Welcome to Rwanda!
In the beginning of this year, about 700 of the local churches in Kigali, Rwanda were closed, their opening postponed until they could meet government standards. The churches were labeled as inadequate in areas such as basic hygiene, no access to water or toilet, lack of infrastructure such as a parking lot, & safety. The churches that were closed were given about 9 months to make necessary changes before being permanently closed.
Last month, I worked with two different teams who partnered with pastors in Kigali to help bring two different churches back up to standard. I have been overwhelmed by the amount of love our hosts & new friends in Kigali have given us. All of our hosts are families, & their kids welcomely call us sister. Together, we lifted a whole lot of rocks, dug trenches, leveled floors, mixed cement, helped to build stone walls, & more! It was quite a sight for the locals to see a group of young women heaving boulders down the street from the place they were dropped up to the church. We had crowds of people stop to watch, & lots of kiddos eager to help lift stones with us. We have also been teaching at a summer school, & working with Sunday school classes every week.
Our host, “Mama Africa, ” Vinancia.
Abigail & Catie Collins prepping the the stone wall. 
Catie Collins, Me, Sarah Beth, Rachel, & Prince.
Mariana & I.
A church service in Kigali is much different than the church I know at home. Some nights it is all of us in a circle, singing with just a drum. Other times, it’s five different choirs in the span of an hour & a half to lead us in song. No matter what the setting, I never saw a service go by without lots of waving of hands, clapping, stomping of feet, shouts of “Amen!,” cries of, “hallelujah!,” & almost always dancing.
One of my favorite parts about Kigali is all of the women sewing on the side of the roads with vintage Singer pedal sewing machines. They usually do their work under the shade of large lawn umbrellas, creating seams as fast as I’ve ever seen! Many of the girls on our squad had skirts made from the brightly patterned fabric that so many of the shops display in their windows.
Morgan getting measured for a skirt.
This week has been a time of debriefing as a squad in Jinja, Uganda. We were blessed to stay in a hostel along the Nile, where we could spend our mornings & evenings looking out over the river, watching monkeys mischievously making their way across telephone wires & the roof of our hostel. Leadership from Georgia flew out to teach & check in with our squad on the field, & will be staying with us for the next two weeks as we train our new leadership team that will be replacing Alyssa, Patrick, & I. Somehow, these five months have flown by, & I couldn’t be more excited to be able to spend Christmas at home this year! I will be flying home on December 21st & will be starting up at the University of Oregon again in January to continue studying environmental science.
The Victoria Nile.
Me, Alyssa & Tammy.
L Squad.
Huge shoutout to my co-leader Alyssa who has been by my side for the last five months! She has been a massive blessing & a major rock for me while we have been on the field with this squad!
I wanted to say thank you one more time to all of you who have been on this journey with me from the beginning! It has been such an incredible experience, & I wouldn’t trade it for the world! Thank you thank you for all of your support & encouragement!
I’ll be seeing you all very soon!
Love,
Emily
