Rwanda 2015 | Day 12

Y’all these weeks…I just can’t keep up! I’ve considered taking a break from the blog until the new year but I do have things I’d like to share with you guys, like my Christmas home tour. We have a Christmas filled weekend and hopefully, I’ll have time to finish my Christmas decorations {yes, I’m not even done!} and snap a few pictures of them. If not, than I’m okay with that too. All about extending myself a ton of grace lately!

Until then, it may just be Rwanda recaps!

Wednesday | September 23rd

Up and at ’em early for another day of Bible school!

By the third day, we finally had the Bible school down pat. We learned how much material to include and how to tell when the kids needed a break.

I love seeing their smiling faces! You can tell Jean-Pierre here is trouble–of course he is. He’s one of Cory’s “posse”.

This right here is how you can tell when they’re just done. Good thing she has a friend to comfort her…

Head and shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes!

Poor little Ndungutse, with his walking stick that he needed after his visit to the hospital {read about that here}. We called him “Ndungutse Musaza” which means “old man Ndungutse”!

We braved the parachute once again. Luckily, we didn’t have any bloody lips this time.

We shared our snacks with some of the “dusty kids” outside.

We had a little extra time before starting home visits for the afternoon, and we always spend our free time outside hanging out with the kids!

The usual Home Visit Entourage in full effect…

Onesme luuuuuvs babies and never passes up a chance to hold one.

Man, the stories these wrinkles could tell. I love the children of Rwanda but can’t help but be in awe of the beautiful women.

Children often wonder around the neighborhoods by themselves or with their older siblings.

We made a new friend. Goats are such a big part of Rwandan life–you really can’t go anywhere without seeing one. BUT cute little sweet little cuddly little baby goats aren’t something you see every day!

By the way, it is NOT advised to handle wild animals in foreign countries. Do as I say, not as a I do.

You guys, all the babies this year. My heart could hardly stand it. We’re just as bad as Onesme.

This sweet girl, y’all. Her mother is a genocide survivor and while she is provided with housing from the government as a result of that, she really struggles to provide for Joice.

We sat and talked for a long time with her mom. She really, really needed some encouragement and prayers!

This is the point where little Joice discovered my hair ge–I mean, hand sanitizer…just watch this video to see what I mean.

You really just can’t beat the views in  Nyabihu.

One of our big reasons for the trip this year was for Cory to shoot footage to use for a promo video for RCRI. He shot something like 45 hours of footage over the course of the month that he was there, so this is pretty much how we saw him every day–trying to get shots!

When we got back to the hotel, they were filming this choir for their own promo video. It was so loud! You could hear them like they were in the room with you, no matter where you went, but man, they were good!

So, remember Matilda, the dog from last week’s post? Well, the saga continues. We went back to Volcano Lounge for supper again Wednesday night and as we were sitting in the restaurant, Matilda comes running in. Following the dog was the gate guard with two HUGE clubs, intending to run her off. Matilda runs behind the table we are sitting at and hides under Cory’s chair. The guy is looking everywhere for her and we are freaking out, seeing that he was going to hit this poor dog. Well, I don’t know what Gaudence said to him because it was in Kinyarwanda but it was loud and it was a lot of words, but she apparently told him to back off the dog, cause he sure backed off. She said she told him that we cared about the dog and he was not going to hurt her in front of us.

At this point, we knew we had to figure out something to do with Matilda. As we were leaving, we asked the guard to please not run it off for one more day and we would try to find a home for it. Yes, even in Rwanda I’m trying to find a home for stray dogs.

We told them we would stop back by the next morning and pick her up, if she was around. We immediately all started to figure out what we could do to help this dog. And Onesme came to mind.

Onesme has cows. In fact, he loves his cows so much that his friends and family say that if a man could marry a cow, Onesme would be the first to do it. And every good cow farmer has to have a cow dog, right? So we texted him some photos and asked if he wanted Matilda and he was really excited. Now all we had to do was find her again and get her in the truck! We all slept easy that night knowing she might have a home.

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
A Glimpse Into Our Trip

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