Joshua's Blog

Hello! Just letting you all know that Bryan and I have returned safely from visiting his sponsor child. The trip was much longer then expected, and the roads where much rougher then expected! Mainly due to the ridiculous amount of rain we have had lately! It rained steady for Saturday, Sunday, and a little bit of this morning (Monday)! So the roads where completely saturated! We finally arrived at his child’s village – within walking distance of a lake on the Burundi/Rwanda boarder. It always amazes me just how many people live in rural Rwanda. I knew the statistics… Rwanda is the most densely populated country within Africa (with 90% - 9 million people living outside of any major centres)… but you don’t ever grasp the reality until you see it! On the one dirt road we where traveling on, we must have past many hundreds of people!

This young 8 year old girl name is Ernestine Yamuragiye. She lives with her mother, father and little brother. She is apart of her church choir, traditional dance team and her favorite subject in school is math! She’s actually quite the chatter box! When she was first brought to the main office she was extremely shy, but it was surprising just how open and comfortable she became! We spent about an hour with her at the compassion office sharing some gifts (Bryan received some woven baskets and… 15 pineapples! We honestly don’t have enough toilet paper for that!) Then, before traveling to her home to meet her family we finished off with some lunch. We then traveled to her house to meet her mother, father, grandmother, and - after a short amount of time - about a couple hundred of her friends and neighbors! (All crowded in front of her house opening! Only in Africa can a pasty white man attract a crowed like that!)

Her family was very encouraged and of course appreciated the gifts that Bryan brought; one highlight was a Kinyarwandan Bible! (A very special gift for a child to get here in Rwanda.) That pretty much sums up our time with Ernestine. You can check out Bryan’s perspective on his Blog at http://lonelyplanet.mytripjournal.com/journeytoafrica2008 . We then started our three hour, 104 km trek back home! This is when I took the videos I’m including in this posting. Again, sorry that the quality and aspect ratio is low and distorted… I need to find a better converting program that keeps the 16:4 aspect ratio… but maybe when I get back home to some high speed internet I’ll replace the files with the good quality ones! Anyways, hope you enjoy! Again, love you all!

Joshua

Oh wait! I never told you how our time with Joe (Joachim, the German) went! Well Bryan, myself and Gigi (she decided to come as well) arrived at the Scripture Union compound at about 11:30 for Joe’s ‘career day’ (about 30 minutes before the children came) First, I’ll give you some back ground. I forget what I told you about Joe, but in short… Joe grew up in Germany with his family who makes wine from their vineyards. At the age of 18 he enrolled in the army and was trained in administration and something else that I forget (sorry!). He loved/loves the army but it broke his heart because it kept him away from kids. See, for as long as he can remember he has been drawn to children’s ministry. He often volunteers back home in VBS (vacation bible school) style events and productions; needless to say, he has a huge burden for children.

While in his six years of training with the German army he lived very different from the rest of his peers. He was stationed in various places around the world but when his comrades went out for social drinks or just to attend events to relax, he stayed home or chose to go without. He knew that when his six year commitment was finished he would find different work and so he chose to save every last penny that the army gave him. (Many Rwandans are shocked when he tells them that he went six years without Fanta!)

When his six years where up he asked God where should he serve. A bit of a long story made short, after a few different road-blocks and dead ends he had a friend of his say “you really should come here to Rwanda, you are needed here!” (my paraphrase) and next thing he knew, he was giving God a one year commitment to Rwanda!

He got here to Rwanda, didn’t know many of the people, didn’t know the language, but that didn’t stop him. He spent most of his days in the kitchen helping the servants prepare food. There he began learning Kinyarwanda and was introduced to Scripture Union’s 25 street children they take care of. These 25 children are not necessarily street children, but all come from homes where some choose to sleep on the streets due to family abuse/addictions. The program provides one solid meal per day, school related fees are covered, and health concerns addressed. Joe started getting to know these kids and realized that there is SO much more that can be done. He has made it his personal mission to train, encourage, and shepherd (or you could say father) these children.
You’ll notice in the pictures that even if their parents don’t make them or teach them to clean their cloths, most of them have clean cloths. This is because a lot of Joe’s work has been just basics in hygiene and courtesy… but for this social class of children even that degree of attention is unheard of! He also has begun reward programs for regularly attending church (takes the kids out swimming once they attend 6 times).

This Saturday we were there for his ‘career day’. Every Saturday he gets a Rwandese person to come and share about their occupation. This is huge for these kids because all they ever are exposed to are soccer stars and taxi drivers! He’s had all kinds of different occupations represented… everything from a bank manager, to a translator to even a kung-fu master! (Of course the kids’ favorite!) The most amazing thing about these Saturday programs is each person are only requested to give a description of their occupation, but each time they have given the most incredible testimonies of how without God it would have been impossible for them to be in the position they are in. For these kids to see people coming out of situations similar to theirs and becoming successful is huge enough… but for the gospel then to be translated into something real, tangible and very relatable… wow! (Can you tell I get super stoked about what this guy is doing!?)

So okay, now to top off what Joe is doing! Street-children organized and ran cinema! He noticed a few of the kids had been missing for a few days so he went out searching for them. He was instructed to check out a few spots near by. He ended up finding some of the kids in a cinema. Now cinemas here are different then they are in North America. Here they consist of a small room with a small little TV showing some late 70s action flick with a bunch of men drinking beer and smoking and the rest can be assumed. Joe was really moved by seeing this… it definitely is not a positive environment for a child to be in, but yet they have no where to go. So he got the idea of offering a cinema that only showed positive movies with the focused cliental being street children. The children are all ready spending the money, why not spend it in a place with out the alcohol and bad role models.

He took the idea one step further and decided that these kids need responsibility… the cinema should not be run by him, but by the kids themselves (of course being a select group with supervision). This was the idea or dream he shared when I first met Joe… well he was pleased to inform me that some pastors from Germany caught the idea and ran with it! Joe raised $600 US for a projector, but the pastor then in turn found and bought a projector for over 1500£! (That’s near or over $3000)! So that is being delivered by a missionary from England in two weeks! Then he thought to himself… there has to be somebody who is planning to replace or upgrade their surround sound system at home… why don’t they donate the old one? So he got e-mailing and found a woman in the states who is going to ship over her old surround sound system for the kids! The people who over-see Scripture Union have agreed to give complete access to a room on the grounds! Within a few weeks/months there will be (I believe) the first Christian-ran cinema in the whole country! (I hope I’m wrong and that there is others, but I honestly believe you would be hard-pressed to find anything close!)

I really hope I am able to express how big of a deal this is! This is awesomely huge! Ha-ha! Street kids get tossed out and beaten every where they go. They are treated worse than nuisance animals… mainly because they steal! Of course we still have to be realistic! But the point is nobody (including most of the religious figures) care or takes a moment of time for these kids. It is similar to the racism that exists between the Natives and Caucasians in Regina (where I live). So many of these kids are so talented, so funny, so wonderful… but just because their clothing looks dirty and they are found walking on the street during school hours they are treated like malicious enemies. The parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10) takes on a few more meanings when you are actually seeing the ‘priests’ and ‘Levites’ actively ignoring the needs of these kids based on their backgrounds and look.

… so I need to end this rant… sorry!

Point… having a person genuinely care and invest into these kids’ lives is huge! Especially having a white person serve them day after day… even bigger! And as you can tell from the pictures… these kids feel free… they feel safe… Do you know how hard it is to get pictures like this? Kids don’t play and smile like this! You can distinctly tell that God is healing these kids’ hearts through what Joe is doing… and that makes me very happy!

I’m done… if you’ve made it this far… …you win! God Bless you guys!

Joshua