Monday morning and after breakfast we are off to visit parishes. Paul, Hannah, Grace and translators Gilbert and Alfred set out for Rutunga, whilst Isobel, Andy, Nicholas and Rita (our translators) were off to Gasura

From the Rutunga team:

The Rutunga team took Gilbert who was to translate - and very competent he was at it too - but he didn’t know the way so we took Albert with us as well.  He is the diocesan development officer and one of his duties is to visit the parishes regularly.

It was a long dusty drive but the welcome and hospitality from Pastor Jean Damascene and his wife, Claudine, when we got there made up for everything. The parish has four lovely new classrooms for a hundred and seventy pre-school children and up to thirty church leaders were waiting for us in one of the rooms. We set the pattern for future parish visits with introductions, photos, reports, God’s message, prayers and - it goes without saying - SINGING. We shared a lovely Rwandan lunch with some of the elders and, with a fair amount of fussing and adjusting, made a video interview with Damascene and Claudine. We even got her to smile for the camera! 

Back to base, tired, hot and a dusty - and late, we sorted ourselves out in order to go off to the home of a member of the American team working here, for a relaxed meal together. 

We ought to add a thanks and well done to the driver, Paul, who skilfully negotiated a Rwandan junction with hundreds of moped taxis, cars, buses and vans, none of whom seemed to have the right of way so all were assuming it was theirs.  Give a Kigali moped an inch and twenty take it!   

Jonathan was back from Kigeme diocese when we returned to the SU guest house, so our team is complete again.   

From the Gasura team:

Andy headed out of the city with our translator Nicholas navigating, though at the first turn out of the cathedral he made the disconcerting comment, “I don’t know my right or my left!”  We drove out of Kigali leaving behind the metalled roads and bumped along the characteristic dusty orange tracks up into the hills.  As there has been no significant rain since April the dust clouds kicked up by any vehicle on these rural roads is phenomenal.  Andy pointed out how the banana trees growing at the roadside were orange, and that presumably this matched the colour of the locals’ lungs.  At that point he looked in his rear view mirror to see the eyes of Isobel and translator Rita peeping out from a sarong that they were sharing to shield their noses and mouths from the dust clouds.

After about 45 minutes of grinding up hillside dirt tracks lined with brightly clothed people with warm smiles, carrying a plethora of loads on their heads and others pushing bikes laden with multiple jerry cans of water, lengths of sugar cane or all manner of other goods, we finally arrived at the parish of Gasura.  Pastor Alfred was there to welcome us in traditional Rwandan style by clasping our forearms in both his hands then shaking hands and gripping his fingers around one of our thumbs, which is quite an endearing African take on a traditional British greeting.

What a difference a year makes! When the DT team visited last year, between the church and nearby pastor’s house, was a very sorry site - a semi -demolished building. The church had begun to build a new home for the burgeoning pastor’s family, but as they could only afford to build with mud bricks, the authorities had insisted that the house be destroyed. A year later however a brand new solidly brick built new home stood proudly next to the hummocky ground of last year’s demolition site. Also beside the church a brand new block of 3 classrooms has been constructed to house a nursery for the children of the area. These projects have been facilitated by the ministry of ‘Help for a Thousand Hills,’  run by the American team led by Pastor Brandon, after they had learned of the villagers’ concern for many 3 year olds wandering around the countryside daily with nowhere to go and no one to look after them.  All the congregations in Gasura parish worked together to construct this building for children, the American charity supplies peanuts as a nutritious snack for these toddlers.

Looking at the church building which had been so vibrant last year with the sound of singing issuing from within, it now looked like a shell of its former self and was painfully evident why the government has an issue with mud brick buildings - the whole side wall looked like it had been attacked by an excavator, it was literally falling away down the hillside, presumably dislodged by the rainy season but clearly it will only be a matter of a few storms until the building disintegrates entirely.  My face presumably betrayed these thoughts and Pastor Alfred following my gaze, spontaneously said, ‘Now we need a new church!’  Certainly no one would disagree with that!  He showed us into a room in the new school block, which they are using as a temporary church, though once a month they need to have a service outside as they simply cannot fit the whole congregation in one classroom. Inside, a few church members had gathered to welcome us and after an initial greeting Pastor Alfred led them in song, the traditional way of calling people to worship in a society where few wear a watch!  Sure enough as the beautiful African choruses rang out from the building, one by one parishioners came up from the valley and bicycles rolled in too!

After delighting us with their exuberant singing, the catechists (readers) and members of the church leadership team introduced themselves in turn, explaining their areas of responsibility current projects, eg credit, savings programmes, goat breeding projects.  They shared really encouraging figures about the growth of the church from 216 to 486 in the first 6 months of the existence of the parish, and the school which has grown from 36 to 161 children in its first year!  Their enthusiasm for growth and evangelism is exciting and could teach us a thing or two in our comparatively luxurious, wealthy churches in the west.

Andy preached some words of encouragement to the church from Thessalonians and then invited the congregation to ask us any questions, which then unleashed a barrage for us to answer!  Initially they wanted to know all about our own families.  Even our translators had to stand up and describe their family circumstances, at which point Rita, (who was an orphan from the Genocide) leaned across and whispered to Isobel under her breath, “I have no one, can I be your kid?”  So she has now been unofficially adopted for at least the next 3 days! 

Unsurprisingly it didn’t take long for the questions to become really challenging and, just as we experienced last year, the big questions of homosexuality and the church were posed. Just as these issues challenge the church in the west, the African church is perplexed by the footage they see on TV and is very keen to hear views direct from western Christians.  

After a long but wholesome discussion and much more singing, we were invited into the pastor’s new home to share a meal. The house is by western standards extremely modest, but they are delighted with their newly built home. As I suspected, although the house building has been upgraded, their sanitation out back, does not seem to have taken any steps forward, and I found the long drop, adjacent to the family cow, who was creating a puddle simultaneously right next to me!

We left, grateful to the Lord for what we had seen and heard, and travelled back to join the rest of the team for our meal out at the home of our American friends. A relaxed end to a good day.

Good-night.

Grace, Isobel, Hannah, Paul, Jonathan and Andy.

Isaiah 57 v 1 -2