Rwanda Part 2

How can mere words describe my adventures in Rwanda this summer. How did I, an overweight, arthritic and bent over, retired Canadian farmer end up half way around the world in a tiny little country no bigger than our Vancouver Island or the state of Maryland? 

Sunrise over Akagera Wildlife Park 

It was the dry season and dust was everywhere, especially behind us as we drove up and down and around hills for hours each day. As the crow flies, it might have been a few miles from our Convent guest house to the church on top of the hill, but there are no straight roads in Rwanda. 

It truly is The Land of a Thousand Hills and it felt like we drove up and down or around each one. There were a few scary moments, but the magnificent views more than made up for that.

One night we even drove out after dark for an hour over the bumpiest dirt roads ever, to get a glimpse of the glow of lava refection off the smoke of an active volcano across the border into the Democratic Republic of Congo. Don't tell anyone, but we might have accidentally made an illegal trip across the border into the DRC without our passports. We just wanted to look and drove into the parking lot before the border crossing checkpoints. We tried to turn around to drive the bus back out but were directed to drive around the new building that was not there a short time ago. Well, on the other side of the building, a man in uniform motioned for us to stop and asked for our passports. Oops. They were safely locked up in our hosts' safe back in the city. Our driver, host and a native Rwandan pastor stepped out to have a chat. Fortunately, the pastor had his passport on him. Who carries their passports in their own country? A few days later we were clear on the other side of the country within view of Tanzania and on the flight home, our plane touched down in Burundi for 20 minutes. We flew through Ethiopia and finally Paris on the way home. But I digress. The border line had moved  a few yards east since the last time our host was there.

The purpose of the trip was by invitation of the Legal Representative of the Rwanda Baptist Churches to come teach Sunday School teachers and pastors a method of doing Vacation Bible School. The Legal Representative was in South Africa two years ago at the World Baptist Youth Conference as was one of the pastors on our team. They both had a vision from God telling them to train the Sunday School teachers in Rwanda to teach the children. 

So there we were. Ten of us. Five have been on short term mission trips before and five were first timers. Each of our team had their own translator to help us understand what was going on. 

 We taught the Hook-Book-Look-Took method that most of us take for granted since we have used this format in our churches since the days of the Ark. But these guys taught by reading verses and making the children repeat them until they learned them.

So, each day for six days we drove for an hour up to the church on the hill. It was roughly 5000 feet elevation and cooler than below. We were at a mere two degrees below the equator and I regretted leaving my sweater at the guest house, especially when it rained so loudly when my son-in-law the pastor was preaching. He was glad he had to wear a suit and tie that day. It was a big church and there were at least a thousand people there on the Sunday. Children everywhere.

We were blessed to hear our own African Children's Choir sing and dance. And boy, can they dance - the Tamba - a traditional dance. The children sang incredible songs retelling countless Bible stories.

Monday we taught the 80 invited teachers and pastors the method and did some games and crafts to reinforce the Bible lesson. It was fun to see all the women stand in a tight circle then slowly sit on the lap of the person behind them. Team work.

But most surprising was for them to see our pastors right in the middle of the games running around and sitting on the floor.

Pastors do not do those sort of things. Pastors wear suits and jackets and ties and proper shoes no matter how hot it is. Protocol.

Tuesday we had about 100 children from the village come for the program. Each teacher had two or three little ones to escort and assist throughout the three days. Somehow, we ended up with 210 children by the third day. 

I was part of the teaching the Bible story group. I like to teach Bible stories. I have done this for nearly 40 years. We used finger puppets for one story. For another, we laid two benches on the floor sideways to create a boat then picked 12 disciples and a Jesus to tell the story. The rest of the children were the waves and wind. It was noisy and glorious. 

One of the mottoes we use on our missions trips is "All plans are subject to change no matter how often they have already been changed." We had to be flexible and ready to make new plans. So on the third day two of our youngest team members spent a whole 30 minutes over breakfast creating a dramatization of the four friends who carried their sick friend through the crowds then down through the roof for Jesus to heal.

She jumped up dancing! What fun to teach the teachers and pastors to teach the Bible stories in fun creative ways.

One of the teaching groups did outside activities to reinforce the Bible story. Running games

and cooperative games

Another group did crafts and songs. 

These children had never held paint brushes in their hands before and were eager to show off their accomplishments. 

It was the dry season but it rained each place we went. They say there that rain is a sign of God's blessings. So we were blessed and they were blessed and the dust settled a bit on the roads.

Sunset over Lake Kivu 

To be continued . . .

Blessing, 
Chris