Zhouderwanda: Bad news ... and good news (the best, in fact)

What a day last Thursday was! First, that morning I discovered after arriving at school that my English class had been cancelled, so I decided to meet the field service group. Well, upon arriving in the territory, I had slowed almost to a stop to turn left into a parking space on the other side of the road, when suddenly: BOOM! I glanced in the rear-view mirror and saw a motorcycle plow right into the back of my car, followed by a cascade of four other motorcycles, all of whom obviously had been going too fast and following too closely. You know how accidents always appear to happen in slow motion? It was almost comical, watching these motos crumple over each other like dominoes. Well, I turned left to get off the road while all the moto drivers and their passengers untangled themselves. Then, a guy who spoke some English came up and said he saw the whole thing. But, he said, instead of pulling off the road you should have stayed where you were, because that way we can draw diagrams, etc. I replied, in America, where I'm from, you pull off the road because otherwise you'll be a hazard. Anyway, some of the brothers who had been preaching came over, by which time a crowd of perhaps 100 people gathered, typically, to gawk.

I couldn't determine, in the ensuing confusion, which of the motos had been the first to hit me. Anyway, no one appeared to be hurt, and there was a medium-sized dent in my rear bumper, the kind that would cost a few thousand dollars in America to fix, but here only about $25, the biggest challenge being trying to match the paint. So, I concluded it wasn't worth pursuing, and besides that, all the motos took off very quickly, because they knew it was their fault.

Okay, that was the bad news. Well, after about a half-hour of preaching in the territory, Benjamin, one of the special pioneers in our Chinese group, got a call from Bethel. Why would they be calling me? he wondered. The brother from Bethel asked him about Chinese meeting times, and then he added, please check your jw.org inbox. Well, there was a letter from the Service Department that said: "We are very happy to inform you that we have approved the formation of the Kigali Remera (Chinese) Gasabo Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses. The congregation is formed as of November 1, 2018. Please receive our warm Christian love and greetings." (Interestingly, the letter was written in Chinese though addressed to the English Congregation.)

Well, we could almost not contain our urge to start screaming! The announcement was made to the entire English congregation the following Wednesday evening. The new congregation will have 4 elders, 5 ministerial servants, and a total of 23 publishers, 18 of whom are regular or special pioneers, as well as 2 Bethelites. Our meetings will be on Tuesday evening and Saturday afternoon.

I can tell you this: there could not be a more satisfying culmination to almost five years of my being here in Rwanda!