Arrived!

Well, I made it to Rwanda, safe and sound! It was a long trip: 20 hours of flying, plus the layovers. The fact is, when traveling from the U.S. West Coast, you discover that Africa is further than China!

So . . . there were 5 brothers waiting to pick me up from the airport in Kigali, the capital.

The brother in the suit is Bosco, who is a translator at the Rwanda Bethel. He and his wife were regular Bethelites at one time, but then they left to have children. They now have two kids and Bosco commutes to Bethel. So he has been working at Bethel for 16 years now. By the way, he is the one interviewed in the video (shown during circuit overseers' visits last year) who goes on enthusiastically about the new songbook in the Kinyarwanda language. His two kids are also pictured in the June 2012 Awake! So he is a major star.

It was arranged for me to live with twin brothers (#1 and #4 in the picture, counting from the left), Emile and Epimaque, in their two-bedroom apartment. The neighborhood turned out to be some distance from the center of the city, but very quiet. So I don't have to use the earplugs, after all. They just moved into this place recently, so there isn't too much furniture. But I'm grateful for having my own room and bed! The main challenge is telling my two roommates apart, because even the local brothers cannot, after many years.

One thing I had read about online before the trip was the abundance of lunch buffets in Kigali. They are cheap and of good variety: beans, rice, cassava, potatoes, green bananas, plantain, avocado, salads, fruit, and meat dishes. Buffets here are different from those in the U.S. in this respect: you only get one trip. So you have to pile the food on as high as you can. I've learned that it is an art. You have to do it in such a way that nothing falls off. The first time I went to this great buffet place, called Camellia, I was conservative, as pictured below. But by the second visit there were no limits.

All for 2500RWF (US$3.75)!

After feeling a bit more rested on the third day, I went to the meeting that evening. They have a double Kingdom Hall, upstairs and downstairs, with four congregations: English, French, and two Kinyarwanda. The Kingdom Hall is just across the street from the Bethel complex. The English congregation has 10 Bethelites and 80 total publishers.

When the brother read off this long list of those signed up to be auxiliary pioneers in March, it was very impressive. Then, a few minutes later, at the end of his part he apologized by saying that the names he read were the ones already mentioned the previous week; so now he would read the names of those not yet mentioned. It seemed like 75% of the congregation, which was very gratifying to see.

On Thursday, a brother named David and I went preaching the entire day. Actually, it was only until 4 p.m., because he had to go home to get some sleep. He works at a local brewery with shifts that change every week; one week it is daytime, the next week swing shift, and the third week graveyard shift. This week he works graveyard, so he is tired by late afternoon. I was hoping to get some free samples from his workplace, but so far none have been offered.

Anyway, we did some of his magazine route calls, one of which turned into a possible Bible study. We also went around to places he knew where there are Chinese people. One place was the University of Rwanda, where they have Chinese instructors teaching Mandarin to the locals.

One teacher kindly invited us to come to his office. He is from Nanjing and is in the third year of his teaching program in Rwanda. We showed him the "Why Study the Bible?" video (which I actually showed a total of four times that day). He was very receptive, and when we were about to leave, he reached across to a shelf and pulled out a Kinyarwanda-English-Chinese dictionary, and gave it to me. As a gift!

Another call on a man in a Chinese restaurant was productive. I showed the video and left the current magazines. Actually, David told me that he had spoken previously with another man at this restaurant, who said that the Chinese need God in their life, because just look at the result without God: immoral behavior, corruption, family problems, etc. So this man was eager to get some of our literature. We didn't see him on this occasion, but I intend to call back next week.

Tomorrow I visit Bethel, which is about a half-hour walk from where I live, and that makes for another story. Until then . . . .