Mwiriwe!

On our first Sunday here, we went to an English speaking church full of  both Rwandan’s and other white missionary families. It was a quick 20 minute walk both to and from. The pastor spoke saying, “God speaks quietly in our pleasure, but shouts in our pain.” As he continued, he passionately spoke about, “Owning the vision, and embracing the dream (Prov. 29:18).” Every believer has an inheritance designated to him or her from the Father. It has your name on it! It is stamped and sealed. You own it…you must embrace it. You must rise up. He passionately spoke about being wholehearted. There are several different types of churches. Some are traditional and quite, while others are very loud with dancing, singing, clapping and drums. It was our last day of orientation and today we finally started to have some independence from our “house parents,” Leah and Jordon.

Low down of the day! Today was my first day as a student in Rwanda. Kimmie, Julie, Nicoya and I woke up at 6:00am to get a little workout in before our day started, and then by 7:30am we were ready to head to class. Aidah, our cook, had pancakes and mango slices ready for us for breakfast before we headed out the door. The two classes we have for the first month or so are Social context for community development and Peace Building/Reconciliation.  Social Context is taught by an American man, Dwight Jackson from Procom, an American originated missions group. He came to Burundi from 1981-1988 and then came to Rwanda in 1998. He said the biggest cultural change in Rwanda when he came back was the genuine effort to build a strong equitable society so that a war would not happen again. Rwanda’s challenge was/is…”What will I do when neighboring countries go into chaos?”

Some Background: The Rwandan Genocide was in the spring of 1994 and lasted for about 100 days. Because Rwanda is a neighboring nation with Burundi and they are both small, they have a large impact on one another. Currently in Burundi, a neighboring nation, there is a civil war because they did not develop a strong social context after the Rwandan Genocide. That means, if Burundi has a flare up and the war gets chaotic, Rwanda will be impacted in some way.

My thought is that because Rwanda’s Genocide was so terrible, they had the immediate desire to make change so that nothing like that would ever happen again. Burundi on the other hand was not as harshly affected; therefore, their response to make social change was not as desired.

Our second class, Peace Building and Reconciliation, is at 1:00pm with Pastor Anastase Rugrangoga; he is from Rwanda. During the Genocide, Anastase and his family were in Nigeria working at a church; therefore he escaped the violence and now lives back in Rwanda. He expressed as Americans from a powerful country, we should not get angry, but we should work for peace and community. As this class carries on, we will take a trip to the Genocide Memorial and listen to the story of a survivor.

I am really looking forward to both of my classes. There is a ton of reading that must be done in a small amount of time, but that is about the extent of the workload. Our grades come from reflection papers and a final project, but there are no tests.

After class today, I took my first adventure out into Kigali. Kimmie, Sam and I walked to the market with is called Kimironko in Kinyarwandan. There were so many things I learned about the culture and how to handle different cultural settings just from going out one time.  We went into the market and there was everything!  With no real purpose to be there, we just walked through aisles to see what there was. We quickly learned that as soon as you stop at a booth, you will be “attacked” by all of the Rwandans trying to sell their goods. We bartered to buy some fabric and denied many people as they tried to “advertise” their booth. Trying to communicate across the cultural barrier was difficult, but we were able to manage. It was an overwhelming, exhausting experience that was a little uncomfortable, but with time, it will be a completely different experience. I look forward to buying fun things to bring back to the states.