July 7, 2018

r w a n d a ,

kabuga, rwanda

month 10 – and i am overwhelmed. this is going to be a very difficult month for many reasons, mostly what is required of us every day (long ministry days), and because of some of the physical requirements (i.e. hiking up a mountain every day to get to ministry) – God is helping me find joy in the small moments but prayers for endurance and perseverance would be greatly appreciated. though overall, this is a beautiful country and the people are so sweet & kind.

location: kabuga – outside of kigali. it is more of a rural area. the weather is warm, sunny skies, no rain. nice breeze sometimes. it is difficult to get back into the city from where we are. we are on the other side of a mountain from the city, so it required ~4 mile hike up the mountain to get to a main road, to find a bus, to take that bus to our church. to find wifi it requires more hiking and additional buses and takes over 2 hours. lots of winding red dirt roads, very green though overall.

language: english! and kinyarwanda.

ministry partner: victory church. we are partnered with pastor jon and his church this month. his church has been around 19 years or so from what i understand and their primary outreach is evangelism in the area and church planting. they also have a school in the rural area we are in for kids who may otherwise not get to attend school, which is really cool. still learning more and we have yet to hear his testimony and more about his family, but so far they are all incredibly kind and on fire for spreading the love of Jesus. we have a guide every day, his name is January, and he is funny and always gets us where we need to go.

lodging: we walked in only to find our picture alli sent our host staring at us. when they got it, they hung it up, and have been praying for us every day and wanted us to know this is our home and we are welcome, which was incredibly kind and overwhelming. we are staying in the pastor’s home with his family, which is nice but definitely limited space. katie and i are sharing a room and bed and mosquito net, so we are getting to know one another a lot better! we do have a toilet and a cold shower which is a blessing for sure. and the family cooks all our meals! the pastor and his wife are amazing cooks. definitely a lot of rice and beans though for sure. we have a little living room that we all meet and eat our meals in. but it’s definitely a month where we cannot escape each other – always someone or a group of people everywhere you go, so that’s been interesting.

what are we doing? it will vary a little week to week but so far it looks like this: we get up at 7:30 am for breakfast and walk over to the school by about 8:30. from 8:30 to 12 we teach 4-7 year olds with christopher, who is an amazing and kind teacher. and we get to play with the kids. they are so sweet and well behaved and so smart! then we go back for lunch and leave around 2:30pm for our hike up the mountain, which is about 4 miles, to get to a bus stop to take the bus to the main church location by 4pm. we then spend time with the church members worshipping and fellowship, and then go out to evangelize in the neighborhood and invite people to church. then one of us is responsible for preaching a 30 minute sermon. we get done around 8pm and then drive home, getting home between 9 – 9:30 pm, eat dinner, and go to bed. on sundays we will get up very early to walk to church and someone will preach and then we will run sunday school and walk back home for fellowship with the family we live with. our off days will vary, and some saturdays we will attend a bible study for youth at the local school.

long days

long walks

long (ing)

i have had to pray every day

to surrender what i feel

“entitled” to.

surrending my right to:

space, alone time, time in general, transportation…

a reminder to surrender myself to

God’s will, what He has for me here, and the hard long walks

(every. single. day).

in doing that, He has been faithful