkable. This is where suffering occurred and now an entire hill, an entire village, an entire country is sprinkled with the remnant and memories of it. As we drove back to Kigali that day, the areas of the country I had seen on the way now looked quite different as I noticed piles of bricks & overgrown areas. I now knew what it meant each time I saw it.

Throughout our week in Kigali we experienced many reactions to the pain and memory of what had happened. Some steered clear of the topic, others mentioned in passing that all they had left of their family was a brother or a sister, while still others talked about what they could openly. We saw how the women of this village were able to talk about it in a way that was fundamentally different from our translator who mentioned the ignorance of the people who had committed the acts, that it's talked about every day in university where he studies, and who quickly changed the subject. It seemed he would have loved to have discussed just about anything else with us. He was 4 years old when the genocide occurred.

We can come up with all kinds of thoughts, questions, & answers based on our own experiences, education, upbringing, religion, or our own government and culture;  and I feel it’s natural and even good to think about those things as sometimes they are used to help prevent and act in these situations.

There is one thing that genocide and the reality of mass murders reveals that I feel cannot be denied…and that is that there is something out there in the world that is dark and unnatural and not the way it’s supposed to be or how it was intended to be.

Was it all just random? It seems the obvious answer is no….so if it wasn’t…doesn’t that mean that just as evil and darkness are so real and evident in this world there can be a real, evident, and tangible hope as well?

Is there not something we can look forward to? Isn’t that desire for hope, justice, and peace written on each of our hearts?…we want someone, something to trust in…we want a haven, a home...we feel in the deepest parts of us that it's just not supposed to be this way. And there has to be some kind of hope.

I propose that there is and that the one we can trust for hope and justice has also told us these things are real and yet never how it was supposed to be. The same one who told us these things will happen…but not forever. .

“See that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name, saying ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. And when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. This must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. These are but the beginning of the birth pains...

And brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death. And you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved." Mark 13: 5-8; 12-13

 I believe there is someone who has given that hope as he himself was sent to death by those he walked with, lived life with, trusted and loved..his friends and his neighbors. This same one created this earth we walk on, walked on it himself and understands far more than I ever will hope to know about the complexities of evil. That same one has already defeated it and is equipping us to endure it to the end because of grace. The fact that there is a hope given from a God who himself knows what we suffer here to the point that he can even relate to and comfort those who were murdered or betrayed by loved ones…because he himself experienced it....

What kind of love is that? Can we even put it into words?

There is evil here. It’s a very real thing. We walked amongst it in that small village in Rwanda. We lost in that moment any idea that we know how the world works or how to make it right. The only way I can process it and have that hope is in trusting the words of one who experienced the exact same thing. This same man claimed to know the answers and to be the only hope there is. And that man was either crazy…

or he was telling the truth.

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away'... And he who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.” Revelation 21:1-5

Rwanda has worked for 20 years to not only move past the reality of what happened in 1994, but to provide assistance, counseling, and encouragement for survivors. One initiative of that movement has been to provide group counseling and workshops for victims with their attackers or their family

members' killers in order to seek reconciliation.

There have been countless stories of public confessions and apologies to victims as well as public displays of forgiveness by the victims. You can read more about the work of the As We Forgive Rwanda Initiative at the link below.

http://asweforgive.org/

Be sure to check out the work of Jeremy Cowart who did a project with a documentary film maker on stories of forgiveness from victims of the genocide. In these photographs, victims are pictured smiling with their attackers or the attackers of their families in the exact spot where the murders took

place. In many cases these people now work together and share in community together. Jeremy Cowart's project, "Voices of Reconciliation" is one of the projects that inspired me to take my photography to other nations and to document what God is doing around the world.

http://jeremycowart.com/2011/11/voices-of-reconciliation/

We can learn a lot from Rwandans about forgiveness and restoration. Praise God such hope exists.

Thanks for reading and for stopping by,

Claire

The Darres...Port au Prince, Haiti

The story of why and how we went to Haiti can be found on these previous posts here and here.

I had the privilege of getting to serve in Haiti alongside Kate, my dear friend and roommate, and thought it only appropriate that you should hear her perspective and see some of the things we experienced through her eyes.  This is what she had to say about our time at the Darres':

On our first full day in Port au Prince, we had the opportunity to visit a local pastor and his family who had recently decided to take in and care for 6 special needs children.

This family, the Darres, lived in the heart of the city, and had very few resources to care for their own family, let alone for 6 new children who required extra attention. Yet, they had a heart for serving these children, and the faith to trust that God would provide what they needed.

My aunt, Kandis- the physical therapist from Texas, had held a clinic for 40 special needs children at the home of this family before and had warned us that when we got to their home, we might see some things that made us feel uncomfortable, so I tried to be prepared for what we were about to experience.

(or as prepared as it is possible to be when in Haiti… )

When we arrived at the Darres' home, my first sight, ironically, was a blind man sitting outside the door where the special needs children were. He was tenderly holding a baby, and he very much seemed to be a kind of gate keeper for these children. Even though he couldn’t see them, you could tell from the way he held them and talked to them that

he loved them very much.

After speaking to the man, we peered into the dark, window-less room where the children were liying on the concrete floor on tattered mats. Kandis told us our only job was to go inside and love on them, hold them, laugh with them, play with them. And we were happy to do whatever we could.

The temperature in the concrete room was well over 100 degrees and several children had very high fevers. As I sat down on the floor and began to fan flies off the face of a two year old boy with cerebral palsy, I was overwhelmed with anger and frustration. He was crying out and obviously in severe pain and discomfort, but there was very little I could do to make him feel better. In that moment, I was so mad at the brokenness and fragility of this tent of a body that we carry around with us, disgusted with the lack of medical care available to people in these circumstances, angry at the ugly mark that sin has left on this earth.

At the same time, I thought about every time I obsessed about my body or appearance, every time I griped about a “first world pain”, every time I neglected to show patience and mercy in a situation where someone was desperately crying out for help. As I continued to hold this sweet boy, doing anything I could to communicate that someone was right there with him, God hit me over the head with a complete feeling of helplessness. As someone who (most days) feels like “if I just work harder, maybe tomorrow I’ll have it all together” or “I-can-take-care-of-myself-thank-you-very-much” , I have a hard time grasping the extent of God’s provision for me. But through this experience at the Darres' home, I envisioned myself and my circumstances through the eyes of this child- unable to do anything for himself, completely dependent on the mercy of someone else to provide for his every need.  Without someone-his nanny, his caretakers, a volunteer-coming in to stoop down, pick him up, and take him outside to experience the sunshine, he would always lie on the floor alone.

But God always provides exactly what we need. And for this boy, and every other child at the Darres home that day, God provided wheelchairs. These wheelchairs, which are worth close to $10,000, were donated by people in the United States who knew that my aunt takes them to people in Haiti. She doesn’t bring the wheelchairs with any specific person in mind, but inevitably, they always fit someone who needs them. That day at the Darres, my new friend was picked up off the floor and put in his very own wheelchair. This provided almost immediate relief from a lot of the pain he was experiencing, opening up his lungs and allowing him to breathe more easily than he could on the floor. Even though he will never run or walk, he also will never spend every moment of his life lying on the floor. God lavished His grace on these children through the gift of a new, better way of living and experiencing the world.

Praise God that He graciously gives that same gift to all His children.

(The following images are of the 6 children who received medication and wheelchairs from donors in the states and the men, women, and  children who care for them.)

If I'm honest, this was one of the hardest things to photograph while we were there. Sorrow and joy were both very real at the same time. I would say these photos accurately portray the many ups and downs of the week and encouragement that came in the midst of grieving. It's hard for me even to post these photographs as we saw these children living in what I can only describe as the worst of circumstances I had seen at that point...but oddly enough...they're better off at this home on this hot floor than in the tent cities where they came from...more on that soon.

If you or someone you know has access to wheelchairs or medication to be taken to Haiti on future trips please email me (hello@claireelysephotography.com) or comment below.

Check out our connection to Haiti and the group of boys we went to serve here.

Thanks for stopping by,

Claire

Naika Walks...Port au Prince, Haiti

While in Haiti we did several different things throughout the week and got to servein multiple ways. Today, I’d like to talk about one of the many things we got to be a part of and our  original connection to the opportunity to go.

So, Kate, my dearest friend and roommate, who is now a continuous help on wedding days and practically partner in this business, has a lot of family that have loved me as well as she has over the years. One part of this family that feels like my own is her aunt in Texas. Kandis is a physical therapist who works with special needs children in a school district right outside of Houston. She originally found out about Grangou’s work in Haiti through her own church.(more on  Grangou and what they specifically do through the boys’ home we partnered with in Haiti is coming). For the past few years, Kandis has been taking wheelchairs to Port au Prince and providing assistance for special needs kids.

I’m going to pause my story here in order to give a shout out to American Airlines. A couple of days before we left, Kandis’s husband, Steve, went to talk to American Airlines about our flight. At this point Kandis had collected 7 wheelchairs and a gait trainer from current clients who didn’t use these particular chairs anymore as donations for her to take to those who need them in Haiti. We also wanted to take 6 checked bags full of clothes and medical supplies which was a priority since shipping these items is pretty much impossible (they will likely be stolen before getting to the right folks). So Steve went to talk to American Airlines about all these bags and wheel chairs. The guys at the counter remembered Kandis and her many trips with wheelchairs and Steve showed them pictures of some of the kids she goes to visit. American Airlines decided to let us check all the wheelchairs, gait trainer, and 6 bags..for free!!! Since starting a business, I tend to get super excited when I see people run their businesses well. I know many people have issues with just about every airline out there as traveling has sometimes become a nightmare for folks so really I couldn’t believe they let us do this. That’s kind of a big deal these days. It was a very redeeming and hopeful report in my mind and so I think American Airlines could use a shout out.

So…Monday morning we trekked to the airport, trailer in tow, with 7 wheelchairs, a gait trainer, and 6 huge bags full of belongings of our church members and medical supplies our friends had donated to people they didn’t know. It was a pretty awesome sight and the first of many humbling moments on our trip. When we arrived in Port au Prince after a very long day of travel, getting initiated right off the bat into the very different culture of Haiti simply by arriving at the airport, waiting…and waiting…and waiting some more…we met our team and had dinner at the hotel. While visiting with team members we were told in passing about Naika, a little girl who had recently been taken in at  Zanfan Lakay, the street boys’ home we would be working with. Naika couldn’t walk. She had to be carried to get anywhere and held sometimes by multiple people in order to do any basic tasks you and I take for granted every day. With Naika’s condition, most children in the US would have the resources and therapy to be walking by her age. Naika is originally from the cemetery where many men and women live within the walls and amongst the graves.

I had heard of people living in the cemetery all throughout the trip but it wasn’t until we got back that I found out what these women live in. There is a cemetery in Port au Prince that has 24/7 guard service within its gates. There are women within the gates of the cemetery who have been allowed to live there and given “protection” by the guards in exchange for prostitution and “servicing” the guards on a regular basis. These women live in the cemetery, are abused and used by the guards, and often become pregnant without a way to care for their child. Naika became a part of Zanfan Lakay, the boys' home, because, Jimmy, the house dad at the home regularly takes food and clothing to the women within the gates. Naika was likely born with cerebral palsy and there was no one to accurately care for her within the gates, so Jimmy took her in.

I mentioned a gait trainer was donated to Kandis before we left. The thing about these wheelchairs and supplies Kandis gets is she takes whatever folks can give and doesn’t really know who in Haiti will need them, what size these folks are or what size their chair would need to be. She just takes what people give and sees how she can use them when she arrives. This trip was the first time she was given a gait trainer to take to Haiti. A gait trainer is basically a walker which is used for children who have cerebral palsy or other issues walking or using their legs.  In the U.S., if  a child with cerebral palsy is given the care they need from a physical therapist, the child can learn to walk with a trainer and even get to the point where they are able to walk on their own. Again, Kandis hadn’t heard of anyone in Haiti that she knew would need a gait trainer, but brought it anyway knowing we would likely find a use for it. God provided the trainer for Naika long before Kandis or our team knew about Naika’s need for it.

The following photographs are of the first time Naika walked. This happened our first day in Haiti. With all of the boys and girls from the home and our entire teamwatching, Kandis stretched Naika’s legs, stood her up, and then put her in the gait trainer. At first Kandis helped her get acquainted with the device and helped hertake her first few steps…and then the smile that came was full of more joy than I think I’ve ever seen in a smile as Naika began to do it on her own. Her face had suchan expression of redemption and hope. It was the first of many reminders that God is at work amongst these people, that he saves the lost, that he came for the poor and broken, and that he literally causes the lame to walk.

The next day, Naika walked the length of the front patio area by herself. She even got to watch a video of herself walking on her own.

With the gait trainer and the help of the older boys at Zanfan Lakay walking Naika each day, she will now have the opportunity to be stimulated each day with activity, go outside on a regular basis, play with other children, and we pray eventually be allowed to go to school and get an education

(something she can’t do now as the schools in Haiti do not take special needs children and much of the culture views those with special needs as unwanted and cursed.)

Throughout the remainder of the trip, Kandis was able to give all 7 wheelchairs to those who needed them and purchase an additional chair for a man who lives in a tent city where we delivered food throughout the week. More on those who received the other chairs and how God used our time there will be in later posts and stories.

If you know of a way to donate wheelchairs or funds to purchase supplies and medication needed to treat children like Naika or if you want to learn more about how you can sponsor one of the boys or girls at Zanfan Lakay, please comment or email me (hello@claireelysephotography.com) or visit Grangou’s website here.

"And he answered them, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised

up, the poor have good news preached to them." Luke 7:22

Thanks for stopping by friends,

Claire