Muraho (hello, how are you?) from Rwanda!!

After several days of either losing power or Internet access in the evenings when it was convenient to post on the blog, I finally had the opportunity and the ability to give you all an update.

We've had an extremely busy week thus far. Let's see if I can look back and remember all the incredible things we have done. Monday was spent at New Life Bible Church volunteering with their street kids ministry. It was such a blessing to be encouraged by the overflowing joy of these children. It was also convicting and inspiring. After spending a couple hours running around under the African sun with these kids, we went inside and had a great worship time with the kids. Halfway through the first song, the children had flooded the front of the room, pulling us with them. We sang and danced together in the name of the Lord. After worship, we were again asked to perform the "Everything" skit, which was a curve ball. Even without the music or our props, the skit was a huge success, and the kids loved it. Then Andrew shared a wonderful message about the story of Joseph and how faithful God is.

That afternoon, the team split in two groups, one went shopping for paint while the other visited the genocide memorial. While it was an extremely difficult experience, it was also very informative and it helped all of us to better understand the people that we are here ministering to. The Lord’s power is truly visible in the fact that the people of Rwanda, who experienced the indescribable atrocities of genocide, have overcome the grief and found hope in the future of their country and their children. Praise God! Imana Ishimwe!

Tuesday we spent another day at New Life Bible Church, but this time we were designing and painting Sunday school classrooms at the church, as well as organizing their newly acquired library. We were tremendously blessed by how excited the staff of the church was with our work. That afternoon, the second half of the group visited the genocide memorial while the rest of the team stayed and continued working on the Sunday school rooms. Praise God, that afternoon it rained in Rwanda! It has been dry here for a very long time.

Wednesday we spent most of the day finishing the painting projects. Not only did we finish the two rooms and the hallway that we had planned on painting, but we had enough time, energy, and paint to finish a third room! In the evening we stopped to play with 15 boys in a transitional home that Africa New Life Ministry runs. Before we went home, Carson shared his testimony with the group, and the group of young boys seemed to love it!

Finally, today was spent in Kayonza, which is about an hour and a half from Kigali. Africa New Life Ministries owns a huge piece of property there, which houses multiple orphanages and schools. Many of the children that our team members sponsor go to school here, so they got to meet their children and bring them gifts. We spent more time painting today, two classrooms. When we first arrived in Kayonza, a flood of 800 school children rushed from their classrooms to greet us. It was incredibly overwhelming but so exciting! The children were in and out of the classrooms all day, and it was so much fun to interact with them, because, unlike the street kids we worked with on Monday and Wednesday, these children were in school and most of them spoke English very well. We were able to communicate with them very well and have interesting, fruitful conversations.

Tomorrow we will be returning to Kayonza to run Vacation Bible School Classes for all 800 students. We will be sharing bible stories, games, music, and crafts with these students. Please pray that we will have plenty of energy and excitement in sharing the joy of the Lord with these children. There will only be two of us for every group of 40 children so it will be a pretty crazy experience!

It seems like the trip is passing faster than we can even keep track of, and this weekend will certainly not be an exception, but I will do my best to update the blog again a couple times before we head home next Tuesday. Thank you for all the support and prayers! We can't wait to come home to share all our stories and show you all our pictures!