Rwanda's Greatest Joys

These kids give me a breath of fresh air on days where I'm feeling pooh-pooh. Thank God they come to hang out at the office, and thank God someone just gave a donation that allows them to eat three meals a week at our office instead of one! That means... MORE JOY FOR RACH (and more food for the kids - this is obviously the better outcome, but I'm still happy).


And here are the kids having fun with Jaqueline, the cook and women's counselor. You have NO idea how many takes of these photos I took with them. Non-stop giggle craziness.


They like it the best though when I actually let THEM use the cameras to take pictures of me. Oh boy... What was I thinking?! But - the squeals of joy post-picture taking was worth it. I'm still laughing.

It's Portrait time.... They organized a line for portrait-taking, like school photos.




SO AMAZING. I LOVE THESE CHILDREN!!!!!!! Thank you God for giving me automatic smiles every time I hear their little screams outside of my office windows.

Quick Hello

Hello Friends and Family,

A couple quick updates your way from my side of the Earth. Things have been in full swing and chaos lately, it's hard to believe it will be a month and a half before I come home.

1) A couple weeks ago, helped my co-workers complete (I didn't do a lot really just background support) an event called Walk to Remember (Mandy Moore was not included) on April 7, 2010, the 16th anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide. 10,000 people attended this event - walking from Parliamenet (where the President of Rwanda spoke) to the national stadium for candle lighting, name readings, singing, films, etc. It was powerful and moving... although I was running around the city in the minivan all day long managing the utter chaos that was ensuing from lack of planning. This also included me locking the keys in the damn minivan at a crucial part of the day where I needed to be driving. I googled "how to unlock a car with a bobby pin" but luckily our broken door was jammed and did not lock. Too bad I was bobby-pinning the minivan key lock for about 20 minutes before I figured it out.




2) Just organized a screening event for the ex-pat community at a really nice restaurant called Heaven. It is a beautiful restaurant and only about 130 people were there (but the restaurant was small so it was jam packed). We did not intend for it to be a fundraiser, just a connecting time to re-establish As We Forgive's credibility after a couple months of quietness due to funding constraints. However, we raised enough money by selling dvds (Suggested donation) to support one staff's salary for the month of may. We are really tight right now, so that was a big miracle!

3) Exhausted. Live with a bunch of AMAZING girls who are extremely social and like to stay up late at night. i do not. I'm tired. Am I already an old woman? Is this what happens to engaged/married people?

4) My wonderful friend Claire just graduated from University. She has come SO far. Her graduation was really emotional and everyone was crying. Her mother was murdered for testifying in a Gacaca court case against genocide perpetrators, and her father was abusive and she fled from him to live with her mom's relatives. her father was at her graduation which was difficult, but she handled it with such grace and love. Pastor Deo and his wife got special thanks from Claire. Pastor Deo found CLaire when she was jobless and desperate and he took her in to work at PFR so she could study and also support all of her siblings who are still in school. This is her at her graduation party. She had to sing and do Kinyarwanda dancing as a tradition. If my parents made me dance and sing at a personal graduation party I would probably faint out of embarrassment! But dang, this girl loved it!


5) Got to have a good skype call with fiance today - much needed. Time is going by so quickly!!! NOT. It's still creep-a-leepin', but it will come soon enough and June and July is going to be SO MUCH FUN!!!!!

6) Iceland volcano. wtf?! People in Rwanda are STRANDED b/c they can't fly into Europe! One of my roomies was supposed to leave this weekend but she's grounded for 2 more weeks. I'm nervous it's going to cause a serious backlog in flights back home! Also, what if it causes another volcano to erupt (I'm not just making this stuff up, scientists are legit worried about this too). OK people I'm not a typical worry-wort, but I am just antsy to make it home on time!!!



I love you friends and fam. My eyelids are heavy and it's shut-eye time.

Much Love to you all.

Love, Rach

Cry, the Beloved Country

I don’t know if I can add anything after this. This sums up a big ache in my heart as to how I want to live. But oh, I'm pretty far from it. Excerpt from “Cry, The Beloved Country” Alan Paton

“Therefore, I shall devote myself, my time, my energy, my talents, to the service of South Africa. I shall no longer ask myself if this or that is expedient, but only if it is right. I shall do this, not because I am noble or unselfish, but because life slips away, and because I need for the rest of my journey a star that will not play false to me, a compass that will not lie. I shall do this, not because I am a negrophile and a hater of my own, but because I cannot find it in me to do anything else. I am lost when I balance this against that, I am lost when I ask if this is safe, I am lost when I ask if men, Englishmen or Afrikaners, Gentiles or Jews, will approve. Therefore I shall try to do what is right, and to speak what is true.

I do this not because I am courageous and honest, but because it is the only way to end the conflict of my deepest soul. I do it because I am no longer able to aspire to the highest with one part of myself, and to deny it with another. I do not wish to live like that, I would rather die than live like that. I understand better those who have died for their convictions, and have not thought it was wonderful or brave or noble to die. They died rather than live, that was all.

Yet it would not be honest to pretend that it is solely an inverted selfishness that moves me. I am moved by something that is not my own, that moves me to do what is right, at whatever cost it may be. In this I am fortunate that I have married a wife who thinks as I do, who has tried to conquer her own fears and hates. Aspiration is thus made easy. My children are too young to understand. It would be grievous if they grew up to hate me or fear me, or to think of me as a betrayer of those things that I call our possessions. It would be a source of unending joy if they grew up to think as we do. But it cannot be bargained for. It must be given or withheld and whether the one or the other, it must not alter the course that is right"