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Home Safe and Sound

Hello Friends and Family!

Team Rwanda 2008 is home safe and sound!  We arrived in Dallas at 3:45 today.  I can't thank you enough for all the prayers and support you provided us these past few weeks.  We made many wonderful relationships and I can't wait to tell you stories and post pictures.  Our internet connection started out strong but then became increasingly complicated--so I wasn't able to post as often as I would have liked, but I plan on doing some post-trip storytelling.

Thanks again for all your support!
-Katie

A Twin Update

I have continued to have many opportunities to learn more about the endeavors of my twin readers. I just realized that I have not shared their names yet. The older is named Jean Dideiu Bukuru, and the younger is named Jidier Botoyi. In Rwanda, the "last name" is given at birth and is what the mother feels in her heart when they first look at the baby. But for twins, the first one born is always given the name Bukuru and the second one is always Botoyi. I have no idea what the names would be for triplets. :-)

Yesterday, we got the wonderful opportunity to go out into Kigali and have lunch with the twins. In addition to crops, the twins work with a group that goes to hospitals and visits orphans and widows and those infected with HIV. They pray with them and see how they can help them get jobs when they leave the hospital. We ate at the home of a woman with AIDS who was helped by them and now lives a very hopeful life. It was a traditional African meal, and it was delicious.

While we ate and talked, I learned that they also help sell greeting cards that are made locally from banana leaves. The profits go to help starving families here in Rwanda. Jean Dideiu told me that they didn't want to just beg for money but wanted to provide a service, which is a very refreshing attitude here. I will be bringing some back with me so that people at church will have a chance to help out if they want to.

I'm attaching a picture of me and another reader, John Baptiste. He is currently in a preaching school and is enjoying the opportunity to improve his English. I don't have a picture with the twins yet, but I will get one soon.

-Chuck

Nathan's notorious nine

Meet Joseph, Jackson, Kwizera, Jules, Osward, Cedrick, Innocent Ntwali, Dady, and Innocent Ndayisaba. All of my readers are young men whose ages range from 16 – 26, with varying vocations and backgrounds. One is an electrician in Kigali. Several are secondary school (high school) students that will soon graduate and possibly attend a university. Another is a former security guard and now is a head trainer of local Kigali security guards for mental and physical endurance. Most are from Rwanda and some from the Congo. Several of my readers are quite educated in social sciences from school, so we've had some interesting discussions on Rwanda/US higher education, economics, employment, and even the two candidates for US President. I was even asked to compare them to Rwanda's President, Paul Kagame, but I dodged that one! In the picture is Cedrick and Innocent Ntwali who attend together.

 

The violence and having lost many or all of their family members in the 1994 genocide is one thing most young Rwandans have in common, as they represent the young children that survived and are growing up to become adults. However, there are many hopeful and positive lessons in light of the tragedy. Osward taught me an ultimate example of forgiveness. A long story short, he and his surviving siblings found his parent's killer in prison to pray with him, forgave him, and now they have adopted him as part of their family since the killer's family was also killed. Oswald smiled as he told this story, explaining God's love and showing forgiveness is the only way for the country to re-unite together.

 

Nathan

Uno, Soda, and Snakes, oh my!!

Last night we had our second LST party. The parties are meant to connect our readers with people from the church in hopes that they will begin to feel comfortable and welcome in the church building. We also use the party as another opportunity for readers to practice their English with people other than us. LST suggests that you plan your party around a theme, but we decided to go with a simple game party instead. Originally, we thought most of our readers would be business women who have very limited free time. We didn't know if our readers would even have time to attend a party. We did not expect to have so many young readers. After spending a week here we realized that an kind of party would go over very well with the younger readers.

We started the party with a very lively game of "Take A Hike." This is a great icebreaker game because it gets people up and moving around. It also helps the players learn different facts about each other including things they have in common. Did I mention that our large group of young readers is primarily male? Try to imagine 50+ young adults running around the room fighting each other for chairs. It was quite humorous.

Next, we broke the large group into 3 smaller groups and moved them through a rotation of game stations consisting of Bunko, Uno, and a paper airplane throwing contest. Everyone was so wound up from running around in the first game that when we split them up into groups they all raced to their stations as fast as they could. At this point, they must have thought that the entire party would be a competition. I was in charge of the refreshments. We had a table of cookies and bottles of coke, fanta, and sprite. When one group came down for freshmen's they were chanting "soda and snakes, snakes, snakes!" I said, "snakes, why are you talking about snakes?!" I quickly realized they meant SNACKS. Many things seem to get lost in translation... fortunately, I have not consumed any snakes while in Rwanda.

My favorite part of the party was the airplane throwing contest. Katie works for Southwest Airlines (my personal airline of choice). She brought some inflatable airplanes that you wear on top of your head. As part of the airplane throwing contest the thrower was required to wear the airplane on his or her head as he tossed his paper airplane over the balcony towards the target. It was hilarious! The hat went over very well.

I spent most of the party running around taking pictures. Most people would ask me to take their picture. Gildas asked me to take his picture and he posed very seriously, which I think is a cultural thing. Holly mentioned that the people here are taught to make serious faces when they have their picture made. As Americans, it seems we have our picture made so often that the goal has become to look as weird as possible in photographs (perhaps this is not the case for everyone... I am speaking from my own experience!). I asked Gildas if he would smile for another picture and he did. I showed Erin the picture and asked her which she liked better. She chose the smiling picture and replied, "You look like President Kagame when you smile." Gildas seemed VERY pleased by her conclusion and proceed to smile for the remainder of the party.

-Emily