Dear Friends of African Road,
Kelly with the children at Steven and Providance’s home in 2012
Muraho! (‘Hello’ in Kinyarwanda) I will be sending this note from Amsterdam, the mid-way stop enroute to Kigali, Rwanda. With the luxury of an empty seat beside me, I am settled in for the long trip. As we fly over the polar cap, my mind is on my final destination.
I’ll arrive Thursday after dark to the welcome of warm embraces and to traditional cheek-to-cheek greetings. The streets will still be bustling with moto-bikes zipping through traffic, small shops doing brisk trade and colorfully dressed neighbors exchanging evening news.
Before I manage to open my eyes after a nights sleep, Kigali will make herself known by the rhythmic scratch of a stiff twig broom, a chorus of exuberant roosters and the sound of the morning cook fire being prepared. Daylight will bring the sight of tidy gardens, rich red earth, rolling green hills, and industrious early morning workers trimming shrubs while they sing to start the day.
It’s been five months since I’ve been in Rwanda. Already I know that there are good reports to hear. Steven and Providance have been hard at work tending to the many needs of 250 women and children. With the leadership of Providance and Steven, with your partnership and with a great deal of effort and initiative on the part of the children and the women, positive change is taking root.
I’ll look forward to collecting those stories, seeing them with my own eyes and carrying them back to you. It is breathtaking what can unfold in just five months in these remarkable communities we are blessed to be working with.
Co-founder Lori Martin has been on the ground for two weeks, laying groundwork for the work we’ll do together. We are hopeful that this will be the time to find a future home for Steven and Providance, their two little ones Oscar and Queenie, and the 20 orphans they fold into their family. Stay tuned and pray for us as we view property, meet with attorneys and make important decisions. You worked to fund the House of Bright Hope and we are working to find the right place for a home.
I will be forging relationships with experts on the ground who can guide the children in their livestock projects and in a potential bee keeping project. I have an appointment with Heifer Rwanda and I am in communication with SNV, a capacity building organization from the Netherlands, training cooperatives to keep bees. Rwandan honey is delicious and valuable.
We’ll have the joy of delivering 20 innovative and nearly indestructible soccer balls to the 80 Togetherness orphans, from you and in partnership with One World Futbol.
The One World East African regional director will be in Rwanda when I am there and asked if she could come to Ndera to meet the kids. The orphans will be excited to have their soccer teams recognized.
We’ll be trying out new guesthouses to find the best place for our fall travel team to stay. Pass the word on – trip applications will be available when I return from Rwanda. For trip info, go to www.africanroad.org click Join us.
My brother-in-law led the way to raise $9,000.00 from Portland Rotary clubs to install a solar powered well pump and charging system for the village well on the Togetherness farmland. We are looking forward to seeing the well and the solar power operating before I leave.
Providance has been building her meat business -funded by a group of women from the UK and US in November. The Cooperative farm is flourishing. The two efforts combined mean that children now can eat daily.
We are in the first stages of exploring what shape a formal child sponsor program could take. It’s a top priority to see each child complete both primary and secondary education, and those who have high achievement be able to continue on to university. Education and literacy are essential to moving forward as individuals, as a cooperative and as a country.
Most important are the relational connections. We come to be with our friends, to honor their work and to hear from them. What are their joys? What are their challenges? Where are they finding hope now? Where do they see God at work? In this cross-cultural adventure they are often our best teachers. We’ll dance and sing and pray and laugh together. We’ll share potatoes and beans from a common bowl and we’ll look toward the future together.
In addition to all these goals, I’d appreciate your thoughts and prayers for my health and for the well being of my family while I travel. I appreciate my husband Ken more than words can say as he takes on a host of responsibilities and challenges these next few weeks while I am gone.
For those of you who are on Facebook, I will post regularly. Otherwise, watch for an early summer newsletter with photos and updates after I return. None of this would be possible without you—as I go I am keenly aware that each of you are part of this good story.
Murakoze Cyane (Thank you very much)
Kelly
P.S. Mark your calendar for African Road’s first annual banquet. Saturday April 26, 2014. It’s going to be something special.