Wednesday the 5th
Sadness over Kibeho
While I
was at the embassy this morning, I realized that my dream of going to be Kibeho
would be denied again. I tried not to
get ma, but it was hard. Here I am in
Uganda, a stone’s throw from Kigali. But
here, I am with a child that has no passport or shot record, both of which are
needed to purchase plane tickets, leave Uganda, and enter Rwanda.
For you
to understand the significance of Rwanda and Kibeho, you would need to go back
to 1981, when a girl at a private Catholic boarding school in Kibeho is
reported to have strange things happening to her. She says that she saw the Blessed Virgin Mary. This happens several times, and the school is
debating what to do, when all of a sudden, it happens to another girl, and then
another. These girls are all completely
different from each other – believers, non-believers, the persecuted and persecutor.
The
messages they are given are of love, and forgiveness and repentance. She gives messages of warning, shows the
children images of rivers running with blood.
The Vatican comes out and doctors and psychologists perform tests on the
girls during the apparitions – burns them, stabs them, checks for reflex
movements, watches eye dilations, record and check heart rates, breathing
changes, etc. They record
everything. The Vatican researches
miracles reported at the site.
Eventually the miracles and the apparitions are approved.
Years
later, there are rivers of blood flowing in Rwanda – the Hutu tribe in Rwanda
is systematically wiping out (tribal genocide) the Tutsi tribe for being
genetically inferior and for weakening the country as a whole (very Holocaust,
Jews are inferior and weakening Gemany’esque) and maybe a few moderate Hutu who
stood in their way. Beginning April 7th,
1994, the day after the plane carrying the Hutu leader was shot down. After 100 days of massacre 1 million people
are dead, which equated to 70% of all Tutsi and 20% of the country’s entire
population. The country and the land as
devastated – in a country where “war rape” and sexual mutilation was prevalent,
you suddenly had thousands of newly infected HIV positive women giving birth,
leaving orphans. You had children
soldiers with no way to deal with the PTSD, a crippled economy because of 20%
of the country is gone; the work force, the supply and demand chain blown up. Villages, offices, buildings, shelled out, burned
to the ground, crop lands and feed animals left in ashes. The affects trickled into Zaire/the DR Congo,
as Hutu chased Tutsi into neighboring countries were Hutu tried to regroup and
bring justice to their lost lands and loved ones.
It was
heard a lot in the news, but the daily horrors of the Holocaust are not made
real until 2007 when a book was published called Left to Tell, written by Immaculée Ilibagiza. (Buy it here: http://www.amazon.com/Left-Tell-Discovering-Rwandan-Holocaust/dp/1401908977 ) In
the book, she tells of the horrors of hiding in a tiny bathroom, a total of 8
women, in the house of her pastor, for 91 days, sharing table scraps, a toilet they
could not flush and praying the rosary. She can hear her old friends screaming
her name, yelling descriptions of what they did to her family, hoping that she
is in the jungle and could hear them.
She
survives. More importantly, she
forgives. She calls upon Our Lady to
heal her, to act as her mother, and for Jesus to have mercy on the perpetrators
and more. In her multiple books that
follow Left to Tell, she goes
into the story of Our Lady of Kibeho (http://www.amazon.com/Our-Lady-Kibeho-Speaks-Africa/dp/1401927432/ref=pd_sim_b_3/190-9836458-9704226?ie=UTF8&refRID=19W4X8ZHFKEE29BZT7S5)
. In another book, she tells about a
pagan boy who is visited by Jesus (http://www.amazon.com/The-Boy-Who-Met-Jesus/dp/1401935826/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_z)
.
She gives
talks about healing, and salvation, and love, all over the world. Several friends have seen her speak. In fact, the last few years, I have bought
tickets for my mother-in-law and I to go see her. There is an interior ache and longing to meet
her and learn from her, and hear her relay the messages that Our Lady has to
offer each of us, but each year, something comes up. Last year, when I wanted to go, one of the
kids got sick. This year, I was a week
out from heading to Uganda, quite confident that I would be able to skip on
over to Kibeho anyway.
So why
Kibeho and not someplace more glamorous like Lourdes – where waters heal and
faith can instantly be restored, just at the site of it? I think it is because from start to finish,
the events and her apparitions began and ended in my lifetime. I remember hearing about Rwanda on the radio
news announcements and on tv, although they had little impact, as I was too
young to understand the meaning. It was
my first exposure to something traumatic and brutal. Maybe it was because Immaculee has a
youthfulness about her, that I connected with – even though she was in her 20’s
when she happened, I could imagine how I would react if something like that
happened in the US. Maybe it is because
the messages and apparitions have already been approved by the Vatican, and
miracles have not been disproved by scientists that recorded them.
So my
non-religious or non-Catholic friends often question why I would want to go to
an apparition site, and not a place in Church history, where Christ himself
walked and lived? Who is not drawn to
the idea of an eternal mother, who said the important “yes” to God ever, who
brought forth our Creator and our Savior?
Our Lady was the dawn, the Eve of our Salvation History, and she always is
with us. She always comes to teach us
something important, prepare us for something about to happen, or warns us
about something that could happen in the future – the Immaculate Conception, the
Cold War, a Holocaust, and in the case of Medjugorje – the End Times. Her only goal being to bring us back to the
Sacred Heart of Her Son. Like all good
mothers, she educates us, loves us, and guides us to our salvation.
To be
honest, I kind of wanted to go and see the faith of the millions who still
travel to that site that is ridiculous to get to, with no amenities, that is not built up. Who crosses dangerous, rough terrain to thank her for her warnings, who beg her to go to her
Son, on their behalves for healing of their hearts and minds and bodies? I have daily to all of you, simple humans and beg for prayers, why not go
to the Mother of God???
And who
doesn’t want healing? Who doesn’t need
healing of some kind? I personally would
not want to be in the “No healing needed” line.
If you have never been hurt, than have you ever been loved, have you
ever really lived, have you never realized the mistakes and emptiness in your
life? This is not my life. I would take the “Broken and Scarred and
Needy” line any day of the week, because as painful as it is, I can thank God
for loving me that much, using me that much, and having that much faith in me.
 |
| I need Jesus |
Notes from my prayer journal: Today I the beginning of Lent, but since I
have been here, I feel like I have been in a desert. I have never prayed so much. Ever. Steady, slow, repetitive prayer.
Every time something disturbs me, the only thing I can do is pray. There is
little else that I can do. God has brought me to my very own personal desert,
and so I sit here and thank Him and pray strength, guidance, patience and
peace. I cannot turn up the music, cannot call a friend, cannot surf the
internet, get lost in a store, drive over the speed limit. I cannot escape my
weakness, I can only confront it. I can
only sit in a cell, much like Mother Teresa would do, and stare at the cross,
and thirst. On the wall, in every chapel
of hers, was written the Words, “I thirst” a reminder of what our desire should
be, and a reminder of Christ’s feelings for us on the cross before He
died. I can speak to the saints while
asking for direction, beg my Mother for patience, ask St. Monica to hover over
my children, ask St. Therese to heal my wounded heart, and ask My Savior to
have mercy upon me.
“We
are assured and know that with God, being a partner in their labor, all things
work together and are fitting into the plan, and work for the good of those who
love God and are called according to His design and purpose.”
-
Romans 8:28
Soundtrack song of the day – The Ghost Inside – Broken Bells
Consecration to Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary,
Kolbe’s Prayer of Consecration, day 14
The Novena to the Divine Mercy, Day 5, those who have left
the church
As an added
bonus:
“Beloved, in our
neediness and poverty, let us grieve for those who seem to themselves to have
everything. For their joy is like that
of madmen…Let us rejoice, beloved, if we have received the medicine from
heaven, because we all were madmen and we were all healed because we do not
love things we once loved. We should
groan to God on behalf of those who are yet in madness, for he is able to save
them. What they need is to look at
themselves and be displeased with what they see – to see what they desire (and
see what is lacking).”
From St. Augustine’s Tractates on the gospel of John, 7.2.
Is this
not where we all should start our Lent, examining ourselves, and seeing where
we lack God, where we need healing, examining our sinfulness? God made us in His image, yet we are broken
for this is the fallen creation we live in.
He made us this way, with our own sets of obstacles, problems, issues,
mountains to climb. He gave us these
crosses, not so we would sit and wallow, but so we would aspire, and climb and
grow, and learn and overcome. Let us
grieve for those who look inside themselves and see perfection, who see not
need to change and grow and repent and conquer, for they shall never seek or
come to know God.
PS.
Michael
had his medical exam at the Wentz Medical Center today, and other than having
ring worm in several spots on his head and needing to be dewormed, he is safe
from Hepatitis A & B, HIV, Syphilis, and Sickle Cell or any form of anemia,
and currently does not have malaria. Yay
Michael. Anything with more depth than
that will be done in the states.
I went to
the embassy, formally introduced myself there, got the blue IOM form, did not
get hit by cars or boda bodas while running across 6 lanes of traffic to get
into the embassy, mastered shopping by myself, and I found the ONLY US fast
food chains in Uganda, guess what it is?!?
Not McDonalds….KFC. You guessed
it. The Colonel made it to Uganda before
McDonalds. Impressive.
I also
heard from Linda that she has a good feeling about my passport and she does not
think it should take too long to get, as she has seen very few adoptive couples
around and lawyers are reporting a slow in cases right now. So when I go to the passport office tomorrow
or Friday, I should also go shopping and plan on sticking around the Capital
next week so I can pick it up and get on move with the IOM. Prayers head, and more prayers needed.
I rejoice
in all things, but especially, on this Ash Wednesday, I rejoice in these little
and most blessed gifts that I have been given; Michael’s healthy medical
reports, kind people at the Embassy today, and my laundry that I washed two
days ago is finally dry and does not smell.
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