Rwanda 2015 | Day 9

Welcome back to our Rwanda 2015 recaps! Because the number of pictures we took doubled the second week, I’m probably going to break the rest of the posts down by each day. I think it makes them easier to read plus helps me when I turn these posts into a book of our trip.

Maybe if I’m really on my game the next couple of weeks, I’ll get two out per week. But that’s a big maybe :).

Sunday | September 20th

Sunday morning started off early for us as we got ready for church, packed up the truck and headed to Nyabihu, my most favorite place in Rwanda! Somehow (thanks to David), we got all our stuff in the back of the truck. Must have been a miracle!

The girls doped up on Dramamine for the two-hour drive up the curviest road I’ve ever been on but of course, I couldn’t fall asleep.  I was just too excited to get back to some of my babies.

We stayed at The Garden Place Hotel in Musanze for the week and it was reallllly nice, and cheaper than the place we used to stay!! It’s about a 35-40 minute drive from Musanze to Nyabihu but it’s the closest town that has hotels. So, we dropped all our stuff off at the hotel before heading on in to Nyabihu for church.

It felt so good to be back in this church.

This little boy in the brown sweater, y’all. He was praising Jesus and we all tried to capture it but weren’t very successful.

Children roam around and join in the service the whole time.

Cory and Kenny, the human mic stand :). Cory was playing a guitar that we were able to buy for the church using some donations that came in for us while we were on the trip!

Cory didn’t preach this year but he did speak briefly and thank the church for welcoming us.

The children were dismissed to Sunday school, which is held in the school.

The girls went to one class and the guys went to another. We read the children a Bible story while the guys learned the “Toasta” song {you’ll learn more about that later!}.

We were obviously super exciting.

We saw sweet Divine again this year!

Then had lunch at Onesme’s house and it was soo good!

And as we were leaving, we saw Henriette picking flowers.

Be still, my heart! Little stinker would not come sit with me during the service.

So, here’s where the real fun terror began. Usually we don’t do a lot of touristy things when we go, but Ben had been talking about the caves in Musanze and how he’d like for us to be able to explore them. He had guides set up who would have flash lights and would lead us through the caves. Sounds like fun, right?

via

And for some reason, this is what I was expecting. You know, walk ways and lights. I mean, Jed said he had done it so it couldn’t be that bad, right?

Right???

Yeah, so our “guides” came out of those tin buildings and gave us our hard hats and flash lights. If you ask me, I think they just lived nearby and liked going into the caves. Guides? Eh, maybe not.

Do these things work? Clearly, I was not dressed to be exploring a cave.

But, we all put our brave faces on and headed in.

And it really wasn’t that bad. At first. It was slippery and we were all kind of falling off the rocks but we were managing. I, personally, felt like years of growing up on a farm and exploring at my parents’ house did me good.

We even made it to the first exit and thought “that was a piece of cake” when our guides {pictured above} said we were going to keep going.

And then, one by one, our flashlights started dying like something from a horror movie. I was literally using my cell phone light to be able to see. Before I knew it, we are having to CRAWL through openings in the caves to be able to fit.

Have I ever told you that I suffer from claustrophobia?

Hit the brakes, y’all, because I really didn’t want to have an anxiety attack right there in front of everyone. So Cory went first to scope it out and chase off the murderers and vampires and cave trolls and realized that as soon as he got through the opening, the caves got bigger again.

Okay, maybe I can do this.

And then this happened:

Nope, that ain’t gold.

Cory just HAD to point out the hundreds of bats on the ceiling. HUNDREDS!

At this point, Jessica told us her biggest fear on earth was bats. And she was terrified. And she was ready to get the heck out of Dodge. IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CAVES, ENTRY AND EXIT HUNDREDS OF YARDS IN EITHER DIRECTION. LOST IN THE CENTER OF THE EARTH. BATS!

#justgreat

This particular bat was apparently touching my hair and I didn’t even notice.

There may have been some tears, a few choice words, and some moments of sheer panic but we made it! We survived the Mines of Moria Caves of Musanze. I told the group that I felt like I was on The Bachelor and doing something completely out of my comfort zone but I conquered by fear and did it anyway. Ha!

#bettergetmyrose

As soon as we were safe and above ground, we were laughing about our experience and I’m pretty sure we were all glad we did it. We were all covered in dirt though so we headed back to the hotel to clean up for dinner.

As we were heading to Hotel Muhabura for dinner, Gaudence just showed up in the parking lot. Out of no where and BAM she was right behind us. Freaked us all out a little but after our crazy day, we were happy to enjoy a nice dinner!

Check back next week for our first day working at the school in Nyabihu. I’ve got so many great pictures to share!

Wanna catch up on Rwanda 2015?

Getting There, Days 1 & 2
Days 3 & 4
Days 5 & 6
Days 7 & 8
A Glimpse Into Our Trip

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