here are 2 updates. I’ll update about today later.

July 29, 2008 – RWANDA

Day 3 at the boys home. We finally opened our clinic at the home for the villagers and for the orphans. Today we made it a point to clean the children and adults feet today. Kay, the nurse on our team, said that she has never seen feet like these children before (and she has gone on practically every mission trip in every part of the world). You think that you are wiping off dirt, but really you are wiping off chunks of blood. It’s quite disturbing. After we wash their feet we give them new shoes. Which reminds me, we have had 80 pairs of brand new women’s sneakers donated to us from State College. But, the officials are not letting us have them because they think we are going to sell them. Please pray that we can get these sneakers out, these people are in dire need of shoes.

To keep the children occupied and out of clinic, I took some of them out and sang songs with them. Again, they really like the song “Every Move I Make”, so therefore, all we sing is the “na na na’s” and it is driving me crazy! I’m really going to hate that song when we arrive in the states. And no, it is not a good idea to great me when I come back with that song. But I also introduced the lovely game of “Link Tag” brought to me by my intern buddy, Simeon at FPC-Bethlehem. They really really liked it… but halfway through the game I had to leave because I started to feel dizzy and dehydrated. Apparently my skin turned green. But I was able to rest up for 2 hours (I really thought I rested for like 10 minutes… guess I was out of it), which was good.

Tomorrow we will go into the capital, Kigali and see the Memorial for the 1994 genocide. Then one of the boys from the home will show us where he came from. It’s going to be a packed day, so hopefully we don’t feel tired and dragged.

Please keep in prayer:
-health of the team
-our clinic
-the shoes so that we may finally get them
-and that “Every Move I Make” doesn’t make me go insane =)

July 30, 2008 – RWANDA

Today was a pretty hard day, really pact and I am super tired. I woke up this morning with a cold. My nose is all congested, my head hurts, and I am just not feeling all too well. I took some allergy stuff, Tylenol and things—- I am thinking I got sick from the dust. We are in dry season here in Rwanda and everything is just completely dry…my skin, my throat, eyes.

We got a big van taxi to take us into the capital, Kigali, and we went to the Memorial Center for the Genocide. It was really hard to take in. I saw the mass graves, and they are still creating more mass graves—-they are still finding bodies. Someone laid their prayer beads on top of one of the skull cases…that was really powerful to me. We also visited a church in Kigali that serviced thousands of people but had grenades thrown in to kill those inside.

I think it started to hit me more today that the boys that we are working with in Byimana are the future of Rwanda. There is so much after effects from the 1994 genocide, and today there are still Hutu Extremists (but a very very little percentage). I learned today that someone almost a year ago threw a grenade at the memorial site. The country is silent, but deep down inside there is something in every Rwandan—sadness, fear, loneliness, and devastation.

Later on at night one of the boys, Hdimana, from Umuryango met up with us to show us what part of the street in Kigali he lived in. Our group of amzungu (white people) got out of our taxi van when it was dark out to see where he lived. It probably wasn’t the best idea, because we had crowds and crowds of people surrounding us and not much light for us to see. We started to discuss how there are four boys on that street where Hdimana once lived to take back with us, but things got a little difficult and one of the men on the street started to yell. So part of our group departed and tried to make it back safely to the van. But while we were there I learned that Hdimana has a brother named Jean Claude… he once lived at the home but then decided to go back to the streets (this reason we do not know why), but while we were there Jean Claude said he wanted to come back. We are working on arrangements for that.

Street children are considered trash in Rwanda. Once they reach the age of 8, no one cares for them. People hit them, throw them around, and pretend like they don’t even exist. It’s nice to be part of a group that cares for these children. Even though we are here for only 2 weeks, at least we have three other people on our team that are living here for 6 months. There is so much work to do here, but the question is… where do we begin? And how do we keep continuing our progress? I hope that they live to be beautiful children, and that we may leave them an impression of Christ. I pray that they will be rebirth with His love from this day on.

I wish I could write more and show you what I wrote in my journal today when I was at the gravesite and the church, but I am really not feeling so well and I must head to sleep. Pray that all the colds that most of us have go away, they are miserable.