RWANDA: SAFARI IN AKAGERA

On our last full day in Rwanda, we went on safari.



Over the course of the week, we had begun joking that as a group of six women, we *might* be slightly high-maintenance.  We deemed ourselves the "Snowflakes," which obviously led to us hash tagging this little excursion as #snowflakesonsafari. ❄️😂

Rwanda has not been known in Africa for its safaris.  After the genocide, many of the animals escaped, and there was no infrastructure.  That is changing as Rwanda is rebuilding their economy. Akagera National Park is really amazing, and they've done a great job at reintroducing animals in the past several years.  We got to see SO many things, and for the price and time commitment, it felt like an excellent value.

Our morning started super early, meaning that this little excursion actually started in the middle of the night and included a view of the sunrise on our drive out.



Back up - it actually started with our Landcruiser needing to be fixed, so we had a little extra time at 4 am - something I am always looking for. 😝  Hollie and I decided to floss, naturally.



After about a 2 hour drive, we made it to the park and were rewarded by having a monkey jump in our vehicle.



Everything felt just like it ought to feel - there were crazy nests hanging from trees:



Overly friendly monkeys:

And cup holders perfect for snowflakes who sometimes like to drink Coke Zero while on safari:

We saw an impressive line-up of animals.

- Impalas

- Baboons (and baboon babies!)

- We got to see about 20 elephants, which had been hard to come by during the hot summer months, and our guides were so excited that we got to see them, which only multiplied the excitement we already felt.





- We never got to see lions, which were only reintroduced to the park last year, but we did get to see the remains of lion's meals.




- Lots of different kinds of birds




- So many hippos - we actually lunched with the hippos.  (We felt better about this once discovering through Google via a husband in the States that hippos are only dangerous to humans in water.  We stayed on the shore, near our Landcruiser.)






- Gorgeous and interesting landscape





- Warthogs.  The entire day, I had blips from Hakuna Matata stuck in my head "When I was a young warthog . . .🎶"  We Arkansas girls showed restraint and decided not to call the Hogs.  They went running either way.



- We saw zebras from afar.



-  At the very last minute, we saw a mama giraffe and her baby, which was pretty magical.

It truly was a fantastic experience shared with great people.



And, as we were leaving, we saw plenty of cows.  🐄🐄🐄



This trip to Rwanda was nothing short of amazing, and I look forward to partnering with Africa New Life and Divine Destiny in the future!

RWANDA: FRIENDS & FUN

I'm home, and I've decided today is the day to be finished blogging about this trip.  I wanted to be done before I got home, but as it turns out, traveling for 28 hours straight actually doesn't leave you a lot of time for blogging.  I was busy watching 4 movies and reading one full book and being really uncomfortable and tired on a plane and not eating the food I was served.  #priorities

This trip was everything I could have hoped for and then some.  I was traveling with Africa New Life, but one of the major draws for me to head to Rwanda is that I would get to see some dear friends, the Sengoga family.



They were in our D-group for the 2014-2015 year, and we grew to absolutely LOVE them.  Seeing them in Rwanda, serving the Lord and loving people well was an extreme gift.  We saw them a couple of times during our trip, and we got to see the guest house they have to host the church-planting fellows that Joel is training this year, one week out of each month.

Lynn and I also got to spend a day seeing their church (Divine Destiny) and hanging out with Annie.  She has been making cookies and cakes and cupcakes (I blogged about that here), and she is employing women and also using extra profit from the cookie money to bless other families.  We were privileged to help her deliver food to some people who live in one of the communities that Divine Destiny works in.



We created quite a stir in the rural areas, and we women were unprepared for a hike down a hill carrying eggs.  White jeans and black sandals with small heels may not have been the best wardrobe choice.  😳😂💪



This group of boys very much enjoyed watching this take place.  (See also: the precious baby riding on one boy's back.)



We were faced with poverty and malnutrition, and my heart broke all over again.  Rwanda certainly is full of extremes.

Thanks for hosting us so well, Sengoga family!  We love and miss you all!



Another great joy of this trip is the women that I got to travel with.  We didn't all know each other going into this, and it is always a little concerning to show up and just hope for the best.  However, it was clear that the Lord had each of us there for individual reasons, and we meshed so well.  I already miss hanging out with them.



And - I made some new friends with Africa New Life.  It's such a shame that we live half a world apart.

Both Betty and Alice work for Africa New Life and spent a lot of time with our team.  Alice was actually a sponsored child through ANL, and now she is employed there while also going to college.  There seemed to be nothing she couldn't do, and we were so grateful to have her with us every step of the way.  She guided us through Rwanda so graciously, and it was awesome to have such an up close view of how sponsorship can impact a life.  Plus- she is super fun!

I'll post later today about our safari, which was AMAZING!  Everything was really so wonderful, and though I am so thankful to be home with my people, Rwanda now has a huge piece of my heart.  And I can't wait to go back!

RWANDA: LEARNING ABOUT THE GENOCIDE

It would be hard to tell the story of our trip to Rwanda without mentioning the genocide that took place in 1994.  This event informs and underwrites every person's history there and stands as a marker in time for all of their lives.  And what a hard marker to have to revisit.


(banner reads: Genocide Never Again)

On our second full day in country, we went to the Kigali Genocide Memorial which gives a sweeping overview of what led to genocide and more specifics about the atrocities that took place in that 100 days when over 1 million lives were taken.  The scope and scale horrified me, and I wanted to look away.  When I walked through the room with the skulls and bones - I wanted to look away.  There was also a children's exhibit which shared stories and pictures of children and included the brutal ways that their lives were taken.  Tears ran down my cheeks as I tried to take it in.

Over 250,000 people are buried in the mass graves at that site- a number that is so hard to comprehend.

On Wednesday morning, we stopped at a smaller memorial housed in a church that serves as a reminder for the ways the church failed during genocide.  Victims fled to this church for safety, and instead, it served as a slaughterhouse for over 10,000 people.  Their clothes were placed on the pews as a reminder, and we walked throughout the church and over all the grounds, taking in the bullet holes left in the roof, and the grenade marks on the ground.





Over 40,000 people are buried at this site, because this area of the country was one of the hardest hit. Honestly, all of it was too much.




But - I made myself look and learn.  It was the least I could do to honor those lives and share in the collective burden that the genocide remains.  I wanted to feel the depth of the tragedy (as much as I could 20 years later as a visitor), because I didn't think it would be fair to benefit from the great joys and gifts that the Rwandan people have to share without also knowing some of what it cost them.

A country divided by colonists and pitted against one another was rife for the kind of mayhem that was unleashed.  But - in the wake of the tragedy - the scale of which I cannot truly fathom - the Rwandan people are stronger than ever, and are also creating one of the most stable countries in all of Africa.  They just finished hosting all of the African presidents, and Kigali was chosen, in part, for all of the security that it provides.

God has also played an undeniable role in the reconciliation, because the kind of forgiveness required is simply not possible without God's grace and mercy.  His face has been on Rwanda, and many people there have walked forward with forgiveness in their hearts and unity for their country.  The spirit is truly astounding.

Though the genocide marks every Rwandan - it does not define all of their lives.  Though seeing these things was challenging, I know it is what I needed to do to be prepared for being there and understanding where people are coming from.  There is a collective consciousness that does not forget this tragedy, and I was thankful to have the opportunity to understand it a bit more.

RWANDA: WOMEN'S PROGRAMS

I'm now on a flight headed back to the US, and I cannot wait to get home!  I went ahead and purchased in-flight WIFI to try to catch up on the blog while I'm still on this trip - we'll see how far I get, since I didn't sleep during the flight from Kigali to Amsterdam, and I'm about to be served my second breakfast of the day, like a little hobbit.  😜👊

We got a fantastic overview of many of Africa New Life's programs during our time in Rwanda.  I really connected with the women's programs that they have in place.  Empowering women does so much to help children, families and even economies, and Africa New Life is doing this in several ways that we were privileged to witness.

We visited the Dream Center in Kigali that houses the Sewing Program and the Dream Beauty Academy.




The women warmly welcomed us with singing and dancing, and my eyes filled with tears at the joy.  Most of these women have walked very hard roads starting in poverty, lacking education and resources and including family hardships.  They are mothers - like me.  They want to take care of their children, just as I do.  But, they come from a much different place.  Still - there was so much singing and dancing.  It seems that Rwandans come into the world knowing the beats and melodies as their voices and bodies move together.  It was a beautiful reminder to find joy in the good moments and allow that to inform and infuse the rest of life.

Several of them shared their heartbreaking journeys with us, but because of the Dream Center, they have hope and light and promise and are learning more about walking with the Lord.  They are also learning real, valuable, marketable skills that can be parlayed into real jobs and businesses.

While these women are in class, there is a Dream Daycare for their children to attend.  It was possibly one of the most precious places ever.  The women working there clearly loved their jobs and the children.  

As a mama to littles, I know exactly how valuable it is to know that your child is in a great place, and I am so thankful that they included this as part of the program.

There also happens to be a gift shop at the Dream Center where things that are made by graduates of the sewing program can be purchased.  They did give us the option of purchasing fabric in the market and having custom designs made for us.  Well.  I don't think they realized quite what a response that would get from our group.  We each had not one, but several, custom things in mind.  😳😁

We took two trips to the market just for fabric and ended up having fittings and alterations and the like during our week.  We *might* have been a little high maintenance, but we justified this by knowing we were giving them great business and practice.  It was a win for everyone!  🙌

I had a long, full skirt made out of that turquoise fabric, and I have all the good feels about it!  😍

Another program that I found exciting is the Women's Bakery.  This is something that was started by two women who began their time in Rwanda in the Peace Corps.  When they realized that Rwanda had very little bread - especially in the villages, they discovered that they could find ways to make bread using local, sustainable resources with nutrient dense-protein filled recipes.  Also - the bread is delicious and beautiful!

(These 👆 are G-Nut cookies, and they are really quite good.)


The Women's Bakery developed a 150 hour curriculum that teaches everything from basic math and business to baking skills, and they are building their model to include ways for the women to be able to bake in the villages.  Africa New Life is currently looking at ways to partner with them, especially in the communities that ANL already serves.  It is exciting to dream about what could be, and as a double bonus, we totally filled up on carbs and coffee at this stop. 😍

So - if you have a heartbeat for empowering women - there are several great ways to get involved!