Five years ago I fell in love with Rwanda, it’s people, it’s culture and it’s gorillas! Time had numbed the senses but I have spent the last week here and fallen in love all over again! 25 years since the atrocious genocide where propaganda set neighbour against neighbour and children had to watch as their parents were slaughtered and parents watched children dying in the most horrendous ways, but this country has come together in unity, love and determination that this will never happen again. There must still be deep deep heart wounds that only Father can heal, but the new generation are looking forward and not reliving the past. Every Saturday people are expected to come together to clean the streets and they do! The shops are closed and there is no traffic until 11am. On Sundays people are encouraged to exercise so they close certain roads off to traffic. In a culture in the west where every person is out for themselves, where the UK has spent ridiculous amounts of money on Brexit and politicians can’t discuss anything without it turning into a bun fight, we could learn so much from these people. People living in mud huts live alongside more wealthy people but all are considered equal. They know they are all children of God. Most are Christian and we could also learn from how they worship God in every moment of their day.
I came out here with Compassion. Initially I signed up to walk a marathon in the “Land of a Thousand Hills” But having broken my leg in February I decided I wouldn’t get enough training in to do it, so offered to help hand out water to others. After a week of visiting Compassion projects and getting to know the team, most of whom
had challenges of their own, I decided to give it a go and managed 20miles! Ten
years ago I started sponsoring a young girl for the price of 10 coffees a month. When I met her and her mother 5 years ago she said she wanted to be a doctor. Now she is a young lady of 18 and doing Biology, Chemistry & Mathematics A level and I truly believe she will become a doctor. She has far more faith in a God of the impossible than I do!
On the walk which we started at 2am we met a group of women in a remote village, at 5.30am, coming out of bible study, singing and praising the Lord before going off to work in the fields. How many of us love our Father that much? I guess that’s the challenge I put out there to you today............ off to amazing African church now!
