Tuesday - Leaving Rwanda

Our flight leaves Rwanda this evening, so we are spending the day packing and reflecting on our journey here. We are so blessed by our time with these amazing people, and look forward to the next time we will again be with our Rwandan friends.

Some faces of Rwanda:

Monday - Les Enfants de Dieu

Joe and I were extremely impressed and amazed at the work that is being done at Les Enfants de Dieu, and especially at the way that they are training up their children to be leaders of integrity and character. It was such a different way of doing things that I am going to take time in this post to explain it in detail because we have never seen anything like it. We were visiting the center for boys today, but Rafiki (Project Manager) told us there is a similar center for girls as well.

Les Enfants de Dieu was founded by a Canadien businessman in 2002 to try to help feed the street children of Kigali. At first, it was a way to invite them for lunch at the soap factory that he owned, but it bothered him that no one was feeding them breakfast or dinner; that they didn’t have a dry place to sleep during the rainy season; that there was no one to care for these little children (some as young as 7 years old) when they were sick. So he purchased 4 hectors of land and began a home for 60 street kids, with just 3 employees doing everything. They were the teachers, managers, cooks, night watchmen, etc.

The task was daunting, and by 2004, with 96 children at the center, they knew that they needed to expand the project so that the children would do more than just eat, play and sleep. They also knew that they needed to begin to develop projects so that eventually (many years in the future), it could become self-sufficient. That is when they hired a project manager and began contacting schools to try to enroll these kids into school. Most of the schools would not even consider accepting the street kids, because they were worried about the negative influence the street kids would have on the rest of the student population. However, Rafiki found a school with a compassionate headmistress who was willing to try with 50 students. She was stunned by the success of this. Within a short period of time, they began to realize how committed these students were to succeed. Most of them were at the top of their class, and the teachers had never seen such responsible, self-disciplined, mature students. Now, there are 130 children in primary and secondary schools.


This is the fish and rabbit farm, which is
one of the projects that has been started
to help them become self-sustaining

Rafiki has spent 19 years working with vulnerable children, 7 of those years reaching out to street kids, and 3 of those years learning their language, gaining their trust, finding out about the things that were important to them. There were challenges facing the center as some of the kids were becoming disillusioned about the way that things worked at the center, and Rafiki decided that it was time to empower these boys to have a voice in the decisions that needed to be made.

In 2006, they developed 5 individual ministries to oversee the workings of the center, and the kids elected a Minister from among themselves to be in charge of each area. So in 2006, the first Minister of Administration, Minister of Health, Minister of Sports and Culture, Minister of Agriculture and Minister of Education were elected. These Ministers were all boys (at the center for boys), mostly ranging in ages from 15-17 years old. Each of these Ministers then appointed a Director General and three Technicians (these were also boys) to work with them to help oversee their areas, and they were empowered to oversee the staff.

As you can imagine, this created a bit of conflict with the staff, who objected to having to answer to children. But as Rafiki pointed out to his staff, the donations were coming in for the children; if the children refused to stay at the center, the donations would stop coming in. Therefore, the children should have a voice, and in essence, they were the boss of the staff. At first, the children didn’t really believe they were being empowered, but as Rafiki trained them as leaders and helped them to take their responsibilities seriously, they began to see how important their roles were. In essence, these boys were trained to be government leaders, and they oversaw every area of the center. This program has been highly successful in giving the boys ownership in their home and in their care. It has become an amazing empowerment experience.

Joe and I had the opportunity to meet with the Ministers (again, remember that they range in age from 15 to 17 years old) during our time at Les Enfants. We learned that in 2007, they added 2 more Ministers: the Minister of Social Affairs and the Minister of Home Affairs. At the beginning of each year, each of the Ministers meet with their General Secretary and Technicians to come up with an action plan for their areas for the coming year, and then they meet together as a cabinet to discuss each ministry’s plan. Five of the seven ministries must agree to each plan in order for it to be accepted. So for example, in 2007, the Minister of Social Affairs (oversees the re-integration program to help the boys to go back to their families when possible or to become independent when they finish their vocational training) decided that they needed to get a car for the center because relying on taxis was too expensive and too unreliable in the event of an emergency. He worked together with his team to come up with a plan to raise the necessary funds. Imagine how proud the staff was when, by the end of the year, they had been able to raise enough funds to purchase a very old, used pickup truck. The Minister of Health felt that they needed to have an infirmary so that when any of the boys were sick, there would not only be a place to seek treatment, but also a place for them to sleep and to stay separated from the other boys so the others wouldn’t be infected by the same illness. The infirmary is now being built!

When Rafiki approached the Minister of Administration to tell him that he really needed a computer to track all the information that he needed to take care of, he was denied permission to purchase the computer. That’s because all the Ministers met together, reviewed the budget, and determined that although there was a need for the computer, food was a much higher priority, and at that time, the budget was too low to provide enough food and to purchase a computer. Now that’s empowerment, when they have the right to say “no” to the person who oversees the entire center!

Each year, in December, the kids begin to campaign to be elected to their ministry position (much like our elections coming up). Those who are going into secondary school are not eligible to run because they will be away at boarding school, so this opens up some of the positions at the end of each year for other primary students to seek office. There is no salary involved in this, and it requires a great deal of work and time and responsibility, yet these boys campaign hard to be elected to these posts. Amazing!!!!

While we were these Ministers, some of them shared their stories of what their life had been like on the street, and what a life-changing difference the center has made for each of them. Most of them were genocide orphans or children whose families were in such dire poverty, they could no longer live with their families. One of them told us that he had lost both parents during the genocide, and had been living with a foster family since he was 3 years old. Because they couldn’t afford to feed him or send him to school, they kicked him out a number of years ago and he became a street kid. Now that he was living at the center, he has been able to go to school, and at 16 years old, he is now in P3 (Primary 3 is the equivalent of our third grade).

Many of these boys had been addicted to sniffing glue while on the streets, and most of them felt the trauma of loss, abandonment and rejection. The challenges they faced were monumental. Yet now, they are filled with a vision for becoming great men; men who will become leaders and who will make a profound difference in their country.

These boys go back to the streets now, to recruit other street children to come to the center so that they, too, can experience hope for a future. The only requirement for street children to enroll in the center is that they must find their own means to get to the center. If they demonstrate their willingness to change their lives by coming up with enough money to take a taxi/bus, or if they walk whatever the distance is to get to Les Enfants de Dieu, they are not turned away. This means that overcrowding can be an issue at times, and most of the kids must sleep 2 to a bed. But compared to living on the streets, this is a sacrifice they gladly make.

An essential part of the project is to also help to reintegrate these children back into their families, when possible, or to help support them as they begin their new lives after they’ve completed secondary or vocational school. These are remarkable young men who are now prepared to face their future with hope and with promise. A number of them are taking the entrance exam this week to go into secondary school, and their goal is to continue to be at the top of their class all the way through the university.

Raising the funds to send this many children to primary and secondary school is not cheap. The center’s monthly budget is 3 million Rwandan Francs, which is about $6,000 USD per month. Currently, they receive $2,000 per month that they can count on, so the challenge is to raise the remaining $4,000 per month ($48,000/year) through individual donations.

We saw in these boys an amazing potential for leadership, such determination to succeed, such compassion for those who are lost and vulnerable. These children are indeed the future of Rwanda, so we will pray that enough sponsorship will be found so that no child will be left behind.


From there, we went to spend time at the Rwanda Women Initiative Project founded by William Bahati. William has been our driver for part of the week, so we were very excited to see the work that God has called him to do to bring hope to women who are living with HIV/AIDS or living in dire poverty.

On our first day together, William had shared his story with us of how his wife had died of an apparent heart attack when she was 8 months pregnant with their first child. She was only 20 years old, and they had only been married 2 years. Hearing his story, we were reminded of the urgency of completing the medical clinic in Mumeya that we visited last week. This is exactly what the Mumeya residents were telling us about the need for pre-natal care.

William serves his church by doing pastoral care and visiting people in the hospital, and it is through this ministry that he saw the need to help women who are widowed, many of whom are HIV positive. As a result, he rented a building so that he could provide a place to train widows, women living with HIV/AIDS, and other poor women who have no income at all so they can learn handcraft activities, which will allow them to become self-sustaining. Their goal is to eradicate poverty and to intervene in an anti-aids campaign. Through training, they hope to provide high-quality craft products that can be sold in the marketplace to help earn live-able wages for their clients.

The Rwanda Women Initiative Project is still in the formative stages, so it was pretty cool that God brought William to be our driver so he could see first-hand the work that is being done by others whose ministries began as a dream and a vision to make a difference.

Sunday - Nyamata

The worship service for Nyamata Lutheran Church this morning was at the Café de Nyamata rather than at the church itself. On the last Sunday of each month, they move into town for the worship service to make it easier for people who live in Nyamata center to join them. This week, it was especially providential that it was going to be in town, because a huge wind storm had torn off the metal sheet roofing on their church, causing substantial damage to the church.

Listening to the children and adult choirs praising God in kinyarwandan is always such a blessing. They sing and dance with their whole heart, and the joy of it all transcends all language barriers. After the worship service was completed, they took time to share with us their gratefulness for the partnership and support they receive from Community of Grace.

Before leaving Nyamata to return to Kigali, we had an opportunity to meet with one of the local government officials, who wanted to tell us about the changes taking place in Nyamata as they prepare for the airport to move from Kigali to Nyamata soon. Much work has been accomplished in anticipation of this, including paving the road and tearing down buildings that no longer meet code. He shared with us some project ideas that the soon-to-be city of Nyamata (as opposed to what is currently a rural village of Nyamata) would like to partner with the Lutheran Church. It sounds like there are big changes in store for this whole community.

The women of Nyamata Lutheran Church were waiting for that meeting to end so they, too, could meet with us. They wanted to tell us what a difference we have made in their lives as we have helped to provide cows, goats and chickens to their families. This renewable gift of food (eggs from the chickens, milk from the cows and goats) has made a significant difference, and they said that this was like the proverb that says “If you give a man a fish, he will eat for a day. If you teach him to fish, he can eat for a lifetime.” We were so blessed by their sincere love and warmth as they thanked us over and over.

Pastor Muzigura also took some time to thank Community of Grace for supporting him as he has studied at Matongo Theological Seminary in Nairobi. He rode on a bus for 2 days to get from Nairobi to Nyamata to be here for our visit because he wanted to take the opportunity to tell us that because of Grace’s gift of education for him, he has grown tremendously as a pastor and as a person. When we first met him, he couldn’t speak a word of English. This morning, he was our interpretor.

We have seen radical changes since our first visit to Nyamata almost four years ago.

Saturday - Urukundo Home for Children

Our drive out to Gitarama was on surprisingly empty roads, and it wasn’t just because it was early on a Saturday morning. It turns out that the last Saturday of every month is Umuganda (community day), which means that everyone is supposed to spend the morning making their community a cleaner, better place…in essence, it’s a Make a Difference Day. Shops and restaurants are almost all closed (except for the major hotels), and people aren’t even allowed to drive on the streets without a special permit. We told our driver, William, that if we had known, we would have set up our schedule so that we could have participated in Umuganda, too. So when he was stopped by the police twice during our 90-minute drive to Gitarama, he laughingly told the police that we wanted to be part of Umuganda as he showed them his permit. They just smiled and waved us on.

Just as I anticipated, our day at the Urukundo Home for Children was the highlight of the whole journey for me. Meeting Mama Arlene Brown, the founder of this ministry, was like catching up with an old friend (and I don’t mean her age, although this energetic, hard-to-keep-up with ball of fire is 78 years old!). She walked us around the 8 acre campus that less than a year ago was simply 5 separate pieces of land on the mountainside. There are buildings everywhere now, with the plans for more to be built very soon.

In April, 2006, Arlene began her home for girls with just 1 girl, Divine. The home she was renting didn’t have a possibility for housing both girls and boys, and because (as she jokingly says) boys are children too, in early 2007, she rented a second house. Soon after, in May, 2007, the district authorities brought her 7 street boys. Within a short period of time, they were starting to run out of space, so the next step was to purchase land to build what they’d need. On the day that they were signing papers to purchase the land, others kept coming offering to sell her some of their land, too, so in one day, she purchased 5 parcels of land. It is almost unheard of to complete a land transaction in one day, so to complete 5 land transactions in one day is so miraculous, it’s almost laughable.

At the beginning of this year, the landlord informed Arlene that the rent on the house where the boys were living was going to triple in price, which pushed Arlene's team into action for building the boys’ home. Kicking into high gear, they designed what they needed to house the boys, and by April, (in just 3 months) it was built. Since then, they have also built the small house where Mama Arlene stays, which also functions as the library and the gathering space for the children. They built the “kitchen”, which has a wood oven and stove for cooking the meals each day, they have almost completed the girls’ home (the girls will move in next week), and they are also in the process of building a guest house for the work teams that will be coming to help with this ever-expanding ministry. They have built a stable for the 3 cows that they are raising to provide milk for the children, and a chicken house for the 500 chickens that provide eggs for them to use for the children as well as to sell in the community. In 3 months, the roasters (chickens that are eaten as meat) will be sold in the market, and they will then purchase more roasters so this can become an income-generating project. They have planted a large vegetable garden and a banana orchard to supply some of the food that they’ll use to feed all these kids.

The school year goes from January through October, which means the kids have just begun their 2 month school holiday. Yesterday, the boys decided that they needed a project, so unbeknownst to any of the staff, they started taking the mud bricks from a building project that had been torn down, and they started building their own “house”. Because they’ve been watching all the construction that has been going on over the past 10 months, the boys had a general idea of how to go about this project, and it’s pretty amazing to think that they have the ingenuity to create a clubhouse of sorts, and that they are doing this all on their own.

To see how much has been accomplished at the Urukundo Home for Children, and taking into consideration that all of this has been done through manual labor (no bulldozer for clearing the land and leveling the mountain, no electric saws or drills for building, etc), it is really an unbelievable story. I especially loved the part about the bricks that they are using, which they are purchasing from a woman’s organization for widows of the genocide. The widows of the genocide were so grateful for the first order of bricks, which gave them enough money to get a bigger truck, that when Arlene needed more bricks but didn’t have the money to pay for them yet, they brought her the bricks she needed and told her that she could pay them when she had the money.

The Urukundo Home for Children hadn’t been planning on taking in babies, but this summer, the police brought her an infant that had been abandoned in the bushes, so Mama Arlene has 4-month old little David in addition to the 16 boys and 21 girls that she and her staff care for.

They continue to dream big. Their plan is to build a medical clinic on the property, and they would also like to purchase a separate piece of land to begin a goat farm and beehive colony for an income-generating opportunity for genocide widows. In addition to providing for all the children at Urukundo Home for Children, Hope Made Real (the non-profit organization that Arlene and others created to be the “umbrella” for her work in Rwanda), also provides scholarships for 250 children from desperately poor families to go to government-run schools, provides assistance to HIV widows and their affected families, and brings in food for prisoners. Prisoners without families have no one else to bring in their meals, and meals are not provided by the prisons. Someday, she’d also love to build an elementary school and secondary school, because education is such an important piece in bringing hope to these children.

Arlene’s ministry here has been totally built on faith that God will provide, but there are times (like now), when the struggling global economy is deeply impacting the amount of support that they are receiving. Although she is using her social security income to continue to live in Rwanda, it definitely isn’t enough to supplement when the donations run low for running Urukundo Home. I promised her that we would continue to pray for Hope Made Real and the work that God has called them to do.

Looking to the future, Arlene has surrounded herself with a staff of Rwandans who care for the children and help run the home. Her chief administrator, John, will be returning to school in January so that he can get his degree in business administration. Assuming that she’ll live to be 110, but knowing that at 78 she won’t be around forever, she is making sure that if anything ever happens to her, this work can continue without a glitch.

We ended our day together by taking a drive to King David Academy in Kigali. I had written to Arlene last month to let her know that we were wanting to do something special to honor our Sunday School teachers and nursery volunteers, so our idea was to provide a scholarship in their honor for one of her kids to go to secondary school. Secondary school is grades 7-12, and it is almost always a boarding school. She chose Anett to be the recipient of this scholarship, but hadn't told Anett anything about this. During our lunch with the girls yesterday, Mama Arlene made the announcement that Anett would be going to the King David Academy starting in January. Anett was stunned and overwhelmed. She came with us for the 90-minute drive to the academy so that she could see where she will be living and going to school next semester. By the time we finished our tour of the academy, Anett had a stunning smile that lit up her whole face.

Arlene voiced her hope that all five girls who have just completed primary school this month will be able to join Anett at King David in January. Wouldn’t that be amazing?

This was the best day!!!!

Friday - Gisimba Memorial Centre

I thought you might like to see a picture of the bananas and the
live chicken that traveled back to Kigali with us from Mumeya yesterday!!!

Pastor John came for an early-morning computer training so that I could teach him some of the features of the MacBook Pro we brought for him. He is so excited about the work he will be able to do with iPhoto and iMovie! It was a delightful time of learning, and the hours passed too quickly before it was time for us to meet our driver, Anicet, to head over to Gisimba Memorial Centre.

What fun to arrive at the Centre only to have Anicet immediately recognize Damas Gisimba walking into a meeting. It turns out that they are not only old friends, but also distant relatives. Damas’ father founded the orphanage in 1980 with 18 children living in one house. Damas took over in 1986 after the death of his mother. During the genocide, Damas sheltered over 400 children and adults in the small orphanage compound from the interahamwe (the Hutu paramilitary squads that carried out much of the genocide).


Damas Gisimba is sitting next to me on the couch
The orphanage currently houses and educates 176 children and provides assistance for an additional 70 families struggling with dire poverty. Ten years ago, most of the orphans were genocide victims. Now, many of those victims are in secondary schools and universities, and several of them are students studying abroad, filled with hope for the future. There’s even a story-book romance where a volunteer from Belgium and a university student from the centre met at the centre, fell in love, married, and are now living happily-ever-after in Belgium.

Many of the newer arrivals have been orphaned by AIDS, and as a result of their parents’ HIV, a number of them are also infected with the HIV virus.


As we talked about the challenges facing the Centre, Damas told us that one of their biggest frustrations is the ever-growing impoverishment of families coming for assistance, and the Centre’s lack of resources to help meet that overwhelming need. They are beginning to pray about building an income-generating hall that could be rented out for weddings, concerts, and other events so that they could raise funds to help with this aspect of their ministry.

Once again, we were so inspired by the work that they are doing at the centre, and we promised to continue to pray for them until we return.

Thursday - Mumeya

At 6 AM, Pastor John Rutsindintwarane and his wife, Robin, picked us up for the long, sometimes bumpy (what an understatement!) ride to Mumeya so that we could see the work that has been done on the medical clinic building project. Because a number of the members of the Mumeya Clinic Committee had been at World Vision in Kigali yesterday doing research, they were also crammed into the vehicle with us (it’s the African way!), along with a new keyboard and other equipment and supplies that were being transported to Kibungo.

As we neared the site of the Mumeya Clinic, it became a laborious 4-wheel drive through deeply rutted roads, but it was so worth it. The view was breathtaking. The mist shrouding the mountains in the distance brought a sacred sense of peace to the lush, tropical surroundings.

As we caught our first glimpse of the foundation that has been prepared, Joe and I were stunned by how large this project is. When the final phase of the building is done, it will be an 11,340 square foot facility with 37-rooms for the clinic and hospital. They are planning on utilizing solar power to provide energy, and will use a rainwater catch system (gutters that will direct the rainwater through a piping system into an underground tank) to provide the fresh, clean water that will be needed.

Even though the footprint has been set out for the entire project, we were impressed to hear that for now, they are focusing on building the first 2 rooms so that they can provide a delivery room for expectant mothers and begin to see patients and provide treatment for things such as malaria, respiratory illness, chronic diarrhea, hook worm, etc. The infant mortality rate in this area has been excessive because they are 30 kilometers from the nearest hospital. This community knows that one of the foremost benefits of opening these first two rooms will be the provision of care for pregnant mothers and infants, effectively reducing the number of stillbirths.

This dedicated core team has put in countless hours doing research and exploring options for building, equipping and staffing the clinic. They have met with the Minister of Health to talk about the medicine that the government will be able to supply as the clinic gets underway. In meetings with the assistant to the mayor, they have talked about the need for the district to provide nurses when the clinic opens. They are persevering in their fundraising efforts with some of their faithful supporters, including Community of Grace, knowing that they are approximately $25-$30,000 away from completing the first two rooms (of course the costs for materials continue to rise, so the construction costs get higher the longer they need to wait). It seems like such an attainable goal!

The community surrounding this clinic has fully committed to providing the labor that will be needed to make this dream come true. In Phase 1, they began the grueling project of gathering all the rocks from the area to break them into usable sizes. 4,796 women helped to haul the rocks and boulders off the mountainside and brought them to the site, where 6,003 men broke them into construction-size rocks. It took them 28 days to complete this process, which resulted in 5,400,000 RWF worth of rock for the project (5,400,000 Rwandan Francs = approximately $10,000 USD)

Phase 2 took 11 long days as they cleared the land with hoes (no bulldozers here!) so that it would be ready for the foundation. 2,875 men and 2,385 women worked on this part of the project, saving 2,630,000 RWF (approximately $5,000) in labor.

Digging the foundation was a 4-day back-breaking project, utilizing 219 men and 181 women, saving them 400,000 RWF in labor (approximately $735)

The next phase was building the actual foundation, and a huge burden for this project was fetching the water and hauling it all the way to the site. Volunteer labor saved 450,000 RWF (approx $827).

Planting trees around the site to provide environmental protection was the last part of the project they worked on before they ran out of funds. 300,000 RWF ($551) was saved because of the work of these dedicated volunteers.

While we were there, we were able to spend a bit of time with some of the kids that came to see the Mzungu. Joe delighted them by letting them see themselves through his video camera. There are over 10,000 children in this area who will be served by the Mumeya medical clinic once it is built.


Before we left, we had an opportunity to pray together for the success of this amazing project. The volunteers won’t cease until the project is complete, and they try not to be discouraged as they wait for more donations to come in to fund the next phase--hopefully completing the walls and roof of the two rooms to open the clinic.

On our way back to Kigali, we had an opportunity to stop in Rwamagana to see the site of the secondary school (junior high/high school) that is Robin’s “baby.” They have been blessed by some new development which has been built within the past year, where they will be able to rent space for 4-5 months until they have enough of their project completed so they may begin classes on their own site. School opens for S-1 (Secondary Education, first year, AKA 7th grade) in January, with the hope that they will move to their own campus in June. Elaine, a math professor from California who has taken a year’s sabbatical, and her daughter, Katya, have been in Rwanda since February helping to launch the school.

When we arrived back in Kigali late in the afternoon, we were met by James Mujinja, who is a second-year university student in Butare. We were so moved by his story, of losing his mother to malaria when he was just a little boy, of being cared for by a loving father until the genocide, and then losing his father and the rest of his family during the genocide and the war. As an orphan, he felt like he had no hope, until a family from California decided to sponsor him for his schooling. They kept in communication with him and encouraged him in his studies, and now that he is in the university pursuing his doctorate in dentistry, he has nothing but awe and wonder at the gift of love and hope that this family has given to him.

What a day!

Wednesday - Speak I'm Listening

What joy it was to catch up with our friends at Speak I'm Listening. Being together with Beatrice (the founder) and Beatrice (the counselor) felt like coming home. These 2 women have such fierce passion and perseverance, yet they are humble and gentle spirits. The hope that they bring to widows and orphans is both inspiring and challenging.

Speak I'm Listening began as a ministry to help female victims of genocide, and has evolved into a comprehensive program to bring healing, dignity and a new beginning to widows and orphans who have faced unbelievable trauma as a result of the genocide, rape, and HIV/AIDS.

They provide counseling, medical assistance, food and household items, education, job training, support of income-generating activities and from time to time, they even provide shelter to the vulnerable when possible.

Through their classes, they teach widows and orphans management skills and income-generating projects such as sewing, tailoring, embroidery, baking, and creating beautiful gift cards and artwork with banana fibers. When possible, they also provide micro-credit for cottage activities such as weaving sweaters, produce stalls, general retail trading, second-hand clothes selling, handicrafts businesses, etc.

The challenges that Speak I'm Listening faces during these tough economic times are monumental. To raise enough support to feed 40 orphans each day, to rebuild the decaying building that houses the banana fiber art classes, to try to raise the funds to provide support for the micro-credit project, to sponsor the children of raped mothers, etc., all take financial resources and support that are quickly dissipating.

Since its inception after the genocide, Speak I'm Listening has provided aid to 770 orphans and 1048 vulnerable women, including genocide survivors, women raped during the genocide, children born out of rape and HIV Positive women. They are on the frontlines, bringing help, hope and a fresh start to those who are most vulnerable.

It was an honor and a blessing to be able to pray with them for the work that God has called them to do.

Here you can see some of the wood rot that threatens
the integrity of the crafts building

Tuesday - Arrived in Rwanda

We are in our hotel room in Kigali, and even though it was a long day (okay, almost 2 days) of traveling, we are actually doing remarkably well. The seats on the plane seem closer together than ever (truly, our knees were touching the seat in front of us) so we didn't get much sleep on the flights, but everything went smoothly and pretty much on time.

When we arrived in Kigali, Anicet (our driver who was recommended to us by Tim & Alycia Wright) was waiting for us right outside baggage claim. We had 4 large suitcases plus two really full backpacks because of all the stuff we were bringing to the Urukundo Home for Children and the 2 computers we brought in for Pastor Muzigura and Pastor John, so it was great to have Anicet there to help us load everything into his car and whisk us away to our hotel. He had even purchased the case of water that I had asked him to get for us, so we had drinking water right away!!!! That was especially appreciated because Brussels security took the 3 large bottles of water I had purchased at Sky Harbor airport once I got through security clearance. I figured that would be okay because we weren't going outside the security area in Brussels.....it never occurred to me that Brussels Airlines wouldn't let me take them on the plane. Bummer! I was really glad we had bought a gift for Anicet before we left Arizona (we gave him an Arizona ball cap and told him it was from us and Tim & Alycia). He loved it!

When we checked in to the Novotel, we told them we had reservations, so that process went pretty smoothly. However, when we got to our room, we realized they had given us a junior suite instead of a double room, so we didn't unpack anything because we were sure they had made a mistake. I went to the front desk with a copy of my reservation and told them the room was lovely, but we couldn't afford a junior suite. And the guy just winked at me and said "It is fine. Enjoy the room."

The hotel is in the Accor chain (same chain that operates Motel 6), so the rooms compare to Motel 6, but the amenities (on-site restaurant, lovely lobby, pool and patio area) make it truly sweet.

We are looking forward to a great week of ministry. We are booked every day (some days from pre-dawn to post-sunset) with ministry visits and opportunities, so we're praying for really good nights of sleep.