Sunday 11/8 at 6:30am Rwanda time (10:30pm 11/7 CST)

I finished the blog as a separate document last night, but was just able to post it this morning (Sunday here).  Enjoy & thanks!

Saturday 11/7 @ 11:00pm in Rwanda (11/7 at 3:00pm CST)

Muraho….

Another amazing day in Rwanda.  I’m telling you the people are so amazing here, it would blow your mind.; so friendly, generous, and joy-filled.  It’s like I’m in a movie, because the experience is so contrary to my normal American life (including how I approach life most of the time).

This has the potential to be another mega blog, but I’m going to try to keep it reasonably short (we’ll see).

We started the day at the ADP (Area Development Program) office once again meeting with the World Vision Rwanda staff and several church & community leaders in the Kivuruga area.  We received more detailed information about how the top priorities, strategies, and challenges with the Kivuruga ADP and what has happened so far in these areas.  There are certainly some excellent steps being taken in the early stages of this program.  This meeting lasted for 2-3 hours and was excellent.

After this, we were able to visit with 11 of the 20 children that have already been sponsored by World Vision.  I had a chance to visit personally with six of them representing children our family is sponsoring and those from others who I was representing and brought gifts for.  Each of us had an interpreter with us so we were able to communicate with the kids.  Some of them were extremely shy while others were more outgoing & confident.  But overall, it was a highlight of the trip for each of us.  There will certainly be pictures of this floating around once we have time to really get a handle on all we have seen and done.  This time meeting the sponsored children lasted well over an hour; it was a beautiful time.

After meeting the sponsored children, we were off to a tour of 2 difference churches and a school. The driving to these places was quite brutal and all of our backs, butts, & necks were sore.  I found myself asking, “how do they drive on this every day” before realizing hardly anyone does… they all walk.  Many of them walk 90 minutes to go to school or to church; we talked to several people that walked 90 minutes or more each way just to be there to greet us in the church or school.  They really don’t realize that none of us are that great (well, maybe except Pastor Jonsson).

At each church and at the school, we were greeted by choirs singing, clapping & dancing; children absolutely flocked around us constantly.  At each place, I spent so much time hanging with the kids, taking their pictures, and then showing them their pictures that a World Vision staff member had to come and rescue me… they were surrounding me.  Everywhere I went kids would be holding my hands … usually 2-3 on each hand.  At one point I was talking to kids on my left and 3 little boys were giggling as they were rubbing my hair up & down my arm… I reckon they’ve never seen a winter coat on someone before.  It was so sweet and humbling; they were all so welcoming & joyful.  I could go on & on here about the welcomes we received in each of the churches & school; I could talk about how at each one they gave us an update on what was happening with them including clubs that formed to fight HIV & AIDS, for Peace & Restoration, and the workings of the primary school from the Headmaster.

I left my digital recorder on almost the entire day; we also took a TON of pictures and even some videos.  It’s impossible to think we can get all that organized while here in Rwanda, but I’m hoping I can spend some time right away when we get back to try to tell the story in a more comprehensive and fluid manner using multi-media.  Radeke already wants me to put a DVD together the day after we get back for his River of Life crew….. and I’m hoping I can make that happen.  But that is tough to figure out what to pick out for a 3 minute video when we have an hour of video, probably 2,000 pictures by the time we are done, 20 hours of digital voice recordings, and countless encounters & conversations with hundreds of people.

 This truly has been life-changing, but we are not done yet.  We have 2 more days in Kivuruga, Rwanda.  Tomorrow (Sunday) morning, we will be splitting up and hitting a couple local churches (I believe the churches we visited today).  Pastor Jonsson will be preaching at an Anglican church and Homer and our World Vision U.S. guide Mary will be with him.  Mark Radeke will be preaching at a Pentecostal church and I will be going with him.  Jonsson’s got more of a schedule where as Radeke is not on the clock – in fact, I will get to preach a little bit too (supposed to be short, but God bless the Pentecostals who will give me grace if I start PREACHIN’ and get caught up in the momentum of the Amen’s).  After church, we will go back to the ADP headquarters and talk with the director of sponsorships so we can get more detailed information behind how sponsorships work, the process of donor/child letters, etc.  That is a very good and important meeting.  We will likely be back to the hotel by 4pm and will take that as some downtime, or go walking around town a bit.

Monday is some more meetings and visits before driving that evening to Kigali (capital of Rwanda) where we will stay one night close to the airport so we can get up for an early Tuesday flight back to Kenya and the Massai Mara for two days of de-brief, decompression, and reconnecting with our full group.  Then Thursday we head out arriving back in Minneapolis early Friday afternoon.

Murabeho, Steve & gang