Making Connections

While I stayed home this morning and worked on emails and miscellaneous housework, Mark met with Bruce to talk about a plan of action for starting the construction. There are still some bits of red tape that they have to get through before they can actually break ground so they wanted to work on figuring out a priority list, etc.

Then Mark and Bruce had lunch with a fellow named Tom Wheeler who is from Saddleback church (Rick Warren’s church). Tom is here working as an assistant or a consultant to the Mayor of Kigali. I’m not real sure how he got that job. Bruce thought it would be good for Mark to meet Tom just to have another contact with someone connected to government here.

Mark made it back here in time to for a meeting with our new language helper. A missionary working with the Friends church recommended this gal named Joyce. She is a Rwandan but she grew up in Uganda so she speaks fairly good English. Even though she grew up in Uganda, her family made sure she learned her native language of Kinyarwanda. However, she told us that the way she learned it from her grandparents and family in Uganda was different than the way it is spoken here in Rwanda because languages evolve. So she took a three month course in Kinyarwanda in order to speak it correctly. She has helped a couple of other missionaries get started in their language courses and is willing to help us.

The missionary who came with Joyce to meet us is named Debbie Thomas and she has 4 kids. The oldest, Brianna, is in 8th grade at RVA. Emily met her at the Christmas party we went to on Tuesday. Emily invited her to come over with her mom and then the two girls joined Miriam Bonvallat and her boys at someone else’s house (I’m not sure whose) to make goodies for a special Christmas kids’ event at the Bonvallat’s church on Sunday. The girls helped make several loafs of banana bread and passion fruit bread while the boys and younger kids filled little bags with treats. Emily said it was fun and a good way to get to know Brianna a bit better. Because Brianna is in middle school still, she and Emily won’t have too many opportunities to be with each other at RVA. They’ll have different activities, etc.

Very exciting development: this evening Mark had our internet connection set up at the house here and we've been able to play with Skype and send emails, etc. It is definitely nice to have it at home.

It's amazing the connections we made just today: meeting someone working here from Saddleback church, an opportunity to learn Kinyarwanda so that we can connect better with our neighbors and Rwandan friends, Emily developing a friendship with someone also at RVA, and connecting with loved ones all the way over in America through the internet!