redefining normal

I was doing home visits last week for the next group of boys coming into the program and I realized, as I bounced all over the place in the back of a rugged van on a dirt road with six Rwandan boys, that my life right now has a whole new definition of normal. Yeah sure, normal now in my daily life means eating a ton of beans and rice, being in the house at 6pm because that's when the sun sets, learning the various handshakes and greetings, using jumbled bits of kinyarwanda to buy things at the market and to get around the city on a moto, making sure my mosquito net is tucked into my bed at night because spiders might get in otherwise (yes, I said spiders), and taking showers via bucket. These things are little things of my new normal. Then there are the bigger things that are forever changing my world view because now that I have seen these things, I can never go back to living and thinking the way I used to. I can no longer live in ignorance. Things like:

Going to visit a family and their house is made of mud and the whole thing is 9 feet by 9 feet at most. And 8 people live and sleep under that roof.

Watch a boy who's only as tall as my waist level search frantically for his bag to put his rain-drenched notebooks in because that little drawstring bag is one of the most valuable things he owns. He is also HIV positive. 

Listen to a single mom of seven children tell her story of how she had to leave her abusive husband and live with her mother because she doesn't have a job and can't pay rent for a house.

Watch an older sister struggle to remember where her mother is and who her father is. She and her 4 siblings all have different fathers too. 

Pray for a miracle with and for a family of 12 who are getting kicked out of their house because they haven't been able to pay rent in two months. 

Give praise to a 13 year-old boy because he finally learned how to correctly read and say "caterpillar."

Travel to homes that are located in places where the only possible way to get to them is to hike for 15 minutes literally up the side of a mountain after driving on a dirt road for what seems like forever. 

And there are more stories like these. Every day I interact with these kinds of families and these kinds of boys. And every day I am thankful that God has given me the chance to be a part of their lives and that they are a part of mine.