Saturday's Blog:

We were woken at 6am by shrill voices, just outside our rooms as the sports ministry team was holding a children’s sports camp at a rather early hour.

Andy and Isobel went to a parish nearby to meet up with some basket weavers, who had kindly laid our their wares for inspection.  Meanwhile Paul took the vehicles for refuelling and a wash to remove all the ingrained orange dust, before they were returned to the American team.  

Daniel, who was about to attend a wedding, came to collect one of the vehicles, looking dapper in a navy city suit, though in this country it is impossible to complete an outfit with anything but shoes dusted in orange.

After the normal discrepancy over the bill, Andy paid up having been to an ATM 3 times in order to get a big enough wodge of cash, and revelled in being a momentary millionaire!

About an hour later than scheduled this afternoon, Pastor Placide finally turned up in a mini-bus to take us up to the northern diocese of Byumba.  It was a pretty drive along the valley out of Kigali, filled with bright green rice paddies where wader birds probed the waters with their long beaks.

A few miles out into the countryside, Placide pointed to a place on a wooded hillside, where he and his parents had stayed in a tented refugee camp during the genocide of 1994, which added a rather sobering dimension to an otherwise pretty view. The landscape became notably greener as we travelled north and moved to higher ground.  As the hillsides became steeper, the wooded slopes gave way to agricultural terraces along the contours, to make the best use of the land for growing crops.  

Throughout the journey the driver and Placide were listening to an extremely excited football commentator, blaring out of the radio as Rwanda was playing Uganda, but by the time we arrived at the hilltop town of Byumba, Placide reported, somewhat dejected, that Uganda had won 3 - 0!

At the Diocesan Guest House we were heartily greeted by a tall jovial man, who introduced himself as Jimmy, the new manager.  It seems, as in Kigali, there have been a few improvements over the past 12 months. As with Kigali, when we requested our daily jerry cans of water, the management implied that this was no longer necessary, and that hot water would  issue from the shower - we’ll see!  In Kigali, the new fangled solar power unit, which offered great promise, only delivered hot water on occasions and certainly not in sufficient quantity to match the number of guests!  We had taken to the habit of pushing notes under each others’ doors at strange times of the night, when we actually found the system to be working!

After only 5 minutes in his new room in Byumba, Paul commented that there was no water coming out of the tap, but it appeared that the shower units, which were only cosmetic last year, might finally have been plumbed in … we wait with bated breath!

Placide joined us for dinner and we tried on several occasions to determine what the plan was for the morrow.  He seemed to be very evasive, or simply ‘very Placide’ and was keen to discuss the plans with Andy alone, whilst the rest of the team was dismissed!  The meeting is supposed to be lasting an hour, but it will probably be running to Placide-time!  He has already confused us all by announcing that the English service will be at 2am tomorrow morning.  There was a sharp in take of breath on our part (especially from Jonathan, who was destined to preach!) Suddenly this brought back memories of last year and a major point of confusion, as traditionally Rwandans count their day from sun-up at 6am, which meant that Placide’s 2am was actually 2 hours after sunrise ie 8am!  I’m sure this will not be the last point of confusion during our week in Byumba!

Once again we thank the Lord for all that we have been able to be part of in Gasabo diocese and pray that whatever lies ahead here in Byumba, we will bring glory to Jesus and be a blessing to his Church.

Until tomorrow - good-night.

Grace, Isobel, Hannah, Paul, Jonathan and Andy