Rwanda Day 2: Sunday July 18

July 18

In the morning I had breakfast with Philbert and Sophie. They were heading off to meet Sophie’s father and brother for church. And I was heading out to meet up with an American group--we were not going to church. Philbert has a wonderful sense of humor and gave me a horribly bad time about my not going to church today. I was hoping I would get to go to Steven’s church today but there was another plan in the works which I was pleased to join in with. And Steven was to be there! So he wasn’t going to be at his church either!

One of the serendipitous things of this trip is that a group of Americans from Seattle are here in Kigali visiting Steven. Also a friend from Amahoro who lives in Portland, Kelly Bean, is also here. They are all staying at the AEE Guesthouse. From Philbert’s house it is only a 5 minute walk. So today I walked to the guesthouse in the morning to meet up with Kelly to learn more about the scope of Steven’s work and to learn about the work she has been doing since arriving in the country last week.

When Steven arrived we gave each other a huge hug. We’ve been communicating these last 3 years and it was so cool to see each other again. We chatted about our families a bit before heading out for the day’s work. Kelly and the American group have been working to learn more about the village that Steven and his wife Providence are serving. There are a large number of widows and orphans in the community of Gasoni. The group of us walked around the village visiting several kids homes. Two of them have not adult living with them but instead they have a child head of household. We visited 2 boys homes and 1 girls homes. The girls home had an adult living with them. I can’t imagine being a kid and running a household!

Later on in the afternoon Kelly and I went with Steven and Gloria (a member of Steven’s church and a translator) to one of the projects Steven has been working on with the widows. The project is called “New Destiny” and it is a cooperative. Sewing machines have been purchased and a tailor has come in and given some instruction to the women. From what I gathered the cooperative exists not just for learning how to sew but to work together to help each other survive the struggle of intense poverty. The women are working together to come up with ideas and plans to help them make money. This is not easy as I heard yesterday. Kelly called this meeting with the ladies to learn how their committee works and to learn what struggles and challenges they are facing. I listened in and was amazed by the challenges they face. I was also enlightened to the complications presented with the original sewing project. So far it hasn’t helped bring in income. There are not enough sewing machines. It sounds like they still need more skills. The machine qualities is poor compared to market quality. The location of the project isn’t conducive to market. The ladies are needing to give time to survival and so it has been hard to give time to sewing when it doesn’t produce a solution to their hunger, their need for school fees, or their needs for medicines, etc. Also they talked about how hard it is to purchase materials for themselves. As the meeting went on I saw so clearly the challenge before us. It is not that easy to come up with sustainable enterprises with people. There are way more issues at stake than I could imagine and I can see it is going to take all of us time, patience, and a willingness to fail at first in order to get where we ultimately want to go. That is we hope to see these ladies find a way of supporting themselves.

When I returned to Philbert’s home I looked down at my feet and they were covered in red dirt. I had arrived just in time for dinner. Philbert had a group of pastors and friends over. They were sitting on his porch when I arrived. Something in me said I should go and wash my feet and I laugh because it dawned on me that this is what they’d do in the Bible times. I’m so used to being clean but this place is dusty. At least the village was. So I washed my feet before entering the company of the guests and was reminded that I had been a part of something actually pretty biblical today. No, not just in washing dirty feet. That is silly. But in being with the widows and being a part of a group that is trying to work with them to find a solution for how they might support themselves. As Kelly recounted the history of our relationship with Steven and their community it dawned on me that the space we participated in today was holy space. All over scriptures it talks about caring for the widow and here we were a part of something like this. So as I washed my feet before entering into the party I felt grateful that in a very small way I participated in the Kingdom today.