Day 2: Good news/Bad News

Good News: My luggage is found and will be in Kigali tomorrow.
Bad News: I won’t be in Kigali tomorrow. I will be up in the mountains at an Anglican retreat center! So I will get my luggage Wed. evening. More bad news: others’ luggage, including Sue’s, has not been found. That baffles me because her luggage was with mine all the way. We are hoping it will come too. I feel worse for someone in our group whose bag was swapped on the carousel, and the other person who took their bag has not yet returned it to the airport. They may never see it again. 6 of us out of the group of 19 do not yet have our bags, but of those, I am the one who packed the least amount of clothes in my carry-on. Never again… I am shopping for a suitcase that fits the maximum carry-on specifications as soon as I get home, so I will have it for next time! I am learning what it means to have to rely on others when you can’t supply your own needs/wants. Another lesson about poverty.
Another good day in Rwanda! The weather here is perfect – like late May at home, and the rain generally comes overnight. The national people are all bundled up here – it is the cold season for them. I am comfortable in short sleeves.
We visited Compassion Rwanda’s office today and had devotions with the 61 staff members – in a tent outside the office, because it is apparently the most practical way for them to all meet together in the same place during the rainy season. It would be like having Cornerstone every day! Afterward we met with the senior staff and talked about how things are going in Rwanda. The program opened here in 1980, and before the genocide there were 11,000 children in Compassion’s program in 49 student centers. When the genocide happened, some children were killed, others were exiled, and still others were orphaned. Compassion had to close operations and flee the country like everyone else. In June 1994, before the genocide was even over, Compassion sent delegates via Uganda into Rwanda to begin finding the children. They began an orphanage right away to care for the children they found. In 1995 the surviving Compassion staff met with pastors from partner churches and re-established the program. Over the course of the next 3 years, only 5,000 of the original 11,000 children were found. Now, there are 48,000 children and 182 student centers all over Rwanda. And, they began the college scholarship program, Leadership Development, just this year and they are in the process of selection for the first class of 35. Quite a ways to come in 15 years. The staff feel that, although the church played a role in the genocide, the church also played a significant role in beginning the restoration process. Compassion had quite a hand in that. Wess Stafford, Compassion’s President, came to Rwanda soon after the genocide to meet with the pastors of partner churches. At that conference, pastors stood and confessed what they had done, and others embraced them with forgiveness.
We also visited a Compassion student center in Kigali that was heavily affected by the genocide. After meeting some preschool kids who were sponsored – and absolutely adorable – we got to play with the entire group of preschoolers, which also included children who weren’t sponsored. Just try to teach London Bridge to a 3 year old who doesn’t speak English and who is a little intimidated by white skin! The older teenage girls came out too and did red-hot-pepper jump roping – amazing! After that we went in the program office and heard how genocide, AIDS, malaria, and lack of educational opportunities have affected this area, and how Compassion’s Complementary Intervention Programs (CIP’s) are making such a great difference. In addition to child sponsorship, Compassion’s CIPs assist children and families to have what they need so that the children can develop as they ought. Here that means food and medicine, but also malaria intervention (Bite Back campaign mosquito nets, $10 each) and AIDS victim assistance. Here at this project there are 3 kids with AIDS, and 31 parents with AIDS. I can’t say that about my kid’s school. CIPs are really important and effective here in Rwanda, as there are so many angles to the poverty here that one would hardly know where to start. Compassion is engaging in consistent, strategized, long-term warfare against poverty.
We visited the home of a young man who attends this student center. He is 20 and started in Compassion when he was 5. If you do the math you will realize he started in the program right after the genocide. It wasn’t until the end of the visit that we found out that his dad was dead – his mother said, “killed during the war” and Eugene, in his translation, in a hushed voice told us, “killed in the genocide.” How evil. The father had worked for the UN as a driver and photographer; with his death, the mother was left with 3 children ages 5 and under and was plunged into immediate poverty. She has raised those kids and kept that family together and in school. She has done a remarkable job. Their home is stick-and-mud with a tin roof and dirt floor, but has 4 airy rooms with some windows (not always the case) and a cooking pit and chicken coop out back. The 20 year old just finished high school (normal for here) and is waiting to hear the results of his college entrance exams. The best of the best get state assisted scholarships. The lucky 35 that get LDP scholarships can also go to college. Everyone else can go to college – if they can pay $1200/yr. Inexpensive by our standards. Not doable for a family that lives off their chickens’ eggs, what they can grow on a farm plot, and what they make from selling excess vegetables in the market. So we will pray that our young man did well on his exams. We asked them what Compassion had done for them, and they went on and on – Eugene could hardly get in a word to translate – and they (the whole family, not just the sponsored boy) received medicines, food, soaps, the chickens, and – the mosquito nets. We got to see the fruits of the Bite Back campaign in the 3 nets hanging in their house.
Tomorrow we will be visiting a student center in the northwestern part of the country, and also one of The Cottages, a group home for orphans. I will be out of internet contact tomorrow but hopefully I can get in touch on Wednesday evening! Thanks for your prayers, and love to you all –

Brenda