So Strong

A long day lay ahead of us today and Bishop Louis Pasteur collected us at 8am for the one hour drive to Nyarutovu School. He had been a pastor in this area for around 10 years, as well as head teacher at Nyarutovu School. He confessed to wondering at the time what he had done to upset the then Bishop, that he should be moved to such a poor and out of the way area. However, he set to, approached and secured funding from overseas partners and made huge improvements to the school, an achievement of which he is rightly very proud.

With Nursery – Senior 3 and 1200+ children, many with ragged uniforms and pot bellies that tell their own story, he was delighted when he secured sponsorship for 600 children from a US charity, sadly they have recently pulled out which has left the new headmaster struggling to educate and feed these children.

The school already grows vegetables to supplement the lunches and has a very successful piggery project for income generation (we loved the little spotted ginger piglet), but it is just not sufficient to provide for the many needs.

The school had a lovely friendly and relaxed feel, the children were polite and seemed happy. They have their own barber on site to ensure every child can get the now compulsory haircut every term.

We visited the kitchen where the 125Kg of rice, which is required every day and costs around £50, sat waiting to be cooked in the giant pans, this together with beans, and vegetables, provides lunch for the children.

The dining hall is relatively new however, it still requires more chairs and tables and currently many of the children must take their lunch back to their classrooms.

We visited some of the children in their classrooms, but many are taking exams, so we didn’t cause too much CHI. Then it was break time and there was a lot of high fives and hair touching from the younger children before we gathered to pray for them all.

First though a traditional dance welcome from some of the children, all the children were delighted when one of their teachers joined in.

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As the children returned to their classes we met briefly with some of the teachers before returning to the headmaster’s office for a tea break, we met with a retired pastor and his daughter, he is undergoing some health issues and the cost of his treatment has caused hardship for his family, his daughter was telling us how she is unable to continue with her university course as a result. We prayed for the family.

Before taking our leave, we were presented with gifts of beautiful material.

Next stop was Shori Parish where Bishop Louis had initiated the building of a church. This beautiful new building, not yet complete but open, is a real testament to the Christians in the parish who had begun by worshipping under a tree.  The old lady of 95 was one of the original small group of Christians who prayed for this building.

We met with an amazing group of ladies who had come together as a group called Kwitigenva (phonetic spelling) – meaning safe place or refuge. They showed us how they make tofu from the soya beans grown locally, and are selling to the nearby 7^th Day Adventist community, many of whom are vegetarian.

These wonderful ladies are now able to provide for their families and have a successful savings group. They asked us to pray for a larger pot to make the tofu and a modern machine to press it, currently the entire process is done by hand. We shared lunch and received gifts of beautiful scarves, photos were taken and it was time to move on again.

This time to Hanika Parish to meet a set of triplets, these girls were abandoned by their parents two years ago, their home was rented and they were all in school with no means of providing for themselves. Now 19, the girls live in a small home loaned to them by the church. They remain in school where the pastor has advocated for them and no fees are charged. They are supported by the local community, but their biggest challenge is to find a permanent home. We prayed for them and moved on.

One member of the church leadership was the founder of St Peters College, supported by CHI since its inception in 1999. He remembered Vic Bull, the founder of the charity and was very sad to learn of Vic’s death.

A visit to yet another amazing new church at Hanika where we met with another inspirational group, this time single mums. We heard their now familiar stories and the difference being part of these groups was making in their lives. We know how hard it is to be a single mum here, both practically and culturally, and yet these ladies were smart and smiling with heads held high. They also had a savings group and hoped eventually to buy goats to help provide their basic needs.

Rwanda is known as the land of 1000 hills, but today it felt like the land of 1000 gifts as we were presented with beautiful baskets. These gifts are so unnecessary, it is a gift just to spend this time with them, but it is the culture to give gifts to visitors, and we are blessed to receive them.

Bishop Louis was head of a VTC here for 20 years, and he couldn’t possibly head back without dropping in to say hello. We met the current principal and had a quick tour. We were most impressed by the mechanical engineering workshop which proudly boasted an impressive array of computerised equipment obviously funded by a well know car manufacturer alongside an array of old vehicles.

Various groups of students were learning to assemble and disassemble a multitude of car components. This is obviously a wonderful centre which caters for senior and university level students.

Bishop Louis is obviously remembered very fondly in this area, and we think a piece of his heart might still be here.

Our last stop of the day (we thought) was as tourists. Bishop Louis wanted to take us to The Kings Palace, a cultural experience. This is on the site of the palace built by the Belgians in 1932 and occupied by the king until 1959. The palace remains and has been preserved as a museum. Replicas of some of the dwellings used before this time have been built on the site and we received a guided tour which included the Inyambo cows which belonged to the King and were considered sacred. A small herd continue to be maintained and we were fortunate to see a young calf which was born just before we arrived.

Bishop Louis returned to his childhood as he got on his knees to grind some sorgum flour, a job he remembers doing for his mother.

Back on the road as the sun began to set the bishop asked if we minded making a brief stop to enable him to visit a Christian he knew who had suffered a stroke, the poor man seemed a little surprised to see two muzungu wander into his living room, he was trying to watch the football but made us very welcome. We spent a short time and prayed for him before we left.

Bishop Louis certainly gave us lots to think about, he has been very gracious with his time, and it has been a lovely day.

It was dark long before we arrived back at the guest house around 7.30pm, not knowing our plans no dinner had been prepared so ground nuts and hot chocolate filled the gap whilst we set to with the blog.

Regrettably we were falling asleep over our keyboards and an executive decision to give up and go to bed was made.