Rwanda 2014 Day 5: Church in Africa

Catch up on Part 1 of our Rwanda trip here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here

SUNDAY | September 14th

We got to “sleep in” on Sunday and didn’t have to be at breakfast until 8:15am. I’m not sure Cory slept a wink because he was so nervous about preaching. He had himself so worked up, he couldn’t even eat breakfast. Cory doesn’t pass up meals.

When we got to Nyabihu, church had already started but Ben planned it that way so things would be rolling by the time we got there.

Church in Rwanda is on a whole ‘nother level. There’s no band with expensive equipment or fancy light show, and they don’t need it. Heck, they were thrilled just to have power for half the service. And when they lost it, the choir didn’t even skip a beat. Someone just walked over to a traditional skin drum and picked up right where the music left off. Actually, I didn’t even realize they had lost power until Cory mentioned it after the service. They pulled it off so smoothly, I thought it was planned.

I’ve always prided our church on being free in the Holy Spirit but we’ve got nothing on the Rwandans. Experiencing how genuine and free they are in their relationship with God was breath of fresh air. Oh, how I long to be that free- to be so moved by His mighty way that I hold absolutely nothing back. To be less concerned about what everyone else around me thinks if I want to dance, jump, scream or shout!

It was truly beautiful.

We got put on the spot to sing Amazing Grace and it was pretty awful {and awkward}. We didn’t even make a dent into the volume that the Rwandans were pulling off. Thankfully, Gaudence stepped in and started singing in Kinyarwandan and made it a whole lot less awkward.

Poor Gaudence, can’t take a picture to save her life.

I filmed Cory preaching so don’t have any pictures but as always, he did a fabulous job.

After the church service was over, they herded all the kids into the school for Sunday School. We were invited to take part, speak a few words, and sing some songs with them. It was a really cool time to love on the kids that don’t go to school at Nyabihu Christian Academy that we otherwise don’t get to interact with.

When Sunday School let out, we were invited to take a tour of the Congolese refugee camp being constructed within 50 yards of the new school building. The Red Cross is assisting in the construction, providing the building materials for permanent homes as funds become available. For the time being, however, families are living in tents like the one below. This little girl lives in the tent on the right with two siblings and her two parents.

Gaudence making herself right at home, as always.

The kitchen.

In these photos you can see the houses that the Red Cross is providing starting to take shape, with the roads already built in between.

The old tire and stick in the little boys hand to the left is the hottest toy in Rwanda {and most likely, only toy}. Children will push these tires around for days.

No matter how tough the living conditions become, these kids’ little spirits are always high. Just look at those smiles, y’all!

This father asked Cory to pray for his family. Only six people are allowed to live in the tents in the camp, but this man and his wife had nine children, so he was forced to go to strangers in other tents that had extra space and ask if his children could live with them. It was both humbling and encouraging that in the face of all this adversity and fear, this family’s faith was only made stronger.

When Cory went last year, he really connected with this little girl {whose name he thought was Rosine}. She stayed glued to his leg every day and he was looking forward to getting to see her again. He was pretty disappointed that we had been in Nyabihu for a week and he hadn’t seen her, but he spotted her in the congregation during church. After church we met her mom and found that her name was actually Divine.

Someone went to Divine’s house and told her Cory was there, and a few minutes later we heard somebody behind us say, “there she is!” Cory turned just in time for her to wrap around his leg at about 50 miles per hour! He was so excited to get to see her, even though she was a little shy after her initial hug. It wasn’t long before she warmed up, though.

Could totally be our new family photo, don’t you think?

It turned out that Divine hasn’t been going to school and didn’t go to Sunday School because her sister, pictured above, has some kind of severe infection in her eyes. She was pitiful, and no one knows what is wrong with her or how to treat it. Broke my heart.

Cory’s shoes that he made to wear on mission trips–he says he wants dirt from every country he visits to get on these shoes. I was just impressed at how proportionate his map turned out!

Jeremiah was waiting for us back at the school. He loves music, and does all the music for the church. He’s a great keyboard player, but his real love is stringed instruments. He wants an acoustic guitar, but they are expensive and hard to find in Rwanda. He was pretty excited when Cory let him take his mandolin for the day!

Before we left we were invited to visit Onesmus’s house one last time–this time his mom knew we were coming and had sodas ready!

Look how filthy my feet were! There is definitely a price to pay for wearing sandals in Rwanda.

After leaving Nyabihu, Benjamin wanted us to see the city of Gisenyi on the border between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Gisenyi is a hotbed of tourism–it lies on the coast of Lake Kivu, which looked to us like an ocean! Lake Kivu is one of the African Great Lakes and has a lot of history to the Rwandan people.

Not to mention it was gorgeous and we had a great time driving up there!

Ben took us to the Lake Kivu Serena Hotel, which was a really nice resort full of vacationing Europeans. We had some coffee and watched the heavy rain chase all the vacationers out of the pool for about 30 seconds before the sun came back out. Welcome to Africa.

Y’all. It was so beautiful! We had no idea there was such a beach in Rwanda. It was such a contrast to the volcanic mountains we had spent all our time in up to that point. We took some photos on the beach and teased Benjamin about renting a jetski.

On the way back, we passed another Congolese refugee camp. Unfortunately, there are a lot of these.

That night, we were trying to figure out what we were going to eat. Cory found out that our hotel had a restaurant and room service that we didn’t know anything about. He went to get a menu, which turned out to be a monster of like 8 pages! He was pretty excited about it until we realized that a meal cost roughly the same price as a small car.

On to Plan B.

Benjamin met us downstairs and we drove to another hotel down the street where Ben knew one of the guys that worked there. OK to be honest, Ben knows everybody at every hotel and every restaurant and every office in Rwanda. However, when we got there it turned out to be a fancy place with only one item on the menu and was also the price of a small car.

On to Plan C.

We ended up at a restaurant that was called Hotel Muhabura {but didn’t appear to be a hotel…?} that was more our speed. The menu was huge again and Amber and I ended up with some hot sandwiches before Jarrod discovered a meal that he, Cory, Benjamin, and Gaudence could all share:

Chicken Hot Pot.

Nobody at the table had any idea what that was, but the waitress said it was big enough to share so they went for it, and it paid off. It turned out to be a whole chicken in a pot cooked with carrots, potatoes, and onions. Yum!

We stayed at the restaurant until after 10 pm because they were so slow because Jarrod and Cory ate so much just talking, laughing, and telling stories. We discussed hunting in Rwanda vs. hunting in South Carolina {Ben says that Rwandan hunters are the real hunters because they stalk with a spear instead of sitting in a tree}, got an outside opinion on American politics {more than a little embarrassing}, and heard the funniest story ever on the day that Benjamin learned the term “baby daddy” while working at a hospital in Anderson, SC.

Back to the hotel to get ready for our last day in Nyabihu!

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