Wow, so much to tell about in the last two days. Last night just got too late for me to write.
Sunday actually started out with a relaxed morning. After lunch we visited the Genocide memorial. It was a moving experience. Most of the history they gave was not new to me, as I've read a number of books on what happened. But in one section, they had photos of children with data about them like, age (when killed), favorite food, favorite past time, those types of things. And then it would tell how they died. For everyone's sake, I won't go into details.. but to think of each individual instead of the huge numbers killed, was much more difficult, especially considering the ages of my children.
That evening, we went to a local church where Andrew Palau gave the message.
This was the English service, so it was really nice for us to understand all of it. The worship was amazing. The musicians were great and I knew most of the songs. I took a snippet of video and if I can figure out how, I will upload it to the blog (and a few other great ones I got.)
This morning we heading out around 8:30 and went to a church called the Dream Center. They have a ministry to street children and also work with Africa New Life ministries, which is based in Portland (I think). We were supposed to help feed them breakfast, but their water situation has been inconsistent lately and it didn't arrive in time for us. Instead, we just played with them and held their hands and did a goofy job trying to communicate with them. Everyone knows how to say, "Good morning" and I got the names of many of them. The only one I remember is Kayabebe (not sure how to spell that). He claimed me early on and he basically owned me that whole time. When other kids came over he shooed them away if they got too close to me or asked for pictures. (My camera battery was wearing out and I had told him no more pictures.) Later on, he asked me to take him home to America. All he knew how to say was "America", but I got the point when he pointed to himself and then back to me. Eventually, we all went inside and spent a few minutes telling them who we were. They sang a song for us (another video clip I have) and then the Xtreme sports guys did a mini skateboard demo for them. It was a packed dirt floor...not totally even, so it was tough for them, but the kids LOVED it! (By the way, Aidan and Lucy... one of the skateboard guys, Elijah, was one of the guys we saw at the festival last year.)
Reluctantly, we all left and headed to our next stop: The Mille Collines hotel, subject of the movie, "Hotel Rwanda". It was not where they filmed the movie, so it didn't match my vision of it... and I pretty much forgot about the setting for most of my lunch. When I went to the bathroom, though, I thought about the scenes where people were hiding from the militia as they occasionally came through and wondered if someone had hid in there. After that... I really felt uncomfortable just casually eating there.
As usual, the lunch went late and it took forever to get the bill... SO we were late for our city tour with the Vice-Mayor of Media Relations or some such title like that. He showed us all the new building and projects they are working on, as well as the slums they want to rebuild. It's a remarkably clean city and the people dress very sharp. It is the dry season right now, so they were apologizing for the lack of green... but except for the very red, dusty roads, there was a lot of green. Beautiful hills (there is nothing flat here) covered with trees and bushes and some flowers. You can see that some things are drying up, but I can imagine in the rainy season it must be so lush. One place we stopped with him was the site of the killing of 10 Belgian peace-keepers. They were there to protect the Prime Minister (a woman), but lacked a mandate that allowed them to shoot the interahamwe. There are pictures of this in my slide show and you can see the walls riddles with bullet holes and other larger weapons. (I don't know enough about guns to say what they were... but they were very big holes!)
Following that tour, we stopped by the airport to get our money changed and had a bit of gelato!! A nice refreshing break in the day. By this time, I was very tired... I didn't sleep as well last night... so the ice cream perked me up a bit. In the end, we got back to the hotel around 6 or 6:30.
Each night we do a group dinner together and it's been so nice to get to know the other team members. Everyone has a different story and comes from a different part of the States... so it's fun for me as a people person to hear so many new stories!
One thing I want to mention that isn't so much about Rwanda, but that has been a good learning experience for me, is that the fact that I am white makes me stand out a lot. In the best of circumstances, I don't like to be the center of attention, but here where I am a minority it feels very uncomfortable. I am thankful though, for the chance to feel what it feels like to be a minority. It is very humbling.
Please pray for me and our team tomorrow. We are heading to a prison where Andrew is going to be preaching. All 4000 inmates will be let outside to hear what he has to say and then we may be helping out at the end to speak with inmates who want to talk to someone more about the Lord. I would be completely freaked out by this at home... but here... it is more than I think I can handle. Keep in mind that there is almost no crime here in Rwanda... most or all of these prisoners are Genocidaires... people who took part in the genocide. They are still, after 15 years, awaiting trial some of them... because there are too many to process any faster. In the afternoon, we will be heading to the reconciliation village where the neighbors conduct a court proceeding to judge who is guilty and who is not. I will tell more about this tomorrow.
I will try to do a better job of writing every night, so I don't have to write so much at once again... It took me two days, I'm sure you can't absorb it all in one sitting.
Sunday actually started out with a relaxed morning. After lunch we visited the Genocide memorial. It was a moving experience. Most of the history they gave was not new to me, as I've read a number of books on what happened. But in one section, they had photos of children with data about them like, age (when killed), favorite food, favorite past time, those types of things. And then it would tell how they died. For everyone's sake, I won't go into details.. but to think of each individual instead of the huge numbers killed, was much more difficult, especially considering the ages of my children.
That evening, we went to a local church where Andrew Palau gave the message.
This was the English service, so it was really nice for us to understand all of it. The worship was amazing. The musicians were great and I knew most of the songs. I took a snippet of video and if I can figure out how, I will upload it to the blog (and a few other great ones I got.)
This morning we heading out around 8:30 and went to a church called the Dream Center. They have a ministry to street children and also work with Africa New Life ministries, which is based in Portland (I think). We were supposed to help feed them breakfast, but their water situation has been inconsistent lately and it didn't arrive in time for us. Instead, we just played with them and held their hands and did a goofy job trying to communicate with them. Everyone knows how to say, "Good morning" and I got the names of many of them. The only one I remember is Kayabebe (not sure how to spell that). He claimed me early on and he basically owned me that whole time. When other kids came over he shooed them away if they got too close to me or asked for pictures. (My camera battery was wearing out and I had told him no more pictures.) Later on, he asked me to take him home to America. All he knew how to say was "America", but I got the point when he pointed to himself and then back to me. Eventually, we all went inside and spent a few minutes telling them who we were. They sang a song for us (another video clip I have) and then the Xtreme sports guys did a mini skateboard demo for them. It was a packed dirt floor...not totally even, so it was tough for them, but the kids LOVED it! (By the way, Aidan and Lucy... one of the skateboard guys, Elijah, was one of the guys we saw at the festival last year.)
Reluctantly, we all left and headed to our next stop: The Mille Collines hotel, subject of the movie, "Hotel Rwanda". It was not where they filmed the movie, so it didn't match my vision of it... and I pretty much forgot about the setting for most of my lunch. When I went to the bathroom, though, I thought about the scenes where people were hiding from the militia as they occasionally came through and wondered if someone had hid in there. After that... I really felt uncomfortable just casually eating there.
As usual, the lunch went late and it took forever to get the bill... SO we were late for our city tour with the Vice-Mayor of Media Relations or some such title like that. He showed us all the new building and projects they are working on, as well as the slums they want to rebuild. It's a remarkably clean city and the people dress very sharp. It is the dry season right now, so they were apologizing for the lack of green... but except for the very red, dusty roads, there was a lot of green. Beautiful hills (there is nothing flat here) covered with trees and bushes and some flowers. You can see that some things are drying up, but I can imagine in the rainy season it must be so lush. One place we stopped with him was the site of the killing of 10 Belgian peace-keepers. They were there to protect the Prime Minister (a woman), but lacked a mandate that allowed them to shoot the interahamwe. There are pictures of this in my slide show and you can see the walls riddles with bullet holes and other larger weapons. (I don't know enough about guns to say what they were... but they were very big holes!)
Following that tour, we stopped by the airport to get our money changed and had a bit of gelato!! A nice refreshing break in the day. By this time, I was very tired... I didn't sleep as well last night... so the ice cream perked me up a bit. In the end, we got back to the hotel around 6 or 6:30.
Each night we do a group dinner together and it's been so nice to get to know the other team members. Everyone has a different story and comes from a different part of the States... so it's fun for me as a people person to hear so many new stories!
One thing I want to mention that isn't so much about Rwanda, but that has been a good learning experience for me, is that the fact that I am white makes me stand out a lot. In the best of circumstances, I don't like to be the center of attention, but here where I am a minority it feels very uncomfortable. I am thankful though, for the chance to feel what it feels like to be a minority. It is very humbling.
Please pray for me and our team tomorrow. We are heading to a prison where Andrew is going to be preaching. All 4000 inmates will be let outside to hear what he has to say and then we may be helping out at the end to speak with inmates who want to talk to someone more about the Lord. I would be completely freaked out by this at home... but here... it is more than I think I can handle. Keep in mind that there is almost no crime here in Rwanda... most or all of these prisoners are Genocidaires... people who took part in the genocide. They are still, after 15 years, awaiting trial some of them... because there are too many to process any faster. In the afternoon, we will be heading to the reconciliation village where the neighbors conduct a court proceeding to judge who is guilty and who is not. I will tell more about this tomorrow.
I will try to do a better job of writing every night, so I don't have to write so much at once again... It took me two days, I'm sure you can't absorb it all in one sitting.
Amy, Thanks again for all you're doing & for taking such great shots. You don't need to edit anything. I know how you feel- when I was in Vietnam everyone seemed so happy and smiling too, I kept thinking how can they be so happy, With all the suffering they have? It's only because I knew what they didn't have. They don't know anything else. They've never seen what American's have, no TV, no real outside communication, just stories. Everyone else there also lives the same way so there's nothing for them to compare it to. They're happy for what little they have, to be alive, friends, family, and food. The kids I'm talking about will be looking for scraps in the market place, in slums, or sleeping outside restaurants. They are usually shooed away when during dining and tourist around... You have to have a diff set of eyes. It's very hard to do that when you're overwhelmed by everything thus far. Talk to you soon.
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