I'm here!

After 40 hrs of travel and maybe 6 hours of sleep, I arrived in Kigali on Saturday morning at 9:30 or so. I just had time for a quick shower and change of clothes and Steven arrived at the hotel to pick me up. He was delighted with the clothes, school supplies and shoes you sent. He couldn't believe I had found a laptop for him. He is very excited and I was able to show him a bit how to use it.

It's already 10:00pm here, and I still haven't slept. But I'm winding down and wanted to fill you in on the day before I start another one.

We started our outing by driving to his house. The roads here vary between dirt and pot-holes with dirt! (There are paved roads, but most of what I went on today was not!) His children greeted me with hugs and smiles. And got really silly when they saw my camera. Here I also met some other Rwandans... two widows and a widower and they told me how they suffered, but have been sustained by hope and creating family with each other.

Next we went to the women's village where I saw their sewing business. They were also waiting for me with a song, a welcome greeting. Here all the women are widows and some are infected with HIV after being raped during the genocide. They have made beautiful shirts and I believe they also died their own fabric, but am not sure. They also make baskets and hats and other crafts. There are a couple pictures of them in my slideshow. Here I was asked to share a word of encouragement. I did the best I could, but it was a lot shorter than they were used to, I think. I also was asked to pray for them before I left. Again, the camera was very popular with the kids. They liked to see the pictures of themselves.

After this, we went to another area where Steven has created a soccer league for boys, so that have something to work towards. These kids are all orphans and they can't go to school for various reasons. Here I was rewarded with dances. I videoed them and am hoping to get those posted somehow for you. (But not tonight).

Finally, we came back to the hotel (notice we never ate!) and had a bite to eat and talk. Steven really wants people to know about his situation, his 21 children, his widow's village, his orphan's league. He wants anyone who can help, to help. I wasn't able to promise him much from myself, but I assured I would share his story and the men's shirts the women made.

I thought I was going to crash then, but my Hope:Rwanda team was having dinner. It was nice to finally meet most of them. I am looking forward to getting to know them better over the next week or so. Tomorrow we will be visiting the genocide memorial.

Please pray for the team. On Monday we start pitching in on various season of service projects being done throughout the city. The LPA vision is that this would be a re-ocurring event and that the Rwandans themselves with catch the vision and have it come increasingly from within Rwandan and not from outside.

Well, that was enough for one day! I'm going to sleep!

Amy