Rain, Rain.

Sometimes the simple intricacy of rain falling on my body is enough to revive me from whatever is bogging me down. I've been feeling pretty distant the last couple days. Just pondering a lot of things and forgetting to be in the moment. But it rained today (which is extremely rare as it's not the rainy season yet). And if you know anything about me it's that I love the rain. So standing in our front yard, looking out at the hills and getting poured on brought me back to reality. Brought me back to life. It's what I needed. Thank you, God.

Complexity of God.

"I can no more understand the totality of God than the pancake I made for breakfast understands the complexity of me."

- Donald Miller.

Mvuga Icyongereza n'Ikinyarwanda.

I've never taught anybody a new language. So going into PHARP to teach girls English was extremely intimidating at the beginning. Butt we've been going for a few weeks now and it's been fabulous. The girls have been wonderful and patient with us. We've done numbers, colors, days of the week, common greetings, clothing, a couple emotions and today we even ventured into some harder verbs! They are learning English so much faster than we are learning Kinyarwanda. Then again Kinyarwanda is a bit more difficult.

Would you like to learn some?

Mweramutze - Good morning
Murakoze cyane - Thank you very much
Ifunguro rya mu gitondo - Breakfast (try saying that one when you wake up)
Iherena ryo ku gutwi - earring
Kugena ku maguru - to walk

I like it, but I think I'll stick to English for now.


Other than that we've done some great classic songs like "head, shoulders, knees and toes" and the ABCs. My favorite so far has been the song I will call upon the Lord. They seem to really like it and while they don't yet know what it's saying they know it's a praise song and it's great. I'll have to record it sometime and put it on here.






Murabeho!

African Style

Because who wouldn't want a pair of Obama Jeans?

Northern Uganda here I come!

So we have this thing called practicum where for a month we are assigned to a cite in either Uganda, Rwanda or Ethiopia. We got to apply for our top three choices and......

I'm going to Kitgum!

Yes, you may think "Northern Uganda, isn't that the unsafe part of the country?" Well, at one time it was unsafe. The LRA (Lord's Resistance Army) ravaged the area a few years ago- but they haven't been anywhere in Uganda in the last 3 years. (They are now in the Central African Republic... but that's another story that you can follow on BBC if you so desire). Basically Food for the Hungry wouldn't send me there if it was even the least bit dangerous so don't worry.

So yeah, kitgum. There is place there called the New Life Center. It's like a rehabilitation center for women who were abducted by the LRA to be raped, impregnated and terrorized (the LRA was last there 4 years ago). The girls have been released or have escaped and this center is a 12 week program for the girls (many who are young mothers to children from LRA soldiers) to be able to reintegrate themselves into society. Many of them come home to no living family and are traumatized so rehabilitation is extremely important. I have no idea in what capacity I will be working there but it's like an internship so I'm ready for anything.

Check out more: http://fh.org/work/africa/uganda/newlifecenter

I'm thrilled that God has given me this opportunity and I'm excited to see how it works out. I leave for practicum at the end of September! I know this is where God wants me to be and that is by far the most comforting feeling ever.


I'll let you know more when I find out! As for this week... it's my last week of normal classes in Rwanda which is strange because I feel like I just got here! (We don't leave the country for 2 more weeks though).


Oh and today's my birthday and I can think of no better way to spend it than in Kigali, Rwanda.

Kibuye

So we went to Kibuye this weekend and I could go on for days about it but I'll spare you and try to keep it short.

Drive there:
I don't think I've ever been on a windier road than the one we took from Kigali to Kibuye! It wasn't bad though, I've learned to put complete trust in whoever is driving us because each time I swear we are going to die. One interesting thing was that we passed like 30 UN vehicles that were parked on the side of the road that were apparently going to be taken into the Congo. We also passed what looked like a refugee camp which was actually a camp for Hutus that participated in the genocide. They do lots of community service around the country which is cool, good way to use prisoners instead of just making them rot in a prison cell.

So we got to Kibuye (which is situated on the beautiful Lake Kivu) and the first thing we did was jump into the lake and swim to this little peninsula! It was fabulous, the water was so refreshing and it was great to be out of the city. Oh but being in Africa we figured we probably should try to keep the water out of our mouths, but that lasted all of about 5 seconds. As Mallory said "We're all going to get parasites for sure!"

The next day was perfect: I woke up at 6, went to the little beach and read my bible while swinging on a wooden swing until I got the motivation (from Aryn) to go swimming. So I woke my roomie, Christy, up and we swam :-) After lunch we went on a boatride that was out of this world. We went to this island where we son thousands of bats (see below) and then hiked to the top. Oh and we could see the Congo (which is arguably one of the most dangerous places in the world right now).


This morning (Sunday) I woke up at 5:45, met up with Mallory and Noel and went down to the lake. There's a hotel across our area of the lake and we kept talking about how cool it would be to swim there. So we did :-) It took about 45 minutes to get there but it was such a great swim!

This is where we swam^^

Anyhow, Kibuye was amazing. You should all go there next time you're in Rwanda. I also found out what site I'll be at during our 4 week practicum! I'll write more on that later!

These are all the kids from Messiah! ^^^