visiting friends from CA & more Baraka news

Starting last Saturday, visitors from all over the USA started arriving in Rwanda in preparation for the church partnership meetings that began here at HQs on Monday. There are many churches who are deeply interested and invested in the well-being of Africans here in the Great Lakes region of the continent (including Burundi, eastern Congo, and Kenya), and it has been fun and inspiring to interact with everyone. There are also several visiting representatives from the various field offices in Burundi, Congo, and Kenya, so it is an international fling...languages are especially fun, with people praying and giving greetings in Swahili, French, Kirundi (from Burundi), English, or Kinyarwandan. It's crazy fun!

You may recognize here three of my favorite visitors:





Brad & Leslie and Bob arrived on Saturday, and only one piece of luggage amongst them was lost, so that's not too bad! :) (And the luggage was recuperated the next day, so all in all it could have been worse....) I was so happy to see them, and it has been fun getting caught up on goings-on in CA (lots of rain) and at church (construction projects and other updates).

Another fun thing was that they all bore gifts. As well as bringing various "comfort" items (including candy corn, wow!) they also hand-carried several letters to me from friends back home. If you wrote one of those letters, thank you so much...it was such an amazing encouragement to receive them! On Sunday morning, the day after they arrived, I mentioned something about the letters, and Brad or Bob asked, "Did you read ALL of them?" When I nodded, they laughed...it's hard to explain how nice it is to receive "mail" over here, but once I started opening letters I couldn't finish till I'd reached the end. :) Thank you again!

All four of us ended up spending the weekend with Baraka and her family (including Baraka's father, Pastor Abel), and we visited different aspects of Baraka's ministry (Gate of Hope) as well as Pastor Abel's village church that I had visited last week. Baraka is not only doing counseling activities for traumatized children, but she is also helping to train the mothers of some of those children in income-generating activity (sewing).

Here is the entrance to Baraka's "office":



Isn't it cool? It is a brand new ministry, but she's doing so much good already. Our church sponsored a recent lay counseling training that she did with 20 participants; it was a week-long training, and we were able to meet one of the women that she trained at a local orphanage. Baraka is really multiplying her skills as she trains those around her to help hurting children.

Here she is with a group of children, in front of her church (many are involved in her ministry):



I will post other pictures of Baraka as the months go on, I'm sure! I had a great time at her place, again, and I learned a great Rwandan proverb: "A woman is never a guest anywhere." This means I get to help with the dishes and set the table, which makes me feel like part of the family. Maybe next I'll learn how to cook tilapia and cassava leaves (isambe)!