Tuesday August 8th:

There was much hilarity from our team at the breakfast table when Jonathan asked Paul if he had thought of trying a hair dryer.  The comment was to do with getting rid of condensation on Jonathan’s video camera, but, out of context it seemed a ridiculous thing to suggest to a man with no hair! It was a  good start to the day. 

We set off in the same teams to the parishes of Bumbogo and Kinyinya; Jonathan joined the Kinyinya team.

Bumbogo is a very special parish.  The presence of the Anglican church there goes back to 1933.  It was then a local congregation of a bigger parish.  It is also mentioned by name in one of the verses of the Kinrwandan version of the hymn, ‘Jesus saves’.  They love to sing, clap, drum and generally be exuberant.  They shared their news and we shared ours.  There is now a village church in Rwanda faithfully praying for the UK.  We inspected the preparation of the latrine for the school and the dodgy and extremely dangerous welding for the pre-school building project that is taking place.  Liberata, the pastor’s wife, has the reputation in the American team of being the best cook and we endorse that after experiencing her hospitality.  Finally, we had fun doing the interview with Pastor Didace and Liberata and their youngest son, with the microphone securely clipped to the nose of a toy monkey and with much laughter. 

Kinyinya:

This morning we drove only a short distance towards the edge of the city, until our navigator Nicholas, instructed Andy to turn right.  We were still on a metalled road within the city limits and there was no apparent place to turn off, but Nicholas insisted, whereupon Andy mounted the curb and headed down a very steep, uneven dusty slope which didn’t really resemble a road at all.  Only a short distance below the main road was a very basic church building beside a bare, dusty yard, sporting a couple of uninviting toilet shacks and a block of 3 classrooms.  Soon Pastor Emmanuel arrived in the rather deserted scene and told us to wait outside in the blazing sun, whilst some chairs were found for us.  Seeking shade, we followed the sound of enthusiastic singing issuing from the church building.  Inside this very basic construction that resembled a barn, rather than a church, a small group of people were kicking up quite a dust as they gyrated exuberantly, thrusting well proportioned African posteriors into the air as their arms reached forwards horizontally into their dancing circle, as they performed a breast-stroke type of motion!

Soon a bunch of chairs had been placed around the edge of a small lean-to meeting room, attached to the church, much like a UK garage, and we were invited in to join the church committee.  Pastor Emmanuel, a retired minister,  is currently looking after this poverty stricken parish, in the absence of a pastor.  He is a well educated man with a good command of English along with his wife Julienne, who runs a wonderful PHARP sewing project in another part of the city.  Emmanuel certainly has a great vision for this parish and had organised his team effectively.  As each catechist and member of the leadership team introduced themselves, Andy tried to jot down their unpronounceable names and areas of responsibility, our translator Rita, soon came to his rescue.  Andy couldn’t decide when the name ended and the next word began!  

All of the team spoke with enthusiasm about the church’s many activities and organisations and it was very clear that the fellowship was vibrant, not reflecting the buildings’ crumbling exterior.  They spoke proudly of their mothers’ union, fathers’ union, girls’ and boys’ brigades to name but a few.  Emanuel explained that one of the largest challenges, which faces several of the small churches on the outskirts of Kigali, is the expansion of the city.  The developers continue to replace the slum areas with better housing and therefore the new residents, with higher expectations, have no interest in worshipping in a tumbled down building such as this church.  Emmanuel has a great plan to renovate the current building and invited us across to one of the nursery classrooms, where he grabbed a piece of chalk and sketched on the blackboard ‘his dream’ for this site.

Whilst we were in the nursery school block, Silvie, one of the teachers requested that Isobel found a link with a nursery school in UK.  The 3 rooms were totally devoid of any equipment, other than a few very basic wooden benches and a black board on one wall.  Taped onto the bare walls were a few hand drawn charts displaying illustrations of animals and foods labelled in 2 languages (with a few misspelled words unashamedly over written with corrections.)  It is alarming to consider that the average child in UK would have more equipment in their one pencil case than these 136 nursery children and their 4 teachers have altogether.  

Whilst we had been inside the nursery classroom, a small group of about 15 brightly clad people had gathered outside the church.  The leader of the group held a large book and was systematically logging contributions of 500 Rwandan Francs from each person present.  This was the church credit scheme in operation, an important initiative in many of these poor congregations.  Each person’s small contribution (the equivalent of 50p) is placed in the pot and the group then discusses who is in the greatest need.  That person then takes all the contributions to meet whatever financial need is most pressing and it is entered into the log book, so that everything is made entirely fair and each member will have their opportunity to benefit from the fund, when they are most desperate.

As we were about to leave, Isobel decided to face the dreaded toilet at the edge of the dusty school yard, but the pastor’s wife suggested to Andy that this would be unwise and that she should wait and they would take us to a restaurant!  Jonathan, who had already inspected and photographed the facilities agreed that this was a sensible decision!

Several of the leadership team, Emmanuel and his wife then duly took us all out to lunch in a restaurant in a busy part of the city, popular with locals.  Emmanuel asked if mushroom soup was ok and we all tucked in to a generous helping of the very thick potage, only to find out afterwards that this was simply the starter, and the usual selection of about 10 other dishes were then to follow for the main course. So, with bulging stomachs we finally arrived back at the hostel to find the Bumbogo team had been back for ages, and had been locked out of our team kitchen - which also doubles as Andy’s room. So the kettle was quickly switched on to Grace’s delight.  

We sat outside enjoying our English cups of tea whilst some of the new arrivals sharing our hostel, a sports ministry team, enjoyed an impromptu game of volley ball in the car park in about 30 degree heat. A pleasant end to another informative and encouraging day.

Thanks for all your prayers and good-night.

Grace, Isobel, Hannah, Paul, Jonathan and Andy