two Rwandan holidays this week

Awareness that America is not the center of the universe came slowly for me.

I think the first time this really sunk in was when I was a teenager...and it happened during an experience related to holidays.

I had moved to Canada right after I turned 17, and for a while I didn't notice any big differences between Winnipeg, where I was living, and, say, North Dakota (which I had driven through). Really, Canada was almost exactly like America, the way I saw it at first...

But then, my ignorance intersected my first experience with national holidays that weren't my own. Thanksgiving comes early in Canada, in October if I remember correctly, and it is celebrated on a Monday, not a Thursday. And there's no football. A month or so later that year, American Thanksgiving sailed right on by the Canadians....nobody stopped working, nobody ate turkey, nobody passed out from tryptaphane.

That's when I began to feel like an outsider.

July 4th was similar: nobody in Canada stopped working, had watermelon in the park with the extended family, or rushed to fireworks shows. But they didn't need to: they celebrated their own way, on their own day (July 1). They didn't need to celebrate July 4th too.

Growing up with a love for holidays (and holiday traditions), these shifting holidays and celebrations made me think about things I had never thought about before: different countries have different histories, different stories, than my own country's. What an epiphany. And as I came to this realization, I also became a little embarrassed... Why hadn't I realized this before? It was kind of a signpost for me, an understanding that the world was bigger than I had imagined up to that point.

Rwanda has her own story, and this week two national holidays are being celebrated: Independence Day (July 1) and Liberation Day (July 4).

Independence Day dates back to 1962, and was established to celebrate Rwanda's liberation from Belgian colonization. Belgium colonized Rwanda at the turn of the century, and was responsible for many of the ethnic tensions that resulted in some of Rwanda's national scars and tragedies of post-colonization years.

Liberation Day (tomorrow) marks the end of the 1994 genocide, and the end of the 3-month mourning period. I asked one of my Rwandan friends which holiday was more significant, and they said July 4th, "because it is more recent. The other is old."

Like every country, Rwanda's holidays open a window into her history. Thank you for your continued prayers for the hope and the future of this nation.