Grab A Goat

It’s a long way to Giheta Parish along the dancing roads, but the scenery is breath taking, and we cannot help but be in awe of God’s amazing creation in this place.

This morning we were travelling with Bishop Emmanuel for the 1½ hour journey to Giheta where we were distributing a further 55 goats, and as often happens, collected others along the way. We arrived at 10.30am and the first stop was the pastor’s house, although he was not there as he is currently in Kigali studying for his Theology degree in order to meet the new government requirements.

His wife and other MU members were hurriedly putting food on the table, fruit, bread and African Tea; fairly standard for mid-morning hospitality here. Having not long had breakfast and also feeling a little fragile this morning, we took the least we felt we could get away with, without insulting our host. A slice of bread and a banana between us. As we ate… slowly, we noticed with dismay more trays of food were appearing, all the usual pots for a traditional meal. Fortunately for us Bp Emmanuel was short on time as he was dashing off to a funeral, and he ushered us out to meet the community for the goat distribution, a lucky escape we thought, not that we are ungrateful, this food is given sacrificially, but there is a limit to how much we can eat in a day.

The small old church has been demolished, and the community are in the process of building a new larger one, with a regular congregation of 2000 this is quite an undertaking. As with so many of the new churches we see, the bricks have been made by the community and the walls are up, the roof, doors and windows however require significant funds which take years to save.

Today the welcome was held in the government hall, which the Diocese had been given permission to use for the occasion, and the familiar introductions, praise and dancing was then followed by a number lottery to determine who would receive which goat.

Then it was outside for the main event. A circle was formed around the rear of the truck, the tailgate was dropped down, and 55 goats were let lose, each with a number taped to its back.

The chaos of catching goats and matching them with their new owners had us all running around in circles for some time, they are easier to catch by the back leg, but that comes with some risks (use your imagination), as Carmen found out to her cost. Eventually every goat was matched with its new owner and the group gathered for photos.

The Bishop had left a little earlier (maybe he’s not good at catching goats), and as everyone headed off home Robert told us we had to go back to the pastor’s house as we had been expected for lunch, not breakfast, and had not eaten enough on our first visit!!!  Having convinced Robert to let us walk the short distance, we did our best to do justice to the cooking. It gave us the opportunity to have an interesting conversation with Karori who had been the first pastor of the parish around 50 years ago, and organised the building of the original church.

Next stop was the school of Jean Claude, one of our sponsored children, he was called out of class to come and meet us, it must have been totally overwhelming for him, and he was very quiet. We are told he is a very humble boy and also very bright. He told us his favourite subject was science, his least favourite mathematics and he likes playing football, unfortunately for him his favourite team is Man City.

Then it was time to head off for the long journey back to Byumba where we arrived at Hannah Ministry around 4pm.

Those affected by HIV/AIDS require a nutritious diet and 49 children are fed here daily. School lunches are provided for others away at boarding school. Some food has been funded by CHI, however helping them to become more self-sufficient is a priority. Funding had been sent to start a rabbit project for income generation, and we were delighted to see the rabbits looking healthy and multiplying quickly, as rabbits tend to do. Once grown they are sold to provide food for the children.

Hannah Ministry is a 10 minute walk from the Diocesan Guest House, and although he wasn’t convinced, we had persuaded Robert we could walk back. We could see the rain coming across the hills, but it didn’t look that close, and we set off (against advice). When it rains here it really rains, and two minutes later we were soaked to the skin, the mad bazungu were the cause of much laughter and tooting as we trudged along the pavement, glad that it is now paved and not a mud track as it had been previously. As the thunder cracked overhead, we could hardly walk for laughing or see for the rain that pored into our eyes.  Arriving at the guest house we made a quick stop at the bakery for mandazi (similar to a small doughnut) to have with a drink, sufficient food for us tonight, and swore the staff to secrecy, “don’t tell the bishop we got caught in the rain”.  We are so well looked after when we are here, and we would hate Robert to find himself in trouble for letting us out alone.

A cold shower later (it seems we only have warm water in the morning), soggy backpacks emptied, and a hot drink and mandazi set us up to write reports, the blog and sort photos.

Please pray for sun tomorrow.