Playing and Praying

Thursday turned out to be a lighter day in surgery.  With our our rounds and cases completed before lunch, Francie and I decided to go back to the hospital to make “spiritual rounds” with our patients on the women’s surgical ward. Many of these ladies are our post op patients; a few are awaiting surgery. Our goal was to pray for them and inquire about their relationship with Jesus, hopefully sharing the good news of the gospel with some.

Before entering the ward, we stopped outside, sat, and prayed for God to use us to encourage these ladies and to give an English-speaking nurse time to translate for us. (I knew a total of five Kinyarwandan phrases.) After praying, along came Emmanuel, an amazing OR nurse who was extremely helpful to us as we stumbled through our first days in the Kibogora Surgery Department.  His wife Marian, a social worker in the HIV clinic, was with him.  As we told them of our plans for the afternoon, Emmanuel offered to be our translator if we could wait until he had his lunch. We were thrilled to do this since he is a believer in Christ and understands English well!

Over an hour passed and we had been using the time to send and read emails (our only wireless access is at the hospital, a 5 minute walk from our house.) I went to look for Emmanuel and found him in the admissions office. He had been given an unexpected assignment and with much apology said he would not be able to go with us. Not to be deterred, Francie and I decided to take a deep breath and go pray with the ladies anyway.

Nurse Safi greeted us as we entered the nurses’ station. We asked her permission to pray with our patients and got her to write down the Kinyarwandan phrases for “We want to pray for you” and “God bless you.”  Armed with our two new phrases we stopped at the first bed to pray with Jacqueline, a small lady with multiple problems who had received a skin graft the day before.  She didn’t respond much to us, only opening her eyes for a few seconds, but we both kneeled by her bed, put our hands on her, and prayed – in English, of course. When we finished, every eye in the room was on us (15+ patients and many family members). The next patient, a 74 year old little woman, looked wary but a huge smile spread across her face as we said, “ We want to pray for you” in Kinyarwandan. She took our hands and we again prayed for her healing and for God to draw her to Himself.

From there almost every patient and family member (a few were sleeping, we think J), now knowing what we were up to, waited and watched as we went bed to bed, praying specifically for their medical condition, their spiritual condition, and for God to bless their family with adequate food, clothing, and shelter – real issues to many of these dear people. Tears came to our eyes as many softly spoke prayers in Kinyarwandan as we sought the Lord on their behalf. Most did not understand our words, but we are pretty sure they understood our heart.

God instructs us to pray in Scriptures such as Philippians 4:6-7 which says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”  Amazingly, He chooses to involve us in His work in people’s lives as we pray. I would say our whole team is growing in making prayer one of our first action points in caring for our patients…

…Then Friday evening, Emmanuel and Marian came to our home so we could meet their 3 and 5 year old boys. We shared a meal with them and then had a fun time talking and playing with the boys. They especially enjoyed playing games on Carl’s iPhone.

Toward the end of the visit, Emmanuel looked across the room to where the majority of the group was sitting and said, “ I would like to play for you.” Our eyes immediately went to the large piano just behind the circle of people. 

“Oh, you play the piano?” I asked.  Emmanuel just smiled and said, “Maybe some of you can play, too.”   “Oh,” I responded, “I wish I could play, and unfortunately no one else on the team plays either, except Francie”, who replied, “I don’t play much in front of people. Usually just at home by myself. But please, Emmanuel, you play for us!”

At that invitation, Emmanuel immediately dropped his head…and began to pray in Kinyarwandan! It took a few seconds for us to realize what was going on.  At first I thought he was praying about what to play…but quickly realized the whole conversation had been about praying together for each other! As the situation sunk in we realized we had told this dear brother that no one on our team could pray, except Francie who only prays at home alone!

Emmanuel then stood up and began saying his goodbyes and for some reason (Shock? Embarrassment?) we let him leave without an explanation of the misunderstanding. So in retrospect, we see the error of our ways and plan to plead ignorance (or super language blunder) when he returns from a trip on Wednesday. We are hoping Emmanuel knows we can and do pray. Carl has one of us pray before every surgery, but who knows?!

Oh the joys of the language barrier! So for our final week and a half here, please pray (or play) for clear communication with our Rwandan co-workers and patients.

Becky Bryars

“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”  Romans 8:26  (Thankfully)