Africa Photo Album

Here is a link to some more photos I’ve posted in a Picasa web album. Have a look…

Africa Photo Album

Refugee women

Refugee women in Uganda

Had a couple great sessions with a group of refugee women living here in Kampala. The first day I asked them to share a bit of their  personal stories with the group- how they ended up her in Uganda. It was very heavy. Every one of these women has experiences of death, separation, and violence. Most have been raped. Most have had children killed, or don’t know where their children are. What do you say to a group like this? Most of them are followers of Jesus so I was able to encourage them with  stories of hope in Scripture. In particular they seemed to connect with the story of Hagar. Hagar, was a slave, a foreigner, a poor woman without status, who was abused and mistreated. When she finds herself alone and living in the desert she is desperate. It seems like she is going to die and that her child is going to die. But something fascinating happens. The Bible says God heard Hagar’s voice/cries/prayers and God speaks to her. God listens to a voice that no one else cared about. We encouraged one another with the idea that God hears us when we cry out to him. He hears the cries of our children. He is with us in our struggles. There is hope.

Hungry Children

Today we participated in a feeding program that Anne and friends regularly have for the children in the slum area where she lives. About  40 or so little kids showed up for a plate of rice and beans served with lots of sauce and a small piece of meat. The 8 year old girls come with the 2 year olds tied on their backs. It is humbling to see these kids devour the food with their hands. No forks or spoons, No complaining about who got more. No picky eaters in this crowd. Every grain of rice and scrap of meat was consumed happily. Then after they finished they all helped out in the back washing the dishes and cleaning up. These kids learn responsibility early in life.

Uganda: It’s people who know struggle who teach us about hope.

Well our time in Rwanda has come to an end and so its time for our team to split up. Dave and Jen Adams, Ron Johnston, and Catherine are on their way back home. Pete and I are traveling to Uganda to spend a few days at a ministry that IT Canada is partnering with in Kampala.  It was bit of a challenge getting our flight to Entebbe today.  We had flight delays and had to get re-booked on an alternative flight which required lots of negotiations and pestering along with being trapped in the lounge in Kigali airport for 7 hours. But we finally made it to Entebbe and were delighted to meet up with Anne Mwangi, the director of the Discipleship Leadership school, and her assistant Moses.

Anne is an amazing woman with huge vision, and equally huge compassion. I like her a lot.She has a heart to show God’s love to the marginalized. So she runs a training school to provide quality Biblical education to church leaders who would not have access to other training opportunities, she provides spiritual and practical support to refugee women who have fled to Kampala, she feeds and clothes the orphans and extremely poor children living in the slum community around her home.

Each of the students in this school has come for 3 months of intensive training to prepare them for ministry. Each of the students has a story of struggle. And a story of hope. Moses is a refugee from Congo who even today faces attempts to take his life. His parents and brother have been killed and not too long ago someone tried to poison him . Mary is a refugee from Kenya who fled with her kids (but left her husband behind) during the most recent conflict in Kenya last January. Gracious is a converted Muslim who faces constant persecution because of his choice to follow Jesus. Rebekah and her husband, a bishop in the church in Congo, are refugees who fled the violence in their homeland and who have applied to the UN to come to Canada. They have 14 children, some of whom are still in Congo being cared for by relatives. They all love Jesus and they all exude a spiritual wisdom, a deep hope that sustains them through incredibly hard times . This hope I think only comes through struggle.

“Pastor Peter” as they call Pete here, is doing a superb job of teaching . The translators are a bit sketchy and I think some of the content is ‘lost in translation’. But the heart of what Pete is teaching is coming through and well-received. It is challenging as there are so many different languages  being used -Lugandan, Kinyarwandan, Swahili, Lingala, French, English etc. Anne asked Pete to teach on Servant Leadership, and the Father heart of God. He is also doing a couple sessions on the Gospel of John -kind of a condensed version of what he taught in Rwanda. As in Rwanda the students have tons of questions. Some are tricky to handle as they are connected to very controversial issues here -like the use of alcohol. This always comes up when Pete teaches on the Miracle at Cana and Jesus turning water into wine. Definitely lots of interesting dialogue happening.

Bujumbura bound

We faced a big disappointment when we found out that the United Nations will not let us go to the refugee camp to do the training time that was planned with pastors and their wives in that camp. Apparently they are doing some sort of census and don’t want outsiders coming in. Very disappointing-and we suspect there is more to it than that. Rumours have it that people in the camp have not received food for 2 months now. Conditions there are not good and perhaps they don’t want visitors to see the realities.

Since we can’t go to the refugee camp a few of us decided to us that time to make a quick visit to Burundi. Burundi is a neighbouring country to Rwanda and similar in many ways. I was especially eager to see this country since it is the place that several refugee friends in Canada (like Gisele and her girls) call home . The 6 hour bus ride from Kigali to Bujumbura was fantastic. The scenery we saw on the way was some of the best i have ever seen. Sooo beautiful.

My internet time is up so i will have to finish this next time. stay tuned!

Training Update–Amazing People and Challenges in Need of Prayer

The latest update from Alison in Rwanda

Saturday, November 1st–
Finally a chance to get on the internet. We just arrived back from the pastoral training sessions, everything there went really well. It was a very full couple of days it felt like we crammed about a weeks worth of stuff into 2 days. It was rather emotionally draining for all of us.

Our time with the pastors and their wives was amazing. About 50 pastors and church leaders from all over Rwanda gathered in a hostel in the middle of a field on the outskirts of a town called Nygatarre, in north-eastern Rwanda. They spent a week together trying to cram in as much learning as possible. Pete, Ron and Dave were each teaching intensive courses on the Gospel of John, 1 Thessalonians, and an Old Testament overview. It seemed every waking moment was filled with either teaching sessions, or informal conversations about the Bible and about Christian living. These church leaders had so many questions that they probably could have filled the entire time just doing question and answer sessions.

Midway through the week about 25 of their wives joined us. We had some great sessions with these women as we shared testimonies, and worshipped together. It is hard to describe in words what it is like to worship with 25 African women who are crying out to God with all their hearts. All Ican say is that it is amazingly beautiful, and I am sure God was pleased. Catherine, Jen and I led some teaching sessions for them that covered topics like Spiritual Gifts, Relationship vs religion, Lessons from Dorcas, Mentoring etc. It was my first time to speak with a translator -but we had an incredibly talented young woman translating for us and it went pretty smoothly. the biggest frustration was not being able to just talk freely with people in informal conversation due to the language barrier. At the end of one of our teaching sessions where we talked about servanthood we chose to walk around the room and rub hand cream into each of the ladies hands as we prayed for them. it was a very moving experience. The pastors had a similar time in their sessions as they ended one of their sessions with a time of foot washing.

there is so much more i could say but I will wait till I get back and can show you some pictures and share a bit more about the incredible people we have had the privilege of spending some time with here.

Prayer Needs
The sad news which you may not have heard is that we just found out last night that Ron’s sister who he is very close to just died. That was a huge blow for him. He is going to try and get home for the funeral. He couldn’t get a flight for today but will leave tomorrow afternoon which should still get him there in time for the tues service. Although it is hard, it is actually good that he didn’t’ find out until right after the training was over. it was actually immediately after the graduation and communion service that that he found out.

The other problem is that on our 3 hour trip back to Kigali today Dave Adams became quite ill. He is vomiting, and weak and seems to have some sort of stomach bug. He was supposed to preach tomorrow at church but likely won’t be able to do that. Pete might have to do 2 services! Catherine has had a bit of stomach troubles, but not enough to stop her from participating in everything. So far I have been OK, trusting that will continue.

The refugee camp is still unsure. I don’t think it is directly related to the Congo problems, but apparently the UN is wanting to do a census there and so doesn’t want outsiders coming in. We have heard that conditions in the camp are not good, so that might be part of it. But there is still a chance we can go, so please keep praying as we would really like to go.

A Light Shining in the Darkness

Sometimes you think you have seen poverty up close enough times that it won’t affect you emotionally. Today I had the opportunity to spend some time with some people living in extreme poverty and it stirred something very deep in me. I find myself constantly holding back tears as we visit some amazingly godly, but extremely poor families.

One of the things that IT is doing here in Kigali is helping to get street kids off the street and in a more stable setting. So they try to find homes for them to live in and help them enrol in school. The families who have taken in these kids are families that you might least expect to want to help. They are living in small shacks, without electricity, and are struggling to make ends meet. But they have these hearts that are so full of compassion and love that they are willing to take in street kids to live with them. It is quite phenomenal. I wish you could meet Philipe who together with his wife has taken in many kids. If you saw their home you might be tempted to think that nothing good could come out of there. It’s just a dark dingy room made of mud walls and not much else. Philipe and his wife are HIV positive and are unemployed. But we felt Gods love in very tangible ways in that place. They serve God with humility, and joy. It is a light shining in the darkness for sure.

Dorthy and some of her children

Today we also went back to visit the woman, Dorothy, who is very sick with AIDS. It was so encouraging to see that she was doing better today. She was able to sit up and talk with us. It seems the prayers, and the milk, have helped give her some strength. We prayed again with her asking for God to keep restoring her strength and to provide for her family. If you think of it you could pray for them too.

Tomorrow we head up to Nyagatare, a town about 3 hours drive away, so you might not hear from me for awhile. But please pray for our time with the pastors’ wives and other female leaders as we teach and interact with them. We will be speaking via translators which is new for us. May our time together be meaningful to them and help to spur them on in their walk with Jesus.

Moureen’s Place

Today Catherine and I visited Moureen’s place. Moureen is an African woman who is trying to help women who have been involved in prostitution and their children. She does this with pretty minimal resources, they have a great piece of land that IT has helped them rent where several of the woman and dozens of children live in small, rundown rooms. They are trying to help the women get trained in other sources of livelihood like basket making and tailoring so that they can provide for their families. They also have a church that meets their on Sundays and Moureen is trying to provide spiritual support and direction for the women.

Today when we arrived we were greeted by about 20 skinny little kids in extremely ragged clothes eager to hold our hands and play. So we brought out some balloons, skipping ropes and a beach ball and had a spontaneous kids club. Very fun!

On the sobering side we visited one of the women who live there who is dying of AIDS. She and her 9 kids live in one of the smallest houses I have ever seen. It is one room about the size of our bathroom at home. It is hard to imagine that they could all fit in their standing up, let alone lying down to sleep. It broke our hearts to see this woman so sick and with so little for us to do to help. We prayed for her and left some money to buy her some food. May God intervene in this woman’s life in ways that only He can do.

Dancing with the Rwandan Church

Hi there,

Getting an internet connection is a little sketchy here. It seems that every time it rains (which is every day) it goes out. Yesterday was a quiet day in the morning. They have this thing here in Rwanda that once a month on a Saturday morning everyone has to come out and participate in this big community project. So all the stores and businesses are closed and every one helps on a particular project the city is working on. I guess that is one way they are making such good progress in the development around the city. As visitors we were exempt though!

We went to church this morning which was a treat. The worship was wonderful and even though we couldn’t understand the words it was loud enough that we could just sing along making up our own words and it just blended in. I love the way they incorporate their cultural dance and music into their worship. For sure in heaven the Rwandans will be teaching us Canadians how to dance for the Lord! They provided translators for both Catherine and I which we really appreciated so that we could understand most of what was happening.

The men on our team are already up at Nygatare and are in the midst of the pastors training. Please pray for them. They are teaching on the gospel of John, Thessalonians, and an overview of the Old Testament. They will be covering some issues that are controversial here (like the use of alcohol) and they will need wisdom as they interact with the pastors around these kind of topics. Pray for Catherine , Jen and I as we prepare for our teaching time with women which starts on Wednesday. The sessions I am doing are on the body of Christ, spiritual gifts, and mentoring.

Our Team has Landed!

Thursday 10/23
Today is the first day we have access to internet. The trip was very long but we didn’t have any problems. We are all sleep-deprived but better after having slept last night in a horizontal position. All of our luggage arrived at the same time as us so that was great. Jen and Serge (and Isabella-what a cutie!) met us at the airport and are taking good care of us.

Kigali seems to be prospering and has changed significantly since the last time I was her 4 years ago. A lot of new buildings, streets paved, nice boulevards with plants down the main streets. Quite impressive. This morning we took the group to the Genocide memorial. Since the genocide is such a significant event underlying everything in life here it is important that we have that understanding fresh in our minds and hearts as we begin our time here. It is extremely well done and very moving.

The guys (Pete, Dave and Ron) head up to Nyagatare tomorrow to begin getting ready for the start of the Pastors training. Catherine and I will stay in Kigali and connect with some of the ministry stuff that is happening here. We are eager to do that.

Friday 10/24
Today the men head up to the town where the pastors training will happen. It’s about a 3 hour drive from here. Before they leave we will assemble binders with all their notes in to give to the pastors.

The weather here is great! On the cool side but comfortable with just a t-shirt and sandles, so probably warmer than at home!

more soon.