One more month.
Rwanda was a surprise for me.
It was everything i expected Ethiopia to be – and nothing that Ethiopia was.
It is utterly raw and beautiful here. Eucalyptus and banana trees and cactus and a melage of varied foliage that creates a foresty homey feeling amid the red dusty roads.
Houses are made of materials ranging from Hollywood like architecture to mudd igloo size bricks stacked with corogated metal roofs.
Men, woman, and children stare at us with furrowed brows as we pass in whatever rocking vehicle we’re in.
Every once in a while they seems to pull out of their curiosity and with a sudden smile cracking their faces they wave… “Mazingoo! Mazingoo!” we hear them. Theyre exclaiming the fact we are americans/foreigners.
Sometimes the children run after us laughing and trying to be seen.
If we are walking they run after us just to be touched. To get a high five, to get our name… “whats your name? Whats your name?” theyre tickled to speak english and to be responded to in english.
Some of the racers get tired of the word, but for me, i understand.
Teaching English in Korea has taught me a lot about how special and amaxing it is for students to be noticed, greeted and known by foreigners. How people cant stop their reactions sometimes. Its an honor to be special.
…
So, i arrived on friday evening and immediately was welcomed to our teams day off.
I went with the rest of the team to find wifi and relax for the day. We went to the mall not too far away in the city. I got to give other squad mates snacks id been asked to bring back for them, and i got to talk with some of them, sit and absorb the fact that now, i was in Rwanda.
Later that afternoon Kelsey (my team letter) and i went with our host Pastor Moses to a radio station and i got to talk on the radio and share a message id prepared about life, and praying honestly in trouble and asking the questions “is God delighted with how we live?” and “how do we know?“.
I was really excited since we had been prepared to talk on the radio in Thailand but it never happened…and then again an opportunity almost opened in Romania and passed by unfulfilled. It was something id never thought id be able to do, but its something that was an exciting prospect.
After i spoke Pastor Moses interviewed Kelsey about her and John’s (her husbands) year of abandon to serve around the world at Gods call. It was really good. Kelseys a natural for interviews.
The next day was sunday, i had to wear a skirt, and we headed off to church. The church was a simple building – but not the simplest ive seen – and quite large although it wasnt full.
There was wave after wave of worship songs by different groups, including the children who at one point all came to the front and sang before leaving for sunday school with Grace who went to talk with them about Jonah.
I was introduced to the church and they gave me a Rwandan name “Mahoerlo” meaning peace.
Then one of our teammates Megan preached about forgiveness, and Pastor Moses translated for her.
After her another pastor preached for a long time about the blessings of God. He used his 8 children and fertile beautiful wife as example of Gods abundant blessing –
Afterwards we stood around outside being greeted by different people in the congregation.
One boy told me that he met the Lord thru listening to a radio station that shared the gospel. That really encouraged me since id just had the opportunity to speak and share the gospel goodness the day before with Pastor Moses.
We went home and enjoyed an evening of team time and good meals.
…
The place where we live for the month is really nice.
There is a main house where the Pastor, his wife and 5 kids and their other family members (some cousins) live.
Then there is a long house – like a old cowboy bunkhouse – with several different rooms, a bathroom, and a kitchen.
This “bunkhouse” is behind that and also a smaller house to the side thats really a small one room building made of the mudd bricks and coragated metal roof. Thats my place. The loners pad. Theres a padlockable door with a curtain for a screen door. I have one cockroach Buddy Billy who never seems to move, and some geckos that like to run around.
When i arrived, i shared the room with RJ and his wife Kayla two of our Squad Leaders. Maria let me borrow her tent so i could sleep without worry of the random creatures who came and went.
….
Monday was our second free day for the week.
We went to the hotel where the squad had debrief at the first of the month (that id missed) so we could get wifi and relax.
I got there and greeted a few other squat mates who were also there for wifi and relaxing.
Then i ran to the pool to get space.
I spent some time swimming only to find that my lung capacity was pretty poor. Then i sat out in the sun – although it was pretty windy and cool.
I tried to find some peace and stillness by praying and calming my thoughts which felt wirey and flew from subject to subject.
After laying out there for several hours i started to feel myself relax. It was a good feeling.
Later, i spent some time talking to a few of my close friends on the squad. It was a time i hadnt expected since i hadnt known theyd be there.
…
Tuesday.
My first full day of a new week of ministry in a new country.
We woke up and ate breakfast: bread like naan/torteas, pineapple, and tea.
Then we headed out. Theres a firt path winding past the back of the house through a field, that continues through some trees, through another field, and through another break of trees and through another field before reaching a road.
A dirt road.
We walk up this road for a little bit, euchalyptus trees lining both sides – and then veer off left up towards a small home fenced in with a unique succulent like hedge bush…which also fences in a cow and its little calf.
We follow the path up precarious dirt inclines, passing curious farmers and their neighbors…and finally, pass through another hedge into an open stretch of open grass with 3 low flat buildngs.
The school.
We all split off entering our classrooms, students start shouting greetings, “Megan megan you are so nice! We love you we love you so well! Boys Girls education is wonderful!” faces full of teeth, the sound of little hands chattering applause.
My classroom is small.
Theres 15 students. They share carefully constructed benches, the smallest in the front rows have a plank for their feet to rest on so they dont dangle.
I greet the students and then sit and wait for the teachers instructions…She is busy creating homework sheets. From scratch. One by one for each student. With a broken clear plastic ruler and pen on white printer paper.
Besides her is a collection of random pencils. Some broken, some unsharpened.
Students quietly rise, go before her, “Rubber teacher,” “Get it,” she responds without looking up. They take one of the unsharpenef pencils – valuable for its eraser. They return to their seat and erase their mistake.
Soon Kelsey and i – who share the classroom – move around quietly helping students with their math work. Correcting, encouraging, teaching.
It goes on for a while before theyre all finished. The teacher says something in Kinyarwanda and the students leap up and dissapear outside.
“Breakfast time,” Kelsey says and starts grabbing backpacks and putting thermoses and random buns or cracker packs out on different tables.
How she knew where different students sat showed me her care and attention in the week she had of ministry before me.
The students came back – “They washed their hands” – she says at my questioning face.
The students slide and climb back to their seats eagerly, a few kids i dont know climb in with the others. “Their siblings come have breakfast with them!” Kelsey explains to me again.
The kids munch away at their different assortment of foods. One boy has a juice bottle, another a thermos full of brown liquid. Another only a banana.
After they finish they all run out, near the entrance path between the buildings thres a bucket of water where students stop and splash their faces before heading out into the open field beside the school buildings.
There they run with eachother into different parts of the field.
My other teammembers are already there with the other classes, kids crawl all over them, demanding lap room as they sit.
I run around playing and teasing random kids. I get a few magnets. Meaning 3 or 4 kids per hand. They pull me this way or that, giggling and screaming with shy delight.
After doing that for a while, we go back to the classroom and they copy their homework from the board. Then they wait for their parents to come get them.
While we wait i teach them a number song i made up in my head while they wrote their homework. Then their parents come and they all grab their ratty little backpacks, give us each high fives, and leave. Most of them on the back of their parents bicycles – balancing on the newspaper rack.
Then we walk home for lunch.
After lunch we rest for a while. We talk and plan stuff as a team, we give feedback, and we play games. Josiah or Isaiah come and interupt. They end up on peoples laps. They make noise. They touch and explore our stuff. They come and go without noticing our agenda.
Tim and Maria especially love the kids. Its like they are the godparents. If they arent holding one of the boys the boys have something of theirs and are running around happily with it. Later we have dinner. Each day is like this. Half the team goes to school and the other half goes and helps at the church.
My third day of school i went and taught the top class. The students there are more advanced and it was fun to teach them vocabukary and then quiz them.
I felt like a real teacher again.
After the morning work some days we take a long hike to another neighboorhood.
We follow the main dirt road down around the mountain to where the bananas grow. Then we start up the hill for a while until we get to an upper road. Down that road we go through a village where taxi motorbikes wait to be called away. They gawk at us when we pass.
We keep walking till we get to a large corn field, and keep going. The ruts in the road tell where the rivers are in rainy season, but now its dry. So dry and dusty.
Some gaps are so big they have to place cement blocks across for people and cars to pass over.
Soon we come to an open square of soil as big as a large field. The wood poles tied across the ones pushed upright into the ground to make a square at each end of the field mark it as the soccer field.
Its already alive with boys lithe bodies running around a soccer ball flashing between their feet.
We descend the slope towards them. Grace will share a message and Megan will pray for them.
The team told me that the week before i arrived there was at least a hundred guys.
Tonight theres maybe 30…
…
Helping at the church is manual labor.
The government changed the laws here in in Rwanda. The laws were to prevent any old person from setting up a “church” and scamming people. The country was being overrun with prosperity preachers.
Theyd show up to a place and start preaching Gods blessings. Theyd tell the people to bring a cow and a certain amount of money and food. Sometimes even a vehicle. Then theyd tell the people to leave that stuff there with “the Lord” and that when they returned home that wealth would start to flow freely.
Stuff like that convinced the government to change the laws about church. They made it illegal to have a church that didnt fill a lot of requirements.
They made laws like: it cant be considered a church unless it has a driveway, a properly paved floor, a new roof, seats for people to sit in and the pastor has to have education…big expensive projects. So a lot of churches had to shut down because they were simple and couldnt afford the changes fast enough to stay open.
The laws are protecting people from false religion but have also hurt many poor communities who how now lost their fellowship.
Pastor Moses has been encouraging people who lost their churches to travel to other churches that are still open. But not everyone has the ability (money), energy, or time to make it to churches outside their areas. Some of the churches that Pastor Moses had planted had to be closed because of their simple state. Because of that he also lost support from some of his supporters.
Pastor Moses is distressed and in his distress pours himself out to the Lord early each morning. My room is right next to the main house and i hear it when its still dark, before the sun rises.
Helping at the church means digging and preparing the ground inside one of the churches for the pouring of a cement floor. Already my team has helped finish the driveway. All thats left is the floor and the roof. The roof is a simple metal coragated covering.
Outside theres a grave like square with steps descending into the ground. Im told its the baptismal.
Tim who has grown very close to Moses and his family tells me that the chirch needs $3500 more to purchase the land totally and own it without contest.
Apparently its hard to get the funds to finish the work because not only are the people are poor but theyre afraid to pour in money and lose it anyway.
They are hopeful that God will provide the remaining money to secure the ownership of the property.
