A sudden goodbye

One of the pastors came into our office last week. He’s one of our closest friends, speaks good English and often accompanies us when we visit churches, introducing us and translating.

“I’m here to say goodbye”, he said.
“Where are you going?” we asked.
“ To Indonesia, for 3 months” came the answer. To say that we were surprised is an understatement. We had been in his house 3 days before to celebrate his 10th wedding anniversary and he had not mentioned this.

It turns out that he was on his way Jakarta on a course in some sort of pastoral care. It is sponsored by some German mission organisation and he is representing 4 dioceses. There had been some advance warning before Christmas (I had taken his photo and given him a digital image one day), but there was no confirmation. On the Tuesday he was told that he would perhaps be going and on the Thursday he was phoned to ask why he was not at the airport! He left Kamembe the same day, leaving his wife, 5 children, 3 jobs and a church behind.
It’s one of those stories which encapsulates the African approach so well. It’s also a setback for us, losing a good friend and colleague for most of the remainder of our time here.

Titles

Rwandans love to use titles instead of names, even outside of work. Sheena’s worst experience in a meeting was to be called “Madam Missionary Education Officer”, but fortunately the translator, on seeing her face, changed this to “Madam Sheena”.
Meanwhile I get called “Padre” by strangers a couple of times a week (usually when I am without Sheena, of course!). I’m not exactly sure why people assume I am a priest.
Even in small groups, people will be referred to by title (“the secretary will pray now”) and spouses often do the same instead of using their partner’s name. The corollary of this is that sometimes people do not KNOW the names of people they work beside. In one extreme case, someone tried to introduce me to his wife’s cousin who had been staying in his house for a few days, but then discovered that he did not know the man’s name!

This is the word of the Lord

Marcel is a young man with little education and he makes his living riding a bike-taxi around Kamembe. Until recently, he was living behind someone’s uninhabited house, in accommodation resembling a stable. This was rent-free(!) in exchange for him providing a basic security service by being there at night.
Thanks to the generosity of Milford Church in the UK, we were able to buy a simple house for Marcel and a few others in his community - these cost less than £500 each. We visited the church last week and they had a surprise party for us afterwards to say “thank you”. In the speeches which always follow food on such occasions, Marcel spoke very simply but powerfully. “Thank you for being the hands God used to help me and others”, he said.
This encapsulates what we hope to be the spirit of our work here and indeed the calling of Christians everywhere – we are simply to be God’s hands in the communities where we live. Too often here we are regarded simply as a source of money : last Sunday, Marcel gave us a different view – this is indeed the word of the Lord.

Statistics

While Andy (our son) was visiting at Christmas, a few questions came up about Rwanda and the surrounding area. We spent an hour on Wikipedia browsing tables of data about countries and it was a revealing and depressing experience concerning the state of Africa. In almost all the tables we looked at (“suicide rate” being the main exception), the “wrong end” of the table was dominated by countries in sub-Saharan Africa - poverty, child mortality, HIV/AIDS rates, etc.
Of course I knew at the back of my mind that this was the case, but seeing it shown in so many ways somehow brought it home again.

The rabbit in church

We were at church for 4 hours recently, in the parish of Nyarusange, where we have already done a lot of work with the school, in both education and construction projects. It now feels like being among friends and the time passed quickly, perhaps partly because we were, of course, the ones who were the main speakers. (I still don’t like the word sermon, it somehow sounds much grander than what we usually do).
There was one particular moment of real spiritual power and reality. A young man got up to speak about his return to faith. That is not so uncommon, but his aunt followed him to tell more of the story. He is an orphan living with her and in his worst days had been stealing from her. We were able to pray with him and there was a palpable sense of God’s presence in that loving community which so wanted this young man to succeed and to stick with his decision to follow Jesus. It was lovely, too, that attention was focussed on one person for a while. One of our difficulties is the sheer scale of need here and individuals often seem to go unnoticed and are not well cared for even in Christian circles, simply because there are too many people.

And the rabbit? The aunt had brought a special offering to thank God – vegetables, fruit and a live rabbit. I was wondering what would happen to them, but I found out at the end when the auction was announced! It was handled very competently by Ephraim, a student at the Anglican College in Kigali. Perhaps it was part of his training….
We contented ourselves with buying a couple of pineapples, the local speciality.

Why I love Africa

Some time ago the BBC Africa website ran a comment section where people were invited to email and say why they loved Africa. Among my reasons would definitely be garage bills. Two recent examples :
A repair to the exhaust, taking 1 hour and completely replacing a section with a huge hole – 15,000 Ush (less than £5). It would definitely have meant a new pipe in the UK.
A puncture repair – 500 Frw (less than 50p).

How to eat an elephant

It’s an old joke for a new year, but with a lot of wisdom. The answer is, of course, one bite at a time. I thought about it while we were in Uganda, perhaps because of the many we saw in Queen Elizabeth National Park.
However, the specific trigger for my thoughts was the sight of two men demolishing a large two-storey building, equipped with nothing more than a large hammer each. It looked like such a huge enterprise, but it was being tackled with just the patience and perseverance required.

Umwaka mwiza? (2)

Although we have had a good start to the new year, there is trouble of various kinds on every side. Life in this part of Africa is lived against the background of instability and uncertainty about the future.
To the west, there is continuing unrest in the DRC as the government army and the militia of General Nkunda meet to discuss peace terms. This is what gets reported on the BBBC website, but of course locally there are all the issues of refugees, fear, inter-tribal suspicions and rumours.
The Kenyan political situation has also hit the world news and there is a particular Rwandan twist as the 2 sides have accused each other of “genocide”. It’s a bit of political hyperbole which is very painful in this country. The impact on Rwanda is potentially very serious, because we are landlocked and completely dependent for fuel and other necessities on a supply line which starts at Mombasa and passes through Kenya and Uganda. Already fuel is rationed here and things may get worse before they get better.
As we left Uganda we were asked abut our travel there and given a leaflet about Ebola. Fortunately, contrary to earlier reports, the recent outbreak of this deadly fever was limited to Bundibugyo, one district very near to the Congo border in the north-west of Uganda. It still cost 40 lives, however and Rwandan caution remains.
This is not to paint a bleak picture : at this time of year most people here are much more concerned about finding school fees for the new year than they are about wider issues. There is such fortitude, too, in the face of very serious problems, personal, national and international.
And we do genuinely wish each other a happy new year with the greeting “Umwaka mwiza!”.

Umwaka mwiza! (1)

The “Happy new year!” greeting is used almost as much in Rwanda in Scotland and even 5 days into January it is a common greeting. Our son has been visiting for the holidays and we spent both Christmas and new year in Uganda with Scottish friends and visited Queen Elizabeth National Park in between. We had a great time with Andrew and catching up with our friends, the animals and scenery were fantastic and we have had a short dry spell, but it required spending a lot of time on very bumpy Ugandan roads to get there and back.
All this has brought our departure from Rwanda into focus : it is still 6 months away, but there has been so much in the last few weeks to remind us that this new year is one with a fairly definite first half and an almost completely unknown second half.