Day 4 Wednesday

Day 4 Wednesday-
Another night of good sleep. Let's make a regular thing out of this.

Most of day was spent at the Kayonza school visiting with kids and touring the facility. Some kids at this school are orphans and others have families in towns in the region. We drove the bus a few miles out of Kigali before one of our team got very sick. We decided to turn around and take him back to house for the day in case he had further problems. Take two.

The drive too the East Provence took about an hour and took us through even more mountains and villages. We arrived at the school and learned about the houses where small groups of children live most of the time except holidays. Each house has about 16 kids in it and a house mother and they intentionally arrange the house to be similar to a middle-class home so the kids will strive for good jobs in the future. We sat with the kids in the cafeteria and talked to them about their classes, their homes, and their aspirations. While eating corn bread and beans, several boys told me that they are in 4th or 5th grade and most of them want to be doctors or pilots. Jonathan sat with some boys named Moses, Isaac, and Kevin.

After the student's lunch, we our our own lunch and relaxed in one of the houses before the tiring, endless task of entertaining dozens of children outside with games. We emerged and jumped into games of Frisbee and a dodgeball-type game with a home-made ball from plastic bags and rubber bands. Between activities, the kids hugged and clung to every adult they could. These kids have a great loving school staff to support them, but they are affection starved most of the time.

Kelly, Betsy, and Joe of the SBL customer service team got to meet Joyce, the 17 year-old student the customer service team have been sponsoring together. Joyce had been driven from many hours away and stayed the previous night at the school so she could meet us. (Betsy and Joe will see her again tomorrow.) She spoke little English but Obed, a Rwandan student from the same school who now lives in the US, helped translate. Both Joyce and the Americans were a bit overwhelmed and had little to say, but meetings like this require few words to understand the love and appreciation that is shared. As you can imagine hugs were abundant.

Lastly, we visited the decrepit volleyball or basketball, not sure which it was, that we are contributing to so it can be re-done to be a viable athletic court again.

After leaving the school, we visited the home of Emmanuel and his family, the sponsored student of Jimi and Dana on our team. It was a very emotional, eye-opening time for us all, especially for Dana and Jimi. Our presence in this agricultural neighborhood caused quite a sensation. We also learned that Obed's family lives right across the street and met his brother Eric and his mother. We really enjoyed hanging out with Eric. He's is a delightful young man that was a joy to be around and very sad to have to leave him. They have a lovely garden with sorghum, bananas, and corn. Seeing Emmanuel with his sponsors has us very excited about our meeting with Stuart on Friday.

The evening's debriefing discussion was very rich. The illuminations we are receiving are amazing and will stay with us for the rest of our lives.