Africa Trip Update #1

For those of you who like to thumb through books only to look at the pictures, I will start by telling you that I’ve uploaded my most recent Africa pictures into my photo gallery. There should be more in the days to come depending on what kind of internet connection I can find, but for now there are a couple dozen new ones.

I arrived in Rwanda, Africa this past Friday after spending close to 30 hours in transit. My plane ride across the ocean was a great experience for me. I got to sit next to a lady from Ethiopia who is a strong Christian. She has her American citizenship now, but she was heading to Ethiopia to visit family. We talked for hours as she shared her testimony and also filled me in on several aspects of African culture. (In a future post I will go into more depth on this story.) It really helped to pass those long hours on the plane and was a great way to get the trip started.

I am currently traveling with a group of 6 people. My boss and I are leading 4 others on a “tour” through Africa to show them the ministry that OMS and ECC has here. On Saturday we traveled to a remote village where we visited a church that was recently planted. After spending a couple of hours there meeting people, listening to them sing and watching them dance, we headed back to Kigali.

On the way home we stopped at one of the many places where the genocide killings took place in 1994. This particular spot was a Roman Catholic Church that has since been turned into a museum and memorial. At this one place alone, over 10,000 people were killed. The evidence of what happened there was visible everywhere. Doors and walls with bullet holes in them, blood stains across the walls and ceilings, and the clothes. Yes that’s right, clothes. In a room off to the side of the main sanctuary were the remains of the clothing from all the people who had been killed there. A room that was roughly 12’x15’ was completely filled to the 10’ ceiling with blood stained, ragged clothes. It’s an image I will never erase from my memory.

Today we attended church here in Kigali. It was your typical African church service. The singing started around 9am, the preaching began about 11 and by 12:30 things were beginning to wrap up. After church we headed to lunch and then on to visit one of the supporting ministries that ECC has in the area. It was a clothing store where several women were making shirts to sell in the local markets. The profits made from selling these shirts helps support the ECC workers in this area. By all accounts, their endeavor has been very successful so far.

Tomorrow we head for Burundi. Then on Thursday we will make our way to Mozambique for the weekend. If the remainder of this trip goes anything like these first 3 days have gone, I’m guessing there will be plenty more to read here. Or if you just like the pictures, there should be more of those too.