Anna Beth Baker: Rwandan Joy

There was nothing—no education, no culture training, no experience as a nurse assistant, nothing—that could have prepared me for the experiences in Rwanda that changed my life and my outlook on life forever. I had no foretaste of the emotional exhaustion I would endure, the physical and mental ailments I would witness, or the overwhelming love I would experience for the people I met in Rwanda. Most of all, though, I never anticipated the unity I would feel with a group of people I could not be more different from.

Leading up to my trip, I underwent cultural training and evaluation to assess my own cultural biases and shortcomings, and to prepare myself for people, places, and experiences that would be vastly different from what I am used to in America. I can still clearly recall my first full day in Kigali, the capital city and most densely populated area in Rwanda, because of the intense and unhidden divide I felt based on the way I looked in comparison to the people around me. I was the first and only white person many Rwandans had seen and may ever see, so I experienced many encounters of staring, pointing, and waving.

At first, the attention was entertaining; in America the most attention I get for my looks is the occasional comment on having red hair. However, as my time in Rwanda went on, the acknowledgment became embarrassing and almost shameful to me. I didn’t want the people I encountered to see me as vastly different than they were, even though that was true in many ways. I didn’t want to be an anomaly to people I was trying to take care of and minister to, but the longer I was in Rwanda, the more divergent I felt.

I felt strange for looking different, but mostly I felt intensely guilty for all the materialistic privileges I had, as well as things I continually took for granted: my health and access to healthcare, a supportive and present family, a bed to sleep in, enough food to never miss a meal, and more.

At this point, I couldn’t quite fathom how to be a good missionary and a good nurse assistant and future nurse to a people group so extremely different from myself. How could I empathize with patients who have endured hardships so much more drastic and severe than those of my life? And how could I urge people who have so little to trust God so much?

Instead of uncovering the answer myself, the people of Rwanda revealed it for me in the way they perseveringly clung to unshakeable joy. The last few days of my time spent in Rwanda, I visited several homes of people living in Nyabihu, a rural village about four hours outside of the capital. There were many families requesting that the missionaries who came to coordinate a Vacation Bible School in Nyabihu come into their homes to listen and pray for their various needs, and to encourage them in their faith and walk of life.

One particular woman in Nyabihu shared her story with me, one that has stuck with me months after leaving. Josephine, a dedicated mother and grandmother in her late 70s and citizen of Nyabihu, welcomed me with open arms and a beaming smile.

I entered her home, which was surrounded by barefoot children, baby goats, and a very hungry tied-up cow, and was warmly and excitedly greeted and embraced. Josephine sat me down, proudly introduced me to her family, and eventually told me her life story. She told me about her family and their jobs tending farmland, and then explained to be that her husband was no longer able to support her or their family.

Josephine told me that her husband died due to AIDS complications about 10 years ago, and that she has never stopped grieving his death. She asked me to pray that she would heal from the loss of her husband, and that she would have the physical strength to work alongside her family, since her body was becoming more and more frail, and her finances were less than sufficient for food and a place to sleep. As Josephine told me her story and her darkest moments, she simultaneously made it known how grateful she was to have a God that listens to prayer and sends people to help and pray for her.

I was heartbroken for Josephine, but I was also incredibly inspired by her gladness and trust. Josephine was my living proof that though our lives are remarkably different, our delight will always be shared.

I met mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, children, babies, aunts, uncles, and more—all of which needed prayer for serious, life-changing ailments. I prayed for financial stability, physical and mental healing of disease and illness, familial unity, educational opportunities, and many more pressing difficulties.

These prayer requests seemed so far removed from my own prayers; I have been so privileged to never wonder where my next meal might come from, or when it may come. I have never prayed that I could have the opportunity to work in a field from sundown to sunset to provide for my family. I have never prayed that God would keep my animals from starving or being stolen. I have never had an illness that I didn’t have the resources to heal from. I have never endured the same degree of poverty and hardship that these people have. However, my greatest takeaway was not how lucky I am to be in the life that I am, or how thankful I am not to endure the same affliction as my newfound friends. My most significant and transformative lesson was the one taught to me by the unchanged disposition of the Rwandans I got to know, that joy and trust in God is not dependent on circumstance, not even circumstances that I consider essential to life.

Every person I met and prayed for in Nyabihu and Kigali was afflicted by extreme difficulties, ones that many Americans cannot fathom. Nevertheless, these very people showed me their immense, continual trust in the Lord to provide all that they need. I saw in malnourished children, HIV-ridden parents, and abused women a trust that no missionary and no nurse can explain with logical reason.

Starvation, disease, and abuse aren’t often conditions that nurses can cure, especially for people with little to no financial security, but hope in a powerful God, faith in a trustworthy Father, and love for a limitless Savior trumps all affliction these people held. These people knew that God is capable of healing in this life and the next, and they displayed their knowledge of it by reminding me that the best way for me to aid as a future nurse and missionary is by prayer and trust in the same God, and by the understanding that we aren’t entirely different.

So while I had almost nothing in common with the villagers I prayed with, I alternatively had the most important detail in common: a caring and promising God that shed his blood and lost his life for the rich, the poor, the healthy, the sick, the sinner, and the saint.

The people I met and befriended in Rwanda were the perfect example of God’s promise in 2 Corinthians 5:15, “He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him, who for their sake died and was raised.” My friends knew that their circumstance and physical ailments didn’t affect their salvation in Christ, and they knew that their joy and life springs from this truth alone.

So while I left no less different in my earthly possessions and privileges from my companions in Rwanda, I left with reassured truth that sets free myself and so many of the Rwandans I met: we are not our circumstances. We are not our most severe diseases. We are not our worst trials. We are our Joy.

Anna Beth is a junior nursing student from Clover, South Carolina. She went on a mission trip to Rwanda in the summer of 2022, where she worked in the cities of Kigali and Nyabihu. Anna Beth will graduate in May of 2024 and plans to use her degree to work as an RN and return to Rwanda as a medical missionary.