Dear Friends and Family
We are back in Rwanda this week. We will probably be here for a month as we
meet with our leaders and review prospective projects. Elder Bird is acclimating to driving like home
again. It takes him a day or two every
time we switch countries to acclimate to driving on the right or left side of
the road. I am navigator as often we do
not have data so our GPS doesn’t work.
How did we ever live without cell phones and GPS?
This society, as in many
other countries of the world, is what is known as a "hand to
mouth." They barely earn enough to provide two meals a day. At
one school we visited the enrollment was 1886 students grades K - 12. 600
of those students come to school at 7 am to receive their breakfast consisting
of 1 cup of cornmeal porridge and one slice of bread. Most of these same
students go without lunch because their parents cannot afford lunch
money. The amazing thing is the kitchens they cook in. I haven't
yet seen running water in any school kitchen. We have visited several
schools where the kitchen is an out door open fire with a pot on top of
it. They are thrilled to receive a 10' x 12' block building to store food
supplies in. No shelving - just a room to pile the sacks of grain away from the
bugs and thieving hands.
Enablement is a HUGE problem in all
the countries of Africa because so many well meaning people do so much.
The people sit back and wait for someone to come to their aid and save
them. Many reach out by Facebook with sob stories that are unreal and
scams are frequent - especially with US and Canadian citizens.
Last week we visited a water source
with our District President. He took us there asking for the church
humanitarian department to help with a spring where the children are getting
water from a ditch. Only 20 feet away the church had erected a lovely
cement capture area with steps down into a rocked area where the children could
place their cans under the spout of running fresh clean spring water. In
the 15 years since this structure was built it has eroded and the steps are
destroyed (mostly by unattended children). The ditches are flooding and
the area is becoming a swamp instead of watering the crops in the
fields. Our men would see the breakdown of the cement and
repair it and clean the ditches. The committee of 6 men all stood
around and could not see a solution. Finally Elder Bird pointed out the
water needed to be temporarily rerouted, the steps could be broken up, the
debris hauled away, new steps formed up and poured. Then the ditch banks
should be shored up with rocks and cemented into place. Most of all, they
need to not throw trash into the ditches and they need to clean
the ditches so the water would flow downstream to their crops.
They were aghast. They really truly could not see a solution or any
way to remedy the situation. Simple things are unknown to them
because of lack of training. The people have been held back and oppressed
for many years. They lack education and parental examples. Think of
all the things most of us learn at the side of our parents as we work in our
yards, repair a car, clean our homes and cook in a kitchen etc. Families
are almost non-existent. The youth, however, are being educated.
Slowly the people are coming. The problem is much worse in Uganda than in
Rwanda. The government is more corrupt in Uganda with wealthy leaders and
oppressed citizens. When it is election time the candidates line up to pay
their vote bribes to the citizens. That is easy money for these poor
people. In Rwanda the infrastructure is stronger, leaders are more
honest, and people are much more honest. They take great pride in their
country, pay high taxes (50% on earned wages), and the money is returned into
the education system. In both countries the progress will be slow but is steadily inclining.
We met this week with a school
committee. We are proposing a large project at this school which will
impact the entire community. This school is on the top of a hill in
Kigali, Rwanda. The capital city of Kigali is built on hill after
hill. The school is at the crest of a hill with about a 300 foot drop off
at a 30% incline. When it rains, which is often, the water washes down
the hill into the community homes below causing muddy flooding. In
addition, this community can sometimes go a full month without water during the
dry season. We are hoping the city will join efforts in terracing the
hill side, erecting a retaining wall and fence around the school property,
build a water capture tank at the hill top to aid the citizens below, and
follow up with leveling and planting the school grounds. We hope to
involve the citizens and members in a helping hands planting project to help
control erosion. This would also provide the children with a large grassy
playground area. It will be one of three very large projects we are
proposing to our Area Presidency for clearance.
We are diligently working to find
projects in which we partner with the government of Rwanda. Some members
of the government are very leery of our church purposes and are
opposing granting visas to prospective missionaries. Two elders received
their calls and last week, at their departure, were denied visas and cannot
yet leave. Our Mission President is here in Rwanda now. Tomorrow we
will meet with the Immigration Department of Rwanda to represent the church,
the humanitarian work we are doing, and plead our case. Please
pray for our success or we may not be able to come and go from Uganda to do our
work here.
After finally getting comfortable in
Uganda over the last 6 weeks, we packed up and moved to Rwanda. We are slowly settling in to this
apartment. Food costs have sky rocketed
in the last month because Rwanda borders have been closed. They announced reopening to start February
first. Hopefully that will help items to
drop in price. When shopping yesterday
we found a small box of corn flakes cost the equivalent of $9US. I put it back and said we can eat
oatmeal or toast and eggs. I was amazed
at how many common items had doubled in cost in just the six weeks we were in
Uganda. We brought one full box of
items with us because we couldn’t find them here in Rwanda. Now we are looking forward to our return to
Uganda in February just so we can bring another box back with us. Next time I will bring food items.
One of our city officials asked about
the church and if she could attend. She
and her husband showed up today and even stayed for two meetings! You never know who is watching and who will
be touched by the spirit.
Great week! Great work!
Finally feeling we are needed and functioning missionaries.
Elder and Sister Bird
Rwanda District Conference January 29 & 30, 2022
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