My Prayers

Monday 7/9/07 7:00 AM I woke up early. About 5:00. The birds here are really loud at this time. Mainly these huge white-breasted crows and plenty of roosters. The last two evenings Cindy and Brandon and I have hung out while the others went to bed pretty early. We debriefed about the day, the trip, the people we are traveling with. We talk music, politics, religion – all of the things you are not supposed to talk about with new friends. I woke up this morning to my little morning prayers. When I have said, “Bless those less fortunate than us,” in the past it was sort of rote. Not that it wasn’t sincere, it was. But I didn’t really know what I was talking about. Now I see a little Rwandan girl wearing a tattered dress and nothing else, standing in the cold mud while her mother toils away hoeing a vast field with a baby on her back. When I, “Bless those who are victims of violence and oppression,” now I think of an old insane woman who stayed at Mother Teresa’s orphanage with only one arm, or a man at the market with machete scars across his head, or Richard’s parents and sisters who died in a church or his brother who was murdered in front of him and him feeling helpless to do anything. Before I prayed for pictures on TV or in the newspaper or stories like Immaculee’s or The Bishop’s. Now I pray for Rwanda. My prayers of gratitude are also stronger – better informed. Now when I get in my car to drive to work or to the store I will think of those lucky people here who have bikes to carry their heavy crops and wares. And those who must walk great differences every day to carry enough water on their heads to wash and cook. When I go to the grocery store and spend hundreds of dollars on food I will think of those whose food comes from the earth they till and of the hours of hard physical labor it takes to get the potatoes and beans they eat every day and are so grateful for. When I wake up to you each morning and smell your hair and touch your skin I will think of those who lost everyone they loved and had the strength and will to survive, go on with life and, especially those who can forgive. When I pray I will ask that the world may be more like Rwanda. It’s 1:30 in the morning where you are. I woke up two hours and twenty minutes ago. Again, I can see you and the boys in your beds dreaming peacefully with full bellies, comfortable and warm. I miss you more than I can put into words. My prayers of gratitude are for you.