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We took our children on their first every plane ride, and they opened their eyes to a new day in Rwanda. My husband, volunteering with World Relief, Kigali, was going to be busy in the offices for the entire two weeks, so the kids and I wandered the country: visiting community centers, churches, orphanages, families.
Because moments like these can’t be resolved or processed completely, or easily, we choose to continue to return to them. We intentionally collect memories along with our snapshots, picking them up and savoring them slowly. We tell jokes and remember Jean Paul’s farm and the gazebo we were only allowed to sit under if we told a funny story. We spend an afternoon walking to the store to buy a coke in a glass bottle, because it brings us back to a space we long to inhabit. We drink tea in the heat of the summer, set out woven baskets and bottle caps in obvious places around the house. We hold each other more tightly…. knowing how precious life truly is. We pray for Shami. We write letters to Faustin. We think about children we met and wonder what they are doing right now. We put together a photo journal and share it with you - hoping you can feel some of what we experienced to be true and beautiful in this complex country. We dream of the day we can return.
When you are invited in to a story that reaches into your heart and core deeply, it is your purpose to not let it fade into memory. The story is real, breathing, life-giving… and the people involved are waking up each new day as the sun rises in Rwanda. The boy with the brown shirt. The woman in the street begging with a baby tied to her back. The boy in the rain. The lady who cried as the singers sang about their HIV status. The sisters in the orphanage. The boy at the banana market. Today is a new day, and the same day, for each of them as well.
Learn more about: Trace DiCocco
I am ::: mentor - teacher - learner - listener - storyteller - photographer - painter - singer - mom - wildflower - barefoot - gluten free - local and organic - Michigan turned Africa - beauty in poverty - completely disorganized - finally awake - utterly amazed . Three years ago our family quit our jobs, gave away all our stuff, said goodbye to our deepest friends and moved to South Africa to volunteer in an informal settlement just outside Johannesburg. It is here we live our life, walking a journey with leaders and kids and neighbors and the…
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