1 week down...

We finished up our first week at the school yesterday. It was great. They memorized Genesis 1:1 in English and Kinyarwandan. Precious! We had a really good time with them.

Monday and Tuesday afternoons were pretty slow. Wednesday we stayed at the church after school and had lunch with Esron's family. It was a typical Rwandan meal: goat, peas, carrots, cauliflower, rice, chips, red sauce, and bananas for desert. We got to visit with Esron and his family until 3. It was good to spend some time with Esron as he has been very busy for most of our trip. We got to see baby Gladys (who will be two this month) and that was fun! At 3, we went to the church to meet with the women's small group. There were 6 women there (plus Melissa and I). We felt a little intimidated, as these women are all older than us and wives of pastors and leaders in the church, however, it was really great. It was humbling that THEY want to learn from US. We are learning so much from them! We all shared our testimonies and spent most of the time getting to know each other. I talked a little about Jesus' temptation in the desert from Matthew 4 and how when He was tempted, He found strength in scripture. We told them that is what we want this study to look like. We want to talk about real issues and find out what the Bible says, because, although we will only be here for a few weeks, God's word is eternal. Esron told us later that they could not stop talking about how excited they were to have us spending this time with them.

Yesterday, we finished at the school and then went back to the Ligue for a few hours. My mom called while we were resting. It was so great to hear from her and dad. Around 5, we went with Mary (a woman who works at the Ligue) to do a Bible study with some women she knows. We met at the house of another woman who works at the Ligue and lives nearby. We walked through a maze of tiny, crowded homes until we came to the one we would be meeting at. I was holding back tears the whole time. These looked like the homes you see on tv. On all my trips, I have never seen houses like these in Africa. I knew they were here, but we've never really seen them. These people are living next to piles and piles of garbage. The dirt and smells... I could not believe it. It was humbling, once again. We met in a small room (maybe 4 ft by 10 ft) that had a small window, 8 chairs, and a bamboo rug on the floor. The women came shortly after we got there. I think about 8 women (and 5-8 small children) came. We filled up the chairs, plus there were some people on the floor. We shared our first lesson (gospel presentation) and they were all so happy we were there. We shared prayer requests at the end. In both groups we have met with, the requests have been the same:
1- that their children would not be hungry and would have the funds to go to school
2- salvation for their families
3- that they would follow the Lord faithfully
wow. I am so selfish. I'm tired of granola bars, and they are praying that their children would have food to eat. At the begining of summer, I was starting to doubt my major and why I had chosen nutrition. God has used this trip to show me that really is where He is leading me and that He is going to use my studies throughout my life.

After that, we went to eat with Sarah and Sylvain again. While we were eating, Kahler called and I got to talk to him for about 5 minutes, but it was still good.

We slept in this morning until about 9. We were supposed to have a Bible study with the Dorcas ladies this morning, but there was some miscommunication and they aren't even meeting today. Hopefully that will get worked out before next week. So, we've been resting and organizing things at the Ligue and just walked to the internet. We'll probably get as much done here as we can and then we'll walk home and get ready to go to dinner around 6.

Thank you all for praying. Again, I love reading the comments and wish we could get to the internet more often! LOVE YOU ALL! :)