Here are a
few highlights from the past week that I’d like to share with you. I had
the opportunity of getting to meet all the staff from Come and See Rwanda
(CASR). I learned about each one of their ministry opportunities in
Rwanda.
There are two CASR members I want to tell you about specifically, Pastor David and Jane. I met with Pastor David and Jane and they told me all about the compassion ministries that they work with. They told me how I might be of assistance to what they’re doing. I am happy to say I have already been of some assistance. For example, a young man came to the door that needed help with tuition fees for the University of Rwanda (he is also being trained to become a pastor). Pastor David and Jane said they would like to help, but because of the small budget they weren’t exactly sure how they were going to meet the student’s needs. I spoke up and said I would match half of his student fees because that’s the way I felt the Lord leading me. Half of the fee was about US$10. Giving $10 to help this man go to school is just one glimpse of how your money is being used in Rwanda. Thank you, not only on behalf of the student, but also for allowing me to be able to minister in Rwanda. Pastor David, Jane, and I finished our meeting by having a long discussion on what compassion ministries are available here in southern Rwanda and what we might do to expand our compassion ministries. We had many different ideas. One of them is the “One Cow One Family” idea. The idea is this – you give a cow to a family and when the cow gives birth to a calf they pass the calf on to another family. This ministry gives the family responsibility and they learn how to raise a cow. I’m sure I will tell you more about this in the coming weeks and months as we look at different opportunities to help in southern Rwanda.
I want to
talk about Rwandan culture and my experience going to the market for the first
time. One thing you have to realize about people that live in Rwanda is that
they are never on time. They could be 10 minutes late or they could be
two hours late that is just the way they work. It certainly takes some
getting used to. A recent experience of mine with this aspect of the
Rwanda culture came last week when I waited on one of the pastors for over two
hours and he never gave a reason why he was two hours late, he just thought
that was normal. One of my prayer requests for everyone this week is that
God will continue to give me patience in this area.
Going to the
market was quite interesting. Half of the market is an open-air market
while the other half is in the bottom floor of a big building. They have
an area for fruit, an area for veggies, and an area for meat, which are all
within a couple hundred feet of each other. One other thing to note is
the temperature at the market, around 80°F with no refrigeration! The
market has a great variety of fruits and vegetables, some of which I’ve never
seen before! Seeing all of these new fruits and vegetables is pretty
cool. I told the people that I would try anything once and so far the
food has been really good.
I have two more prayer requests for this week. My first prayer request is that I see
where God is working and I can join him at work there. That
we can get the cargo container cleared quickly so that we can have it delivered
directly to us at the lighthouse.