The week in pictures....

As always, a big hello to our friends and family,

we think of you often and enjoy trying to keep up with everyone through email and social media.  We don't often have time to reply or to call, but we love knowing what happening back in the states.

I don't get pictures of half of what I'd like to in order to show off this beautiful country and let you in on what's going on with us, but here's what I've got this week...

Love the sunrises here!  Usually clear in the morning with clouds and some rain later in the day.

A quick visit from Emmanuel, a brother of one of the Rwandan presidential scholars who we hosted two summers ago.  It is always a pleasure to meet the families of our Rwandan "sons".

A Rwandan Baptist church just a short walk from us down the highway.  Generally the service might run from 9am-1pm!  We went from about 10-11:30 and were all introduced through a translator.  Lots of singing and dancing as numerous choirs preformed!  This is both a time of worship and one of the only social gatherings of the week.  I particularly liked the children's choir!  However, we left before they even got to the message, which we wouldn't have understood a word of anyway...

My sad attempt to carry my bag on my head as the Rwandan women do.  All I needed was another 40 lbs in the bag and a baby on my back...I am going to need more practice!

On Sunday evening we were able to watch our home church "live" in Little Rock thanks to Lawson getting us set up on the technology end.  It was great to see some familiar faces (Terry Jones and Bruce leading worship!) and have a little taste of home!

On Tuesday we were able to visit the St. Vincent home for disabled children (which is operated by a Catholic church in Musanze).  The nuns and staff do a great job, but they can always use a few more hands to help feed and care for the kids...and most especially just to interact with and love on them.  The kids are a wide variety of ages with a wide variety of physical and mental handicaps, and a couple who appear to fine but are orphans.  

We spent more than an hour just playing ball with those that could (you would be absolutely amazed at how some of these kids with severe leg deformities can still get around on crutches...it is amazing!).  We blew bubbles for them to chase and pop and Lawson and Brian gave "airplane rides" until they were worn out!  You have never seen such happy faces!  Hopefully we will get to go back numerous times during our time here in Rwanda.

Above, Brain is with a man named John Peter, who is a volunteer at the home every day.  He knows enough English that we could enjoy visiting with him and he was a big help to us in connecting with the kids and knowing what to do, since he knows the kids well.

We specifically went before lunch so we could help with feeding the 30 or so kids who live there.  All of the kids get a hot bowl of a grain (that looks similar to rice) and some chopped greens (like collard greens).  Probably 8 or 10 of the kids cannot feed themselves without assistance, so we could help with that. At breakfast they get a bowl of porridge and if they have enough food they will also get a dinner that is similar to lunch.

Several of the younger children loved playing with Bethany's hair!

Thursday....Gary and I traveled with the Raineys and the 5 other board members who were visiting into Kigali for meetings.  The main highway had a large mudslide in the rainy season (fall) that they are still trying to fix that can hold up traffic at times.

First, we went to the US embassy to meet with the US Ambassador to Rwanda and some of his attaches. It was a very interesting and informative meeting.  No pictures because they took all our electronics at security!  So far it has been the only air conditioned facility I have visited in Rwanda.

Next, a fabulous asian lunch at Zen restaurant i Kigali with the Rwanda Minister of Infrastructure, Minister "Albert".  Lunch was great and Minister Albert is an incredibly intelligent, speaks excellent English and is a great leader in his country.  He oversees infrastructure, housing, energy and the like...a huge responsibility.

After lunch, Gary and I spent a couple hours shopping at the Nakomatt (like a mini African Wal-Mart??) and the "mall".  Then onto our final meeting...with the Prime Minster of Rwanda in his office!  On our way to the Prime Minister, we also had to stop for President Kagame's motorcade to pass right by us on his way through town.

Left to right...Minister Albert, Mike Robinson, me, Steve Bardwell, the Prime Minster of Rwanda (with a name too complicated for me!), Gary, Mickey Lavender, Cheryl and Russell Rainey, Tad Krug, Shelby Woods and Jerome (works under Minister Albert).

Back at the Musanze Opportunity Center, when the kids have free time and the weather is nice, they enjoy soccer (futbol)on the lawn and often some of the Rwandan students or staff will join in.

Of course they also enjoy playing their favorite sports, so the boys are frequently throwing the football or Bethany is practicing volleyball.

Below, Lawson is helping the construction students, James and Olivier, work on repairs and painting in one of the cottages.  The walls must be scraped and holes filled first before painting can commence.  Over time, each of the cottages will get a facelift so they are ready to rent for visitors.  So please come and visit us at the MOC, your room is ready and waiting!

James (left) and Olivier (right), cleaning up after a day of painting.  They are great young men and our family enjoys their company.  Often they will join us on outings as our translators.

Yes, we are still chipping away at schoolwork in our "online" classroom.  Palmer is the only one who has science labs, since he is in Chemistry, and he has it all organized and ready to go.

Hopefully I can introduce most of the incredible MOC staff over time.  Here are Setee (our chef) and Protais (a cook and kitchen staff) working in the kitchen.  All the bread is homemade here and you can see the dough rising in the bowl.  Behind it there is an empty muffin tin from the incredible banana muffins that are made here daily.

One of my favorite things to do it just to go across the street from our gates and hang out with the kids who are walking down the road.  They are just adorable!  Generally they don't know much English, but we try to visit anyway.  They are carrying "maize" stalks that will be their lunch...both the raw corn and then they also peel the stalk and chew on the sweet center, similar to sugar cane.  Again, older siblings, as well as mothers, will carry the babies around.  These are all girls...since all the children must shave their heads to go to school, I often can only tell the boys from girls because the girls wear skirts.

Last, there are other American families in Rwanda, and Bethany is lucky to have made a friend in this precious Lydia.  Some of you who have been to Rwanda may recognize her as the daughter of Drs Caleb and Louise King.  Yesterday they invited Bethany to go swimming at the pool (rather cold pool!) of the local hotel in town, then for lunch, then Lydia spent the night with us.  Bethany sorely misses her friends at home, but God is so good to have given her such a delightful girlfriend who lives not too far from us.  Because Lydia has grown up primarily in Rwanda, she also speaks the language...how cool is that!?!

This morning (Sunday), we took a village walk through our "neighborhood" with some of the folks from our church who are in Kigali for two weeks teaching and encouraging some local pastors and their wives.  They came for a short visit to Musanze this weekend for some R and R...then back to work this week!  

Below, Gary is showing his disappearing coin trick to some kids on the highway.  As we take a walk he gathers a bigger and bigger crowd who are in awe of his magic!  He finally breaks down by the end of the trek and shows them how to do it!

Ladies working in the potato field adjacent to our campus.

We usually turn off the highway and go through the back roads that cut through the farms.  This is the first time I have seen a truck on the "road"...it had come from the quarry with a full load of sand and dirt...all excavated by hand.

One of the homes we passed on our walk...you can see the erosion taking toll on the mud brick.  Sunday must be  laundry day because we saw many things hanging out to dry.  On the right is the families' pile of gravel.  The women and children break larger stone into gravel with hammer and then can sell it to a truck that comes by periodically...this is another source of income for the family.

Just outside our campus we have this enormous tree that Gary calls the "tree of life".  Historically the village leaders would meet under a tree like this one to have their meetings.  The tree was also symbolic because you can break off its limbs and roots, but it continues to grow and repair itself.

And to say goodbye for now...Brain Langford practicing guitar.  He is headed to Kigali today to join a medical team from our church who is going out to some villages to do checkups on children.  I'm looking forward to hearing more when he returns in a few days with the medical team when they come to visit us!

P.S.  We are planning to wake up at 2am tonight to wacth the Superbowl with all of you!

Love to all! To God be the glory, great things He has done!

Friday Field Trip!!

 

Hello all!  While the internet is good I thought I'd let you in on an interesting day we had yesterday.  We opted to skip school and go on a "field trip" that presented itself.

 

The Musanze Opportunity Center, where we are living and working, has regular guests come through to stay or for meals.  Visitors are usually from the US or Europe or are westerners living in Kigali or other parts of the country who are passing through, meeting up with friends, coming to see the gorillas, or simply getting away.

 

And that's how we met Tom Allen, an attorney and California native, who's been living in Kigali for about five years and is currently the country director for Bridge 2 Rwanda.  We've heard about Tom from friends and it was a pleasure to meet him when he came to stay here on Thursday night with a small group of American businessmen, philanthropists and entreprenuers.

 

Tom invited us to take a sidetrip with him on Friday to an area about 30 minutes away on Lake Burera and not far from the Ugandan border.  I'm never quite sure of the names of the towns or villages that we visit...they all seem to run together!  This particular village is quite poor, but has one of the most spectacular views that I have ever seen.  You will see on the pictures that this huge lake has three inhabited islands in it and mountains behind it...just over the mountains is Uganda.  Though somewhat remote, tourists do come to this area to stay at Viruga Lodge, which shares this incredible setting.

 

Anyway, Tom has purchased a lovely piece of property from some local farmers in the village in order to build a small "vacation" home on it for himself and for friends to use when they are looking to get away, think and write, etc.  His other purpose was that this very long project willk also provide employment for many people in this town for quite a few years as the site work and construction (all entirely by hand) progresses.  Another side benefit is that some of the people he employs are also learning better building skills and techniques in the process....such as how to properly mix and pour concrete (rather than the mud brick construction that is widely used in Rwanda) and using gutters to capture rain water run-off.  Anyway, you can see that Tom is well known and well loved in this area!

 

 

Now for lots of pictures....

Tom on the left, with Jean Lambert, who is 14 years old.  Because Jean Lambert did very well on his exams after finishing primary school this year (grade 6), he has been admitted to a secondary baording school.  All children in Rwanda are now required to attend primary school, but secondary school is not available because space is limited and also many families cannot afford it even if their child makes adequate scores on the national exam.  Rwandan students consider themselves lucky to be able to move away to boarding school at about age 14 and they really apply themselves!

 

Below...Jean Lambert's shoes...just in case you (like me!) need a reminder to be thankful and content.  Many of these amazing kids will wear no shoes or sometimes just one shoe.

 

 Jones family at Lake Burera on Tom Allen's homesite.  The pictures just don't do it justice!

 

It may appear that it just falls off to the lake, but actually there is a steep hill below with farms planted on the side of the hill.  In some areas the land is terraced, but in others the crops are just planted on the slope.

Below, Brain Langford with Jean Lambert and Jean of Peace, who is the foreman on the site overseeing anywhere from 6-36 laborers any given day.

 

Jean Lambert told Brian that he hopes to be a doctor some day and that he wants to go to college in the United States at TCU and he knew exactly where it is located, etc.

Merritt, above, standing on some of Toms property that has been terraced and leveled by hand.  Below he enjoys the view from what will be the back porch when the house is complete.

Bethany checks out the baby calf that was born this fall that Tom keeps on his property.  Cow ownership is highly valued by Rwandan culture and is often indicative of wealth.  A cow is still sometimes used a dowry to acquire a bride!  Here they can use the Heifer model to help others in the community have a cow that can produce milk for their family as well as sell for income.

 

 

The dirt road in the background is how we came to the village.  This is one of Tom's neighbors behind him and is a typical mud construction home and surrounding farm that supports the family.

Merritt is having a look at a "wooden bike" that Tom bought off of a child he saw riding it down the road (for a fair price!).  The kids here are very clever and can make a fairly good soccer ball out of plastic and twine.  This bike is just wood scraps nailed together and wood wheels covered in strips of old tire tread.

Because Jean Lambert lives here and has such excellent English, Tom asked him to give us a tour of the village and it's school.  Here Bethany is outside of his home, which was locked because both his parents were out working in the field.  He did show us his two young cows that he is very proud of as well as his rabbitt that is about to have babies.  When he is not in school, Jean Lambert's chores are carrying water to his home, gathering wood for his mother to cook with and gathering food to feed the cows (grasses and corn stalks).

The mural painted at the entrance to the village school.  The do dream of a better life and better education.

A primary school classroom (about 3rd or 4th grade) with boys on one side, girls on the other.  Just benches, no desks, filled to the max with children with makeshift notebooks made of some lined paper with brown paper bag covers.  Chalkboards on the wall for the teacher to do instruction.

 

The 6th grade classroom had small desks and the kids were anxious to ask us questions and practice a little of their English.  This is the last year that many of the students will be able to attend school.  Also, Jean Lambert showed us the rabbits that are kept behind the school and are sometimes given to students as a reward for excellent marks.

We are usually surrounded by quite a crowd of children who come out from everywhere.  Here we had many little ones follow us, as well as many young adults who were anxious to visit with Americans as well as asking for our emails for correspondence (they will walk for hours to get to an internet cafe to communicate with an American penpal) or to ask if we would help sponsor them to go to secondary school.

 

 

And finally, some images of daily Rwandan life from our drive home.....

 

Mud bricks that are being collected in a truck. 

 

Men pushing heavy loads up the raod on their bicycles.  They often ride down into town with an empty bike with no brakes and only use their shoes for braking!

Transporting potatoes...

More potatoes headed to town on a caravan of bikes!!

Secondary students walking together on their way home from school.

 

Not the greatest picture...but this is probably the most unusual load I've seen so far.  A man pushing a whole set of furniture up the road on a wheelbarrow...whatever works!

 

Purchasing eggs at a roadside stand outside of the "One Egg project" facility.  I hope to visit here one day and tell you more.  An American businessman who came here had a vision of somehow providing some much needed daily protein to the youngest children in Rwanda.  In the end he decided that the egg was the best source and partnered with some folks from Tyson to get it going.  They have 3 hen houses with about 1500 chickens.  The eggs are distrubuted to partners in the community who boil the eggs and serve them to preschoolers at lunch so they know that the children are actually the ones consuming the eggs.  They hope to expand the One Egg project into other areas in the near future now that they have a model that works.

 

 

Our Friday field trip was fun, but that meant doing some schoolwork on Saturday!  This is our "one room schoolhouse" which works great until the internet goes down.  I'm so thankful for our classroom manager and teacher, Brian Langford, who keeps things rolling in there and helps explain math concepts to the kids that I still don't get!

 

 

Lastly, a few people arrived on campus today from Little Rock.  They brought some gifts from the states that the kids are so happy about...beef jerky, Gatorade and mac n cheese...do we have American teenagers or what?!? 

I'm loving the fresh cooked Rwandan foods and all the veggies, beans, etc, but I can't say the same for the kids!