Rwanda 2015 | Day 13

Wow! I can’t believe it’s been so long since my last Rwanda recap. Our trip was months ago but on top of the holidays and the pregnancy, unfortunately, these posts {all posts!} got pushed to the back burner. Even though it’s no excuse, I’ve actually been dreading finishing our recap because it’s just a reminder that I will not be traveling back to Rwanda this year. I know, I know…that was my choice, but it doesn’t make it any easier, especially on this emotional mama!

But for the sake of completeness, I really want to get these post done!

Thursday | September 24th

Remember Matilda the dog from the past two days? Well before we headed to the school that morning , we stopped by the restaurant to tell the guard that we had found a home and we would be back that evening to pick it up. He said if he saw it that day, he would try to keep it there until we got back. He was like a totally different man than the one he was the night before chasing Matilda with a club.

Thursday was a national holiday so the kids weren’t in class. This gave us an opportunity to sort and distribute the clothes we had brought with us.

With the help of the teachers, we went through each article of clothing and pair of shoes and determined 1. who had the most need and 2. who could fit what.

We started writing the list of the kids with the most needs on the board and realized that part of our Bible verse from the day before didn’t get erased. But how true is this picture? Christ died for all of us, even the little children all over the world.

We labeled all the stacks of clothes and then started home visits, asking the kids to meet us at the school later that afternoon.

I will never tire of these views.

This couple simply wanted a picture together. Pure sweetness, right there.

I tried my hardest to get this little girl in the pink on video because she had the cutest voice but every time I tried to record her, I got this…

I have found in my past two years of traveling to Rwanda that there are very few older people, in comparison to the number of people under the age of 40. I can only assume this is due to the fact that they had a horrific genocide in Rwanda in 1994. Listening to this lady speak about her family just amazed me.

Amber got to see her buddy, Chance, from last year, who had since changed schools.

And got her two front teeth in!

With smiles like this, it isn’t too hard to figure out why I will miss this country so much, is it?

After a few more home visits, we headed back to the school.

By the time we made it back, we had a crowd waiting for us.

One by one, we called the kids in and gave them their new clothes and shoes.

Sweet Joice and her mother got new coats.

While we fitted shoes for the kids that weren’t on our list, Amber kept the rest of the children occupied.

You guys, we thought we had enough stuff for maybe 20 kids but every time we went back to those totes, there was always something in the bottom. We ended up giving close to 70 kids at least one article of clothing or pair of shoes. It was like the loaves and fishes! How wonderful is the God we serve?

And then Alexi showed up at the very end and made Jessica’s whole day!

That Batman hat, though.

This t-ball jersey was Cory’s sister’s and she has held on to it for all these years. Before we left for Rwanda, she gave it to Cory and asked him to give it to someone special. Ndguntse was definitely a special little boy to Cory.

But we couldn’t forget about Jean Pierre. If it were up to Cory, these two little boys would have come home with us.

Before we left for the day, we spent a little time with the dusty kids in the school yard.

Hot Pie may be our first biological child but these sweet babies will always hold a special place in our hearts.

That big toothless grin, y’all.

This little one was good from a distance. 

But when I got too close…

Poor thing was terrified.

We said our goodbyes for the day and headed back to Musanze.

Poor Kenny had to ride in the back almost everywhere we went.

There was a church behind our hotel and when we got back that day, the choir was practicing. Cory was in disbelief that he actually traveled to Africa and heard “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” for real.

After getting cleaned up, we headed back to Volcano Lounge to look for the dog. If she was there, we had full intentions of driving all the way back to Shaba from Musanze (35-minutes+) to drop her off with Onesme. Unfortunately, it was raining that night and we spent over an hour waiting at the restaurant for her, whistling for her, and Cory and Kenny even walked up and down the street looking for her. But we never saw her. We were pretty bummed but at least she had somewhere she was staying that was warm and dry. Come to find out the next morning, she showed back up and the gate keeper called to tell us she was there. We had to be back in Kigali that evening and we couldn’t manage a trip back to Nyabihu but he mentioned she came from the same hotel he had always seen her leaving, behind the restaurant. We hated that we weren’t able to get her to Onesme but we were okay with it, knowing that she probably lived at and had someone taking care of her at the hotel. Wouldn’t it have been awful if we had taken someone’s dog???

Rather than eating pizza for the third night in a row, we just headed back to the hotel and ate all of our snacks. The hotel staff pointed us in the direction of a microwave so we popped a couple bags of popcorn {that we had picked up in Kigali} and showed Kenny and Gaudence a true American Sloan-style dinner of popcorn, Coke and Little Debbie cakes. While I’m not sure Gaudence agreed it was a proper meal, she did enjoy it! This photo was taken when Cory busted us snacking down!

Wanna catch up on Rwanda 2015?

Getting There, Days 1 & 2
Days 3 & 4
Days 5 & 6
Days 7 & 8
Day 9
Day 10
Day 11
Day 12
A Glimpse Into Our Trip

You can see our Rwanda 2014 trip recaps here and Rwanda 2013 trip recap here.