Almost nothing has happened…

Wow, it has been three months since my last post. Time really flies when…nothing is happening. Okay, maybe that’s not entirely accurate, but after you’ve been in a place for a while, life tends to settle into a comfortable routine (rut?).

So let’s see, what has not happened? My school Edugate hasn’t given me any work for three months, which doesn’t actually bother me too much, because even though I got my work permit with Immigration thanks to my contract with Edugate (said permit paid for by me), the thought of going all the way into town for a $4.75/hr. job isn’t particularly appealing. Especially considering that online teaching is far more lucrative.

That brings us to what has happened. Last month a sister named Abigail came on a bus from Zambia to Rwanda to work with our Chinese group for a month. She belongs to a Chinese congregation in Zambia (of which there are, amazingly, four, when you consider that there are only nine Chinese congregations in all of sub-Saharan Africa). If you look at a map of Africa, you will see that a straight shot from Zambia to Rwanda is under 1,000 miles, and there is a road that connects the two running through Tanzania, so overland it should take less than 24 hours, right? Sorry, this is Africa; that’s not how it works. There is not much demand for travel between the two countries, so the route from Zambia takes you on one bus to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, which is on the coast, followed by a second bus to Rwanda, forming a large triangle. So our sister Abigail spent the better part of four days to get here. She had heard about our group when our special pioneers Innocent and Benjamin attended the Language Instructors’ Seminar in Lusaka, Zambia. So, compared to Zambia, our group in Rwanda could be considered where the “need is greater.”

Anyway, she has been in the Chinese field for about two years, and let me tell you, her Chinese is pretty amazing. She was a big encouragement to the learners in our group.

There was evidence of Jehovah’s blessing on her entire experience here. First, because I believe this was the first time she had ever traveled to another country, she came with the Zambian currency known as kwacha, which is completely useless here in Rwanda. You can’t change it anywhere into Rwanda francs. But, interestingly, shortly after arriving she encountered a Zambian man who was here on a business trip and was shortly to return home. He wanted to change his francs back into kwacha. Normally, one would have to change from francs to U.S. dollars and then to kwacha. So he was more than happy to exchange with Abigail. The upshot was that she ended up with enough funds to last her the entire month!

Then, before leaving, she was surprised that someone in the congregation here bought her a return plane ticket to Zambia. So instead of spending another dreaded four days on buses, she got home in less than two hours!

Recent photo of the Chinese group (Abigail and a visiting couple from France on the left)

On the home front, this week a brother named Emmanuel from the French congregation is moving into the storage room behind my outdoor kitchen. He commutes to Bethel three days a week and doesn’t have much money or possessions. He does photography at weddings, but of course there are not weddings every weekend. So he got this other job as a security guard, working nine hours all night, seven days a week. And you know from one of my previous posts how much that kind of job pays. So he’s paying me only about $12 a month, including the water bill. When I said “storage room” just now, I should mention that it’s a room with concrete floor about 70 square feet, with an electrical outlet and a window. So it’s livable. Of course, he can use my toilet and shower anytime. (He can also wash my car anytime.)

We just had our English regional convention, the second time in as many years. Last year the peak attendance was 198, and this year it was 250, a 25% increase! Last year was almost entirely streaming video, but this year was a mix of live talks and video. We had three baptized, two from our congregation (Lionel, who is 6’6”, and Sano, the sister of David Minani), and one from the other English congregation in Nyamirambo.

And here’s the other big news: as of last week, the letters and applications have been sent out to all the Kinyarwanda, French, Swahili, and English congregations here in Kigali for the upcoming Chinese course! (We had been waiting for the Service Department to translate the letters and applications.) So there should be announcements this week. Once the applications have been returned to the circuit overseer, he will review them with input from the three language instructors, and it looks like we will be able to have our kickoff meeting in early September. The course will run through January 2018. So we will be very busy!

In the meantime, we have entered the dry season here in Rwanda. They are tearing the roads up all over the place, for the purpose of widening and repaving.* So the dust is flying everywhere, and combined with the heat at this time of year and the fact that we are close to the end of the service year, I have already entered my summer malaise.

When I say “heat,” of course temperature-wise it is not as hot here as in many parts of the U.S. The hottest it ever gets here is about 86ºF (30ºC), which is pretty extreme. The difference is that the effect of the sun at the equator is like being under a tanning lamp. Those solar rays just feel more intense. So even on days when it’s not that hot, you still have to wear a hat. I’m normally not much into hats, considering what they do to your hair, but here in Rwanda they are necessary. This reminds me of what a brother at U.S. Bethel told me when I was serving there years ago and balked at the idea of wearing a knitted cap while preaching on some of the coldest days in New York (just like those used by burglars but without the eye holes, and yes, hair was an issue then, too): It doesn’t matter what you look like, or what other people think, just protect your head!

So what can I do about my malaise? Get out of here for a while, that’s what! I just bought a plane ticket to South Africa, and so for all you folks back home, this is to let you know that the last two weeks of August I’ll be lying on a beach in Durban and gorging on Indian food. Hey, gotta do something leisurely before I ‘hit the ground running’ when the Chinese course starts. So your next correspondence will be…well, when I get back.

* All this flurry of activity is in advance of the presidential election on August 4. The current president will be running for his third term, which is the result of a special referendum from 2015 amending the constitution to allow for the third term. The referendum passed with 98% of the vote (hmmm).