First to attend meeting!

The Sunday before last, October 26, was a milestone in my almost 8 months of living in Rwanda. A Bible student came to the Kingdom Hall! This was Peter, the Rwandan student who is an English major at KIE. I have had only one study with him, but he wanted to come to the Sunday meeting right away. I told him I would pick him up beforehand, since he didn't know where the Kingdom Hall was.

However, Sundays are about the most packed days in my schedule. Now, I am teaching Han Kai and his wife English twice a week (for money, of course), which includes Sunday mornings at 7:00am. We study English for an hour, then have a Bible study (in Chinese) at 8:00am, then I rush off to an English study in another part of town at 9:30am--and hope that the buses aren't running too slowly--then come back for the meeting at 11:30am. Oh, and try to eat something before the meeting, if that is at all possible. (Then, there is another Bible study after the meeting, which is a 20-minute walk from the Kingdom Hall, to round the day off.)

So, this particular Sunday when Peter said he wanted to come to the meeting, I tried to allow plenty of time on a bus to get to his place and back before the meeting, but that day, the traffic was backed up solid due to an event involving groups of runners on the street. At one traffic light, my bus sat for 10 minutes! It was stressful, but we eventually made it to the Kingdom Hall with a few minutes to spare.

Peter brought his Bible, which was a modern-English translation similar to Today's English Version (I think), but after using it during the public talk, he realized it didn't read quite the same as the version everyone else was using, so he asked me afterward for a New World Translation, as well as a songbook. Since the literature department didn't have either one of these, I managed to get them at Bethel the next day. Anyway, now Peter wants to attend every Sunday! He can now walk to the Hall himself, which would take about 15 minutes.

But that isn't all there is to this story....

This past Sunday, November 2, not only Peter but Mr. Han's wife came! Her name is Liu Hui Fang. Mr. Han was supposed to come, but he had a golf date with some Koreans. (Not to worry, we will make sure he comes to the meeting next week.) My other Chinese return visit, Zhao Li Bo, had also promised to come, but he got sick. Even though I have invited Mr. Han and his wife to the meeting before, one of the things that may have tipped the scale this time is my comment to them, "Not only will you learn more about the Bible, but you can improve your English as well." By the way, for all of them I would say that their English is 不错 (not bad).

At the meeting, of course Mrs. Han was swarmed over. Our congregation is so friendly that before and after meetings you could say the air is "electric." Sometimes the conversations are so loud that it's difficult to hear oneself!

So I managed to assign some Rwandan sisters who have started learning Chinese to help Mrs. Han to find scriptures, etc., during the meeting. I was very interested to note the subject of the Watchtower Study, "Are You Convinced That You Have the Truth? Why?" Chinese people don't know much about Christianity in general, and many of them think that all so-called "Christian" religions are alike. This article sets the record straight!

After the meeting I couldn't reach my other Bible student, but I did start a study with someone else, and after an exhausting but immensely satisfying day returned home after 6:30pm.

Here are pictures of everyone:

Peter

Hui Fang (Lucy)

A Chinese group is in the making!