A little Fragmented

This post starts with a warning. Though the beginning of our trip consisted of a lot of group activities, we have now split into three separate groups, so these posts may be a little fragmented. It is Monday as I'm writing this, but I'll try to go back and catch up on at least my perspective of the last few days. Don't worry, I think you, our faithful readers, are more than intelligent enough to keep everything straight!

Ok, where were we...ahhh yes, we were still back on Saturday.
Dec. 1st. Today was the conference day for men and women. The men were at it all day, and left bright and early in the morning all dressed up and looking spiffy! I've tried to talk a few of them into bringing the "slacks, suits, and ties" look back into church, but they didn't seem too keen on the idea. =) From what I heard about the conference, it was very powerful as the men in Rwanda were challenged in areas of purity, accountability, mentorship and more. I'll let Tim give you the full blown report on the men's conference as he is our leading male blogger. The women had a half-day conference as well today. I felt honored to be able to speak to the beautiful women of Rwanda about the riches of their identity in Christ (using Ephesians 1). As I looked out at the women, I was amazed to think that so many of these women are my sisters and I will have an eternity to get to know them (and without a language barrier praise the Lord!). What really touched me was when another team member of mine, Maggie Modrall, shared her testimony with the women. Because of all the pain Rwandans have been through, as a general rule Rwandans don't open up much but rather place protective walls around their hearts. The church is trying to change this--for there is plenty in the Bible about carrying each other's burdens, confessing our sins to one another, comforting others in their sorrows, etc. So when Maggie got up and was brave enough to basically bare her soul as she told her story, these women were truly touched! I hope her example of vulnerablity will have a lasting impression on these women! Then Florence spoke to the women and challenged her women to be instruments of grace as God designed them to be. I think we all returned from the conferences exhausted, but extremely blessed and humbled to be used for Kingdom building purposes!

Sun, Dec. 2nd
Ok now this entry has to start with a little bit of a confession. I was knocked down with a fever on Sunday, so my thoughts on that day are a little foggy (thus my description might be a little short). Hopefully Tim can fill in a bit or get someone from the team to fill in bits and pieces that I have dropped. Some of us piled into a van and headed out for the beautiful hour drive back to Kayonza to go to church. Once there, we had a time of worship and then it was time for our own Scott Modrall to preach. He preached a wonderful sermon on the story of Namaan, which was followed by some more singing and dancing. *Now let's take a moment to say preparedness is next to godliness...or is that cleanliness...* ANYWAY, apparently there was supposed to be another speaker that morning, but he had not arrived. They asked Scott to preach again, and with about 5 minutes to prepare he pulled out a full sermon on the relationship between Peter and Jesus. We were all pretty impressed, let me tell ya! I think it's safe to say that with everything they had that morning, that was the longest church service I've ever been in. It ran about 3 hours when all was said and done--another striking difference from what most of us experience in America. After this, we had a tour of the Kayonza school and saw all the wonderful things they are doing with the children there. We were grateful to have time for a few more village home visits before heading back to Kigali. There was a graduation at the Women's Center that many from our team went to Sunday evening. I'll have to let Tim take that one as by this time I was flat on my back in bed.

Mon, Dec. 3rd
In case you were wondering, I woke up today without a fever-praise the Lord! I am incredibly thankful becaue I really didn't want to miss out on the day's activities. Today we had another amazing day surrounded by the beautiful Rwandan children. It was our sponsored kids Christmas party day! Now I have to say, though the children's choir sang a Christmas song for us, and we have received reports from home saying it's snowing, I have to tell you that it's hard to feel "Christmasy" when it's 80 degrees outside. Ahh well, I suppose there's due time for that when we return to the States. I can't tell you what a joy it was to see these precious children walking around at this party wearing name tags with their sponsor's name(s) on it. We recognized so many names from our churches--the Friesens, the Schweins, the Campbells, the Dumlers, the Rettmanns, the Fidanzos, the Allisons, the Goodmans, and on and on it went. We were blessed to be able to see these children face to face, and give them a hug and teach them a fun hand-shake, and take their pictures, and tell them that we know their sponsor. I hope you know these children really do care about their sponsors. I can't count how many kids came up asking if I knew their sponsor--they just wanted to have some sort of connection with the peopole who have impacted their lives in such a tangible way! Every "yes I know your sponsor" answer brought a light to their eyes and an immediate smile to their face! During this time we heard from the children's choir, performed our own drama, heard some testimonies, ran some game stations, passed out Christmas party cake, and once again tried out our African dancing skills (and I do think I'm improving slightly with practice...emphasis on the word slightly). Needless to say-to the sponsors the children all send their love; they are praying for you, and they are so thankful that you have blessed them so greatly.

And now, we are a team of three--one group is heading over to hike up and see the gorillas, some are headed out to the Akagera game park, and the true servants...er, I mean the rest of us who will be running the Leadership conference are here at the guest house.

PHEW--If you have read thus far well done. That was a long post--but hey, we've caught up..at least from my perspective of things. Stay tuned for more from Tim! ~LM