The village we visited was on a mountainside, so when we walk to people’s homes, you walk up the hill and just keep going up and up. The bars in the valley were a good place to talk to people too and your eyes burned as you walked in and were smacked with the cloud of what was probably some sort of banana moonshine.
After we walked to the homes in the village, we went to the church where we had been inviting people. The church is made of cut down trees, mud, and tin (for the roof). The meeting at the church was filled with singing and beating on a drum made of half of a metal barrel and two animal skins laid over the ends and tied together with thin strips of leather.
One of the pastors was saying something in a foreign language and then pointed at me. Eventually I found out that I would be praying for people whoever had a need for prayer. When it got to that point, there were about 20 people who wanted prayer and about 4 who said they wanted to ask Jesus to be Lord of their lives. I prayed with them as our translator magically converted my words into something they understand. When we said amen, I looked at the few who had prayed with me, most of them were young. The girl standing in front of me was wearing white and holding a baby. She had been standing about six inches from me the whole time, and I noticed that the baby she was holding was feeding upon her breast. That would have been incredibly awkward, but we were very close friends by then. Okay maybe not. Actually, even if we were very close friends, the culture where I was raised still kept it awkward for me. Needless to say, that’s the culture we were living in in Rwanda.
It doesn’t help things that they pronounce “L”s like “R”s. When they say the word “blessed”, it sounds exactly like a word in the title of this blog. That was easily the most bre… blessed day in Rwanda.
The two days after that, we showed them a Jesus film and the response was great then too.
Right now we’re in Hong Kong. Our whole squad has been given visas for China and we will be leaving in a couple of days to our ministry sites in the mainland. I’ll be in Lanzhou which is north and central. We’ll be building relationships with college students and living in hostels and hotels. The Yellow River is there and it’s also one of the most polluted areas in the world.
I’m not sure how much we’ll be able to communicate in China, but Hong Kong being only a Chinese territory, there’s a lot more freedom here.
Thanks for your continued support of me, this lifestyle, and our Savior!
