Trip to Kibungo and beyond

This past week, I accompanied Philbert Munyankindi, who works at Bethel in the Kingdom Hall Construction Office, on his trip to some place with a long name (as are most), where he was to conduct a pre-construction meeting with the servant bodies of two congregations regarding remodeling of their 17-year-old Kingdom Hall. This village is located in the Eastern Province, close to the border of Tanzania.

I had actually asked Philbert, who does these kinds of trips frequently throughout the country, if I could go with him because I knew he would be passing through a town called Kibungo. The significance of this is, I had heard that my former Bible student, Liu Xin En, who went to China over a year ago and never came back to Kigali, was living in Kibungo. So this was my opportunity to perhaps locate him again.

This would be a three-hour trip each way from Kigali, plus all of Philbert's stops at various places such as ongoing Kingdom Hall construction sites, vacant plots for possible purchase and building, etc. Anyway, eventually on the way back we did make it to Kibungo in the afternoon. It turns out that there is a hospital operated by Chinese there—of all places—which is somehow related to the hospital in Masaka, the one I visited over a year ago that is close to Kigali. We were told at reception that the Chinese all left at 11:00 a.m. and returned home to their compound (bankers' hours?), and that the only Chinese person left was a lady doctor. So we went to see her, had a nice discussion, and left some magazines and a brochure. She said that there are 10 Chinese doctors at that hospital. She had never heard of my Bible student, Mr. Liu.

So we went into the main part of town and asked around. We ran into two other Chinese doctors in a store. Aside from the 10 Chinese at the hospital, apparently there are no other Chinese people living or working in Kibungo. So even though I was a bit disappointed, Jehovah knows that we tried. We did manage to leave some literature with these doctors, and who knows what the result may be.

It was nice to see the countryside once again, even though it meant my getting constantly stared at by villagers. Even the dirt roads in Rwanda are not bad, at least compared to other places in Africa I've been; it's just that this is late August, the end of three months of dry season, and the air is choked with red dust. So every time we encountered a vehicle going in the other direction, we had to close our windows to keep the resulting massive dust cloud out. We couldn't complain too much, though, because our truck was creating massive dust clouds behind us. The dust is on everything: roads, vehicles, clothes, people. Even the leaves of the matoke trees! (the "cooking" banana). So we are anxiously awaiting the rain—any rain—to clear out all this dust and make the air fresh again.

Pre-construction meeting

Kingdom Hall to be remodeled

Pumping water at a well

Kingdom Hall construction site

So this means that I have now visited the Western, Southern, and Eastern Provinces, but not the Northern Province, which has the gorillas and a famous national park. Oh, well, I guess the touristic stuff will have to wait....

Afghan refugee

A few Sundays ago, I looked out the window of the second story of the Kingdom Hall as the meeting was starting and saw one of the sisters with what appeared to be an interested man rushing up to the building entrance. He sat in the back and during the Watchtower Study even gave a comment! I could not, however, identify his accent.

So about 20 minutes after the meeting, I managed to meet this person. His name is Shayan and he is a refugee from Afghanistan. He has been in Rwanda for a little over a year and lives on a small amount every month given him by the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees). He said he had to leave Afghanistan due to religious persecution, apparently for being a Christian.

At that point in our discussion, I had assumed that someone in the congregation had offered him a Bible study, but apparently no one had. So we agreed to study in the Good News brochure, even several times a week, since his life here is characterized by absolutely nothing to do all day. He has no work, no school, he can't communicate with his neighbors and so spends most of the time in his tiny, unfinished concrete room with only a mattress on the floor.

Since that first meeting, he has come to the midweek night meeting and has downloaded every publication needed for that meeting on his phone. He has also downloaded materials in Persian (also known as Farsi), which is his native tongue. However, presently only the Greek Scriptures of the New World Translation comes in Persian. The walk to our Kingdom Hall takes over an hour each way. So I agreed to go to his place for the Bible study. Definitely the English is a challenge, but if we read the material in both English and Persian, he will understand it.

By the way, Shayan was found by the sister while she was doing search work, as encouraged by our circuit overseer. So all the effort we are putting forth to locate English speakers—as well as those for whom there is no other option—is certainly paying off!

New "restaurant" Bible study

My two Chinese Bible studies are solid, but of course, one is always on the lookout for more. So it was at this new Chinese restaurant called Carving Taste (味莊)—pronounced Wèi Zhuāng, and which happens to be right next door to the vehicle sales and repair business of my Bible student, Mr. Han—that I found a new study. I had been there before, of course, to see the wife of the owner, Mrs. Li, who after a few visits told me she wasn't really that interested. Then, I talked to the cook, who also said he wasn't interested, BUT, he said, he knew of someone else who was very interested in the Bible, someone who came to eat at that restaurant every evening. So I gave the cook my business card (which says in Chinese, "Jehovah's Witnesses, Promoting Bible Education"), wrote my phone number on the back, and asked him to give it to the customer.

A short time later I got a text message stating: "Hello. Are you Chinese?" in English, followed by those small little boxes you get when your cheapie cell phone can't read Chinese characters. So I responded, yes, I am Chinese but from America. I didn't hear anything for about a week (did I make a mistake by saying "America"?), so I decided to call this mystery person.

Anyway, it turns out his name is Wang Jun Bao (王君保) from Shanghai, he is 26 years old, has only been in Rwanda for a few months, and works for a medical company. He says he can speak to African clients in broken English, but when they reply in English he can't understand them. (I can identify with that, but in Chinese.) He then showed me his Chinese Bible and said that he is a Christian; the rest of his family are basically non-religious.

By the way, this first meeting took place at the Carving Taste Restaurant, and it lasted about two hours because he insisted on ordering lunch for me and my partner. This last Sunday, the second meeting at the restaurant, we did one entire chapter in the Bible Teach book. I had only prepared half the chapter—since that seems to be what we normally cover in one session—but he wanted to study the whole chapter! So we were there two hours once again, and the only reason we didn't eat lunch is because the electricity was out most of that time. (One wonders, how do restaurants function in developing countries?)

He said he tries to talk to his co-workers about the Bible, but they basically rebuff him. Then, he said his boss asks him to lie on occasion, which really bothers his conscience, so what should he do? (Note: From my experience, when a Chinese person has problems with dishonesty, considering how rampant it is, he or she is likely sheeplike and receptive to the truth. Yes!) I directed him to read Daniel chapter 3 and Acts 5:28, 29, to see Biblical examples of doing the right thing even in the face of persecution. He said he hadn't read as far as Daniel in the Bible, but did that story have something to do with fire?

So we have agreed to meet every Sunday afternoon at the restaurant and, at this rate, we may cover the whole book in just a few months.... If we can move a bit faster at becoming a Chinese group, maybe we can get him to come to a meeting!