Sorry it took so long to write!
So I am in Rwanda this month. A country that suffered from genocide less than 20 years ago. This nation is a country that people tend to gasp at, thinking it is dangerous. But actually, I am pretty sure Rwanda is the safest country of the three African nations we will be in! It has been interesting hearing some of the stories from different people, returning to Rwanda from Uganda in 1994 when the genocide was over. They had to walk over bodies, as they returned to their country, or people that were here during the genocide, speak of being hit by grenade shrapnel while hiding. It is just so crazy to imagine this happening. These people have suffered greatly, but they have rebuilt!
Our food here consists of potatoes, done many different ways, rice or noodles, peas or meat, maybe cooked carrots or green beans, and chapati (unleavened flatbread,) egg and fruit for breakfast, and a lot of fresh white bread. Not the best month for the waistline, but I will make it through!
We are staying with Pastor Moses this month in a suburb area of Kigali, working with the Rwanda Gospel Center. Our involvement here includes preaching six days a week (including a radio broadcast), doing a devotional at a sewing school for at risk women (who have either previously been involved in, or attempting to prevent from prostitution), doing a kids club on Saturday mornings, and doing door to door ministry.
This month has been really awesome. Rwanda is a beautiful country, rolling hills, red dirt and loving people. Every church service starts with worship and dancing. You can just see so much joy radiating out of these people, and its clear to me that its the joy of the Lord! The services end with hugs and hand shakes, and kids running up to you to make sure they get their hug from the “muzungu” meaning “white person” in Kinyirwandan, the local language. It has been really neat getting to spend time with and encourage the women at the sewing school.
Our day with the children involves a teaching, usually involving a skit to teach the kids a bible story and then we do games with the kids. We taught the kids musical chairs…which was very chaotic the first time, they didn’t seem to understand the rules and were running in every direction, but it was fun, they seem to get it now… We did limbo with the kids, which they loved, and some other games and activities.
Door to door ministry was something I was not looking forward to on this trip. Surprisingly, I actually enjoyed it. Going door to door, spending time with different people, talking to them, learning about them and then praying with them. It has just been really neat to go around visiting people hearing a bit about them, praying with them, and visiting them again later on to hear the things that have changed since we last visited. One family, where the daughter was sick, is better now after a hospital visit. Their brother was never around, struggling with alcohol, coming home only when everyone was sleeping, and spending no time at all with them. When we went back to visit them the brother has now been coming around more and having meals with them! We had 3 people come to Christ at a cook out we stumbled upon, and got to encourage a man who has worked with YWAM and has been doing ministry in South Sudan, living in a tent in the jungle for about 3 months at a time.
I was also lucky to go on an adventure this month to visit another team that is in a village about 2.5 hrs outside of Kigali. We arrived and got put to work, hoeing and leveling the ground around a church that the team had been helping build. And after that we had a 4 mile walk to the house. It was so beautiful out there, being away from the suburbs and the city. Walking to the well to get water, kids posing for pictures, people doing laundry by the well, cows with the biggest horns I have ever seen roaming about. We spent the night in a tent on the front lawn. In the morning I woke up to a giant orange ball of a sun, a lady sweeping the area around the house, and a group of people standing at the fence line chatting. Until I looked at them, that is, then they all stopped and stared. I guess they don’t get muzungus camping out in tents very often.
So this has been Rwanda for me. Again, I am sorry that this took me so long to write! We are heading to Uganda next month. Thank you for your prayers and support, God bless!
