I am in Kigali, Rwanda for 7 weeks teaching in a school, hosting ladies bible studies, checking on One27 kids and hanging out with my friends! (June 2nd - July 23rd)

Monday, June 23, 2008

Update!

Muraho! Amakuru?

Hey everybody! I hope everyone is having a great summer so far. Make time to relax and enjoy it! I am missing all of you and thinking about you. :)

The past week as been filled with ministry and fun for us. Some highlights: last Tuesday we got to finally see the Anchor of Hope office (AOH is a ministry for street kids my friend Sarah started) and hang out with three kids, Gustav, Ivonne (whose only parent, their mother, is very ill) and Rita...it was nice because we could actually hang out with them and befriend them without being mobbed, which can happen at the school! It makes me smile to see the work God has done with Sarah and AOH and Sylvan and the whole ministry. I remember when Sarah and I took our first trip to Africa together in 2003, it seems not that long ago! I was also given a suprise when Pastor Martin, whom Sarah and I met on that first trip to Congo in '03, showed up at the office while I was there! It was a sweet time to visit and catch up. He was here in Kigali doing a pastor's training. Also, last Tuesday night, we got to visit one of the Nabycindu CEER church's small groups. It's cool because they are doing Rick Warren's 40 Days of Purpose and have at least 5 small groups that meet each week. The one we visited was made up of about 10 people and was at the home of one of our friends who is involved in one of our ladies bible studies. Katy and I were able to sit in, give a short "exhortation", as Esron says, of encouragement and just visit and worship with them. It was a great experience for both of us...I know how important my church back home feels that the small groups are, they are where community and fellowship really happen and it was cool to see that concept lived out here in Rwanda too. We sat together in a house and sang and read scripture by candle and lamplight and it all reminded me of what the early church must have been like. I really enjoyed our time there.

Wednesday we started our study on prayer with the women's small group which we both feel went very well... we praise God for that!

Friday was an exciting day because we got to visit Kabuga with Esron and Immanuel. We toured the ladies sewing and basket making project there that Kristen and I vistited last year. This year they actually are renting a store in town and have begun a school for teaching about 18 ladies and young girls sewing skills, and have 5 sewing machines. They have an instructor and will finish classes at the end of July. The hope is that these women who maybe could not afford to finish their education will now be able to have a skill to support themselves and their families. They are in need right now of money to pay for material, rent and a security guard (necessary to protect the machines). After our visit there we went to the CEER church in Kabuga. It was just like I remembered it, complete with Pastor Thomas' huge smile to greet us. They as usual lavished us with gifts (beautiful baskets made by the women there) and gave us a wonderful reception. There were many familiar faces, several from two years ago when I visited and there was no roof and it was raining on the mud floor!

Saturday we completed lesson two of our study with the ladies. Kezia' translated as Esron is gone and I am convinced by the time we leave her English will be better than mine! She is a blessing to us. That afternoon we hung out with my friend Linda and had dinner. It was nice!
We also met a team of Mzungus that day from Michigan who are here to work with the CEER school in Kigufi. They stayed at the Ligue for a couple days and we all had dinner together at the Emerald (by far our favorite restraunt this trip!) and were able to chat and hang out. It was nice to have conversations in English and not have to work so hard to understand or speak through a translator, we are missing that. It was really nice. They left this morning for a week in Kigufi and will return Monday of next week, I am looking forward to hearing how things will go this for them.

Today we started our third week in the school and have a very well behaved bunch of students. We are teaching about Jesus' birth in Bible this week and are learning shapes in English. It was a good morning followed by a snack at the Emerald. Chipati and tea is becoming my favorite snack. (Chipati is like a hot flat tortillia--only better--with raw sugar on it.) The manger knows us by name and is such a cool guy, he told us today drinks were on him because he was so humbled that we brought such a large group of people to his restraunt last night. Overall we have been busy and tired, but a good tired nonetheless. Thank you all for praying and reading the blog!

Specific prayer requests this week:

1) Mary--our friend who works at the Ligue, has been in the hospital with a severe infection and is scheduled to be released today, we are praying she recovers quickly
2) Esron--he is very busy still, we are praying for rest and health for him and his family.
3) Michigan group--we are praying they have a fruitful ministry in Kigufi and stay rested and healthy as well!
4) Bible studies--we are getting into the "meat" of the studies and ask for continued prayer for God to open the hearts of the women and that He will give Katy and I the words and truths He desires for them to hear.
5) Katy and I -- continued health--we are doing really well, back into a regular pattern of sleep and are feeling tired and poured out, but God is giving us the strength to keep going! Please pray for our spiritual "health" as well, as the work can be draining at times.

Thanks again and I miss you all!!!

Monday, June 16, 2008

Beginning our 3rd week in Kigali...

Week three here in Kigali has started off well. Katy and I were able to lead our first Saturday bible study at Esron's church this weekend. It was so cool to get to see the ladies taking notes and studying papers translated into their own language! Such a blessing to get to experience. We even assigned them homework for next week and look forward to being with the group again. The next day, Sunday, we attented church service. There was a visiting choir performing (choirs and singing in church are a HUGE deal here in Rwanda--much of the service consists of this, and all the songs tell stories using scripture and actions, I absolutely love it) and at one point Katy and I and another Mzungu (white person) named Christine working with World Relief whom we met, were invited to join in the dancing (Yes, dancing and lots of it! I was just imagining people at Woodsedge busting out with some of that one Sunday;) at the end of the service. My little buddy Gad (one of the pastor's son--who he and his wife name their boys after the 12 tribes of Israel--they have 3 tribes so far;) came and danced with me! It made my day, he is a precious yet mischevious little boy who has become my pal. He is such a funny kid, always smiling and laughing and going off at me in Kinyarwanda--he is so full of life and joy. Love him! It was a really good Sunday.

This morning we began our second official week of teaching in the school. As we pulled up we could hear the kids shouting with excitement. We are now in the second class of 4 and 5 year olds, and they are SO well behaved. All 36 of them were quiet as mice when we entered the classroom sitting still in their desks, it was pretty amazing. There is a wonderful teacher named Providence who leads this class and I am in awe of here unbelieveable control of the class of such young kiddos. The students began by suprising us with singing "God Is Good To Me", a song Kristen and I taught them last year, in French! This week we were thinking some of the novelty of being a Mzungu might have worn off a bit--but no, we are still mobbed when we go outside of the classroom! They call out our names and run away laughing, or some just stand and stare at us. It is so funny to see their reactions. Theophile (our translator at the school) has a two year old daughter who covers her face and runs away everytime I look at her! Some kids (usually just the little bitty ones) think Mzungus will eat them! It is just such a joy to be with them. I am hoping our relationship with students and teachers will deepen even more with us being here for such a long time.

Katy and I are feeling really well and are getting pretty good sleep at night. We hope tomorrow to visit our friends Sarah and Sylvan at the Anchor of Hope office and I am excited to get to see the kids there again. Kristen and I hung out with them a lot last year.

Prayer requests:
1) Esron, our close friend, acting as our dad while we are here. He is such a busy man and wears so many hats, yet is helping us so much and is joyful and full of laughter as usual. Tomorrow he asks for prayers as he deals with more church issues. He also had to take care of another issue today at the government offices and is just SO incredibly busy with meetings and other business as CEER, Community Evangelical Church (Eglise) of Rwanda, president. Please pray for our friend to remain strong and healthy and for his family. Kezia' his wife has been sharpening her English by translating for Katy and I at church and during the Bible studies--it can be a very intense and tiresome thing to be a translator. We are also very close with his children James, Mami' and Gladys and ask for prayer for them.
2) Continued health for Katy and I --we have been so blessed!
3) our friend Mary who may need to travel to the Congo this week to be with her family
4) this week's Bible studies, Wednesday we hope to start a study on prayer with our small group of ladies and go into our second lesson with the other 2 studies.

Thanks to the faithful blog readers! Missing all of you!
:) Melissa

Friday, June 13, 2008

Two Weeks In...

It has now been close to two full weeks being here in Kigali and things are going really well!

To clarify, I am teaching in what is called a "nursery school" here but actually means Pre-K to Kindergarten age children. Our school in Nabycindu has 4 classrooms. There are currently close to 200 children in those rooms ranging in age from 3 to 7 years old. There are 5 teachers right now and one Primary 1 class (basically like our 1st grade equivalent). Esron told me the other day that the parents in the village are practically begging him to add a Primary 2 class. This week we finished up in the first classroom of about 43 three and four year olds. It was so precious to see them recite their Bible verse (Genesis 1:1) in English and in thier mother tongue, Kinyarwanda. Each student was able to say it individually...SO cute! We feel that God has allowed us to teach very effectively this week. We also presented the gospel through the wordlessbook on Thursday and are praying those sweet little hearts can understand everything.

Other highlights this week were meeting with our small group of women on Wednesday afternoons. Katy and I felt very humbled to be a part of this amazing group of women, mostly consisting of pastor's wives and leaders in the church who get toegther to pray for their families and church. They are wanting us to teach for two full hours on those days, we are in prayer about excatly what topics to choose and which would be most appropriate for the group. Esron's wife Kezia' will be translating and she did an outstanding job, her English has improved so much. I wish I could say that about my Kinyarwanda! Sometimes I just want to talk to them so badly and I can't!

Another blessing has been with the ladies Bible study we were supposed to be hosting at the Ligue but will now be held in the home of a lady who works there. Her name (I think ;) is Ivette. Mary (our friend on staff at the Ligue) helped get the group together and led us to the house last night. Katy and I have seen a lot of the big city and the countryside, but really have not been able to see how the true working class live in Kigali. It was such a blessing and very humbling. We were led down a steep path into a maze of narrow walkways compacted together on the hillside to Ivette's house. We held our first bible study in a room about 4ft by 10ft with close to 12 ladies and a group of babies and toddlers. There were many older women (one who was the mother of 8 and had adopted 4 more children) and a few were close to my age with 2 or 3 children. We are doing the study at 5:30 in the evenings and we think things will work out great and we will have enough light to do it. There was no electricity in the house and only one small window for light. Katy and I both were fighting back tears yesterday afterwards talking about it. I am really so excited about these next 5 weeks.

I have also been able to hang out with friends Sarah and Sylvan which has been a blast. They are such a fun couple! Tommorow we are leading another bible study at Esron's church and look forward to that. There is so much more but I can't put it allinto words!

Thanks for the prayers, Katy and I are getting better sleep and the two studies we have done so far started off well. Keep praying! Missing everybody more than you know!

:) Melissa

Monday, June 9, 2008

Week #1

What a week it has been! Today we beagn our first day in the nursery school at Nabycindu. It was so much fun and Katy and I were treated like celebrities. We both are excited to get started on the work we have to do here, in what is now seeming like a shorter and shorter time. Today we talked with Mary and have set up a weekly bible study at the Ligue for ladies who work there, and friends of Mary--she has agreed to help us get the word out; her daughter will help us translate. We are both excited about getting the studies off the ground, Wednesdays we will meet with a small group of ladies from Esron's church--not doing the same Bible studies as the others, more a time for prayer and discussion, Friday's we will be at DORCAS for the bible study there, and on Saturday we will do the same study with a larger group of women from Esrons' church. We know God is orhcestrating it all and just stand in awe of how qucikly He has begun to move here and how bold he is enabeling Katy and I to be. We have been enjoyoing our time with friends Sarah and Sylvan and hope to investigate what they have been doing thorugh Anchor of Hope soon and to see some of our "street kids". (Lisa, I plan on giving John Paul a big hug for you!)
I miss all of you back home! I thank you all so much for your prayers, we have needed them. Just a few specifics you can keep praying for:
- Sleep! Katy and I both laid awake all night the other night because our bodies are so jacked up by jet lag! It's pretty frustrating, but we did both get a better sleep last night. Amazing what a concoction of Tylenol PM and Malaria pills can do to help! But we of course would love to get restfull sleep without pharmecutical assistance. ;)
- The bible studies; we start then this week and just ask for prayers for guidence as to how excatly to begin, what the dynamic of the group will be, working with the translator, etc.
-Please also pray for Esron and Wayne as they assist us while we are here. They are both such a tremendous blessing to both of us and I don't know if we would make it without them!

The other night (as I lay awake ALL night with my thoughts) I listened to an old DTS chaple podcast I had on my I pod, and not coincidentially I am sure, it was my professor Dr. Allman who was guest speaker. He said that we do not serve God because He needs us, but we serve him because He enables us. My prayer for the trip has been to keep that attitude, to do all that I do for no other reason than to glorify our Savior.

Enabled in Christ,
Melissa

P.S. If anyone wants to email updates on current events in the U.S. that would be FABULOUS! Any news would be fun to get really! :) Sadly, I think some Rwandans know more about what's going on in America than I do. (They are fascinated with Obama!)

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Rwanda, Rwanda!

We are here!! Finally! It has been a whirlwind of travel since we left, but praise God he has guided us here safely AND our bags have arrived! Katy and I are doing well, both a bit tired though adjusting much better to things today. We just walked about 4 miles from our home in Kigali to this internet cafe', mostly uphill---OH MY GOSH!! I thought I might pass out. I am wringing wet from sweating! Oh Africa! I am well on my way to becoming Rwandese!
Since we arrived we have seen many of our friends, in fact the first face I saw besides our sweet Esron, was Sarah at the Ligue! She and her husband Sylvan treated us to pizza the night before last at Sole Luna, our favorite in Kigali. We were able to visit with them both about their mission with Anchor of Hope, they have been here since mid April and have made great progress. And, as we were sitting there talking about our friend Pastor Andre, he and Alivera walked up! It was really exciting. We also met a new friend Joe, who is from Germany and is working with the street kids through the Ligue. We als0 able to see Mary and met her beutiful daughter. I have missed everyone so much! I also got to see Michel yesterday too, it was so good to see his face again.
Katy and I are joyful to report also that we after we visited the DORCUS project (a sort of business for widows where they sew, grow plants for landscaping, cook, etc. for income that our friend Andre's church sponsors) we are pretty sure we have scheduled a bible study with these ladies on Fridays at 12. I felt great to make progress there! We are really excited...Kathleen will possibly help us translate the lessons, so that is really good for us and the ladies.

I want to write more, there is SO much more to say but I have 2 minutes left on the internet, agg! Love and miss you all!
:) Mel

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Nairobi!

We have arrived safe and sound in Nairobi, thanks for the prayers...they have been realized that's for sure. Also if you have a sec please pray that our bags make it, we have not actually seen them since Houston and will not until we get to Kigali--hopefully ;) We had the tightest connection of our lives in D.C. after the delays in Houston. I was literally the last one on the plane and Katy and I had to "Home Alone" it from one end of the Dulles Airport to the complete opposoite end. My lungs were burning and I realized how out of shape I am--you would think with the swimming and all..but no! (Seriously though I think my backpack weighs close to 30 pounds, so I guess I don't feel too bad.) Anyway, again thanks so much for the support! More to come form Kigali ASAP!

Monday, June 2, 2008

Leavin' on a jet plane!

I could not sleep last night and woke up early this morning because I am so excited! We are leaving in less than 5 hours and I finally think I am ready as ready can be...packing was a chore and dealing with the ridiculous baggage restrictions as far as weight and number has been a bit of an issue too but I think we will be fine.

Let me just say that I have the most amazing friends a girl could have! Last night Tara and Catchy threw the best Bonn Voyage party ever. (Katy thanks for helping too!) Girls...you are the GREATEST! Thank you to everyone that stopped by, it was exactly what I needed to remind me of what I have to come home to. I cannot wait to read your notes, I am going to do my best to wait until I get to Rwanda to read them but no promises. ;) Thank you for the prayers, they have truly been felt. Please keep praying as we travel today and tomorrow--this is not my favorite part by any means, I just want to be there! I know I will miss all of you, so I'm going to need you all to comment on this thing ok?

In these last few hours in the States I have taken my last hot shower for 7 weeks, made my hair look good for the last time in 7 weeks, made myself smell good for the last time in 7 weeks, oh man I'm going to look so HOT in two months! Let's see--I plan on eating my last hamburger in 7 weeks (that's not a goat burger ;), oh yes and drink my last cold Diet DP for 7 weeks. But honestly I am looking forward to being immersed in the Rwandan culture again. I know it will be really hard to leave...

A friend left me with this verse last night that has helped to bring me a peace and encouragement and is a wonderful prayer for this trip, I just wanted to share it,

"May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, that great shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will and may he work in us what is pleasing to him through Christ Jesus to whom be glory forever and ever, Amen." Hebrews 13:20-21

This is also my prayer for all of you, my wonderful friends and family, this summer as you go about your work, play and ministry. May he work in you what is pleasing to him for his glory! I love you all!

Melissa :)