We made it!

Greetings from Rwanda!

The first thing I’d like to do with this blog is to thank all of you for your prayers, love, and support. Believe me, your friends and family appreciate it and miss you all. Now, before I get into the crazy rollercoaster that was our journey over here, I want to let you know a little about our team and the writers of this blog. Right now we number 14, though by this weekend we’ll be adding 2 more. We represent 4 different churches and have an age range from 17-almost retired. The updates you will be receiving most often will be from Lynn Morrow, who is in charge of our women’s conference, and me, Timothy Keene. I am the head of our drama team and attend Grace Chapel. Though, there will be some days when other members of our team will share something special they experienced as well.

Some things to remember: this blog will not be updated daily. Because of our limited access to the internet, it is impossible for us to predict when we will be able to get posts online. We will be writing a full entry for each day of the trip so multiple days may be uploaded at once. With this in mind, please check back as often as you like to find out what we’ve been doing. By reading this blog you are helping yourself and your loved already know some of the best stories of the trip. Lastly, what you are going to read in this blog will be emotionally all over the map. This trip is going to put a strain on everyone on this team. A lot of what you are going to read is going to be light-hearted, embarrassing, and fun. Some of it is going to be written by someone with tears in their eyes. With all of the small print out of the way, let’s get to the fun stuff!

Nov. 23 & 24 – The Flights

In a trip where it’s expected to expect the unexpected, what happened today was completely expected (this is possibly the greatest sentence I’ve ever written). Let’s start at the airport. Due to some confusion upon check-in, Cindy Gerkman’s bags may not make it to Rwanda. Somehow, the ticket person didn’t put that her bags were going all the way to Kigali, but instead only to Brussels. In fact, United directed almost half the group into the online check-in where the same kind of mistake had a very good chance of happening again. Luckily, we figured it out in time but did Cindy’s bags get there with the rest of them? Stay tuned…

Probably my favorite story so far involves Karen Wooley’s wedding ring. This story epitomizes the idea of not letting setbacks undermine you during this journey. Before takeoff from Portland, she was in the bathroom in the back of the plane. She flushed, washed her hands, and somehow flung her wedding band off her finger and into the toilet. Due to the configuration of the toilet the ring had slipped into the hole that precedes the actual tank that holds all the waste. So, as expected, Karen reached in and tried to grab it. “The hole was really small, so I put two fingers in and started scraping around in there.” After this failed attempt she left the bathroom and asked a flight attendant if she would be willing to help her. Evidently, this was not in her job description. Another attendant tried to help but was also unable to find the ring. Eventually, the pilot came to the back to find out what was wrong. Karen’s response was to send him back to the cockpit, telling him not to worry about it. In a last ditch effort she asked Maggie Modrall, who has very little fingers, to help out. Unfortunately, no one was able to find the ring. And Karen’s response? “I’m starting off right.”

It took over 27 hours for us to reach our destination. In that time we saw two sunsets, one in DC, the other over the Darfur mountains 38,000 feet above Sudan. We watched a ton of movies, some good, some terrible (no one should see “Hot Rod”…ever). We met a ton of very cool people that are using their skills to help Rwanda. This included a couple that ran has been running a tea plantation for about 60 years, a trauma counselor, a Kigali pediatrician, and some people who work at the Genocide memorials. It’s one thing to watch movies and read books about what happened in Rwanda 13 years ago. It’s another to actually talk to the people who were there.

For kicks we decided to stop in Entebbe, Uganda. The pilot said it was because Kigali had no jet fuel so we had to stop to fill up, but I know the real reason. Entebbe has the most fun tarmac ever. You’re not allowed to get out of your seat, use the bathroom, unbuckle your seatbelt, or smoke. So for 30 minutes we sat…waiting…it was awesome. After finally arriving in Kigali we had to wait again for over an hour for our bags to come off. But guess whose bag was the first to come out? That’s right, Cindy. God does provide doesn’t He? Amazingly, we lost no luggage and after being greeted by Fred, Charles, and other members of Africa New Life, we were off to the guest house.

It should be mentioned that the guest house is absolutely amazing. It’s huge, it’s clean, it has hot water, and the cooks are fantastic. We could not ask for better accommodations. But, being that it is Africa, a few mosquitoes still managed to get in, and find some ears to buzz in. Note to self: use mosquito net above bed and don’t panic and run to the bathroom to cover yourself in repellant then go back to bed convinced you’re going to get some crazy disease and die just because you heard what may have been a mosquito.

Lastly, it should be mentioned that Craig McManus slept for a total of 25 minutes between 6am Thanksgiving day and when we arrived in Kigali. This was what was going through his mind shortly before finally passing out, “Lying in bed, I wanted to make a rhyme. What I came up with was something about dogs barking, birds chirping, and Malerone (Malaria drug).” So with that we go to sleep to prepare for the next 2 and half weeks. It’s going to be an adventure, there’s no question about that. TLS