We rejoice!

Our Sunday has come to an end and the “en-voo-rah” (rain) is coming down quite hard again. Yeah!, more water for our buckets!!!! The day started early with Kristen Cavallo joining our team at New Hope Homes. After a cancelled flight and lots of scurrying she arrived at the Kigali Airport at 5:15AM. Unfortunately I didn’t get the message and the poor dear had to wait for me to quickly call the driver who came running up the street and we dashed to the airport. I ran and found her reading her book and just chillin’. She made 30 hours of continuous travel look good. We arrived at our home and she wanted to stay up to re-set her body clock but I encouraged her to take a 1.5 hour nap before we went to church. When I came to wake her she was in a deep deep sleep that required I give her a few good taps to awaken. I suggested that she consider sleeping some more while we went to church and she welcomed the idea. The boys were so excited that Liles would join us. Their eyes lite up and they clapped when I asked their question “does Liles come” with a yes. We made our merry little way down the road on our 30 min walk to church. Past the coal market, past the bike taxi stand that I told you about in earlier in my blog where the passengers ride in a fender in the back, past the big big market and down the dirt road to the Rainbow Hotel which feature a large hall the is converted to church on Sundays. We again arrived for the 2nd half of the English service and heard a great preacher talk about how to pick your life time partner and about the power of having good friends in you life. We sang lots of praise songs before he preached. We headed to the balcony for the 2nd service which is in Kinyarwanda and sang a lot more songs. The balcony was filling with lots of kids so Liles went to help someone bring in more chairs. The kids all looked at him with such pride that our Liles was helping. He had so giving up his chair for someone else to sit at earlier. Liles sets lots of great examples, especially for our boys. It sort of a silent witness for them about how to show good character. He also brought chairs for the kids at Sunday school. Our Mama saw him carrying a big stack of chairs and looked at him and then looked a me and smiled with great pride that he was one of ours!!! After another long window of time the kids headed to Sunday School and I suggested to Liles that we should go back and awaken Kristen so her body clock didn’t get all messed up. The kids are at church from 9:30 until 2 on most Sundays and are incredibly patient and well behaved for such a long time. Hey you kids that are listening to your parents read it….remember that next time you think one hour at church or synagogue is tooooooo long. I enjoyed the walk back with Liles as we covered lots of ground. He decided to continue his exploration outside the walls of New Hope Homes and eat a restaurant down the road from our 1st home. I use the term restaurant very loosely. But, as it turned out he had a good BIG meal for about $6US. Kristen has just experienced her 1st bucket bath when I arrived and I thought she had done a great job. It takes a bit of thought to figure out how to wash your hair and body with the least amount of water and try to keep most of it in the end to use to flush the toilet. I was impressed with her ingenuity. We caught up about her trip and then covered non stop random questions about our days, the language, the names of our kids etc etc. We headed to the 2nd and 3rd home to meet the rest of our new family and have lunch. Everyone greeting Kristen with lots of warm and her name is generally be pronounced Kristeeen or Christian. A few of the kids can say it , but it’s too difficult for the rest of them. I think for Kristen one of the most powerful moments was just after she had met a ton of the kids we walked into the 3rd home and she saw a photo of Kate and Matt on their wall that has been there for the last 2-3 years. I explained the the kids that Kristen was their Mom, they got all excited and told her "their names are Matt and Kate and they are our friends". Next I had the kids tell Mama Imaculee the connection and she came up close to Kristen and wrapper her arms around her and held her tighly. She only speaks about 5 words of Kinyarwranda but the connection and love between 2 Mom's doesn't really require any words. Kristen had the big kids translate to Mama that Kate's hair is in a ponytail in the photo and that Matt has now cut alot of his hair off. She smiled intently and tried to get updated on her friends "Kate and Matt in America". After a quick lunch we headed out to give the big kids swimming lessons. What was a very hot day (sorry to all of you who are freezing) suddenly got cloudy and Liles and Kristen did a great job trying to keep warm while teaching the kids. Liles insisted that the kids try to swim without their water wings first. After much wining, the majority of them did it and did GREAT. I took the opportunity to make a video of Mbanda (Chantal’s husband) who talked about all the great work CALM has done this year and what they hope to accomplish next year. Things like getting goats to 500 widows, getting clothes to 1500 children so they could have a small Christmas celebration, getting Mosquito nets to villages etc etc. I was humbled by the list and so proud to be associated with such wonderful people. Back at the homes Kristen got to play with more of the kids. She is of course an natural and they could sense her love immediately. I showed her Desami’s curled up foot and she is excited to go to the Doctor with us tomorrow to see how me might be able to help. We played lots of great games outside, but after the long day at church …on Sunday’s the kids tend to be a bit fried. Kristen taught them a few new songs including How Great is Our God and they loved it. She had her iphone with her to play the song for the kids and then record them singing it too. Skyping today was wonderful. We had a GREAT connection with Kristen’s husband, daughter and new dog Heidi. We were able to show video on both side simultaneously. They got to meet a lot of kids and ask each other questions. Her husband Ian was awesome with our kids helping facilitate some of the questions. Everyone is looking forward to meeting their son Matt tomorrow too via skype. Next we talked to my cousin Sarah (aka Wiederkehr…ya, I know you have a married name Rice…but hey) and her 4 kids. It was a very sweet and moving call. The kids asked each other questions. Then we sang a song and then her kids sang to our kids and THEN one of her songs played his guitar to a song that we had just sung (oh my, can’t believe the name escapes me a the moment). The kids clapped and they sang again …this time our kids sang along with him. We tried to video but it was very dark. WOW….imagine what that was like? Our kids praising God in song where a sweet boy with a guitar in Alabama played the song. There are times when technology really does create new powerful bonds. We connected with Jim for a few minutes but the connection was a bit dicey and the kids a bit too tired to continue. All that was left was hungry stomach and lots of yawns. Liles set out for another adventure (after his run with Claudine this morning) to explore a bit more of the local area. We walked a great distance and got into some interesting areas lots of kids coming to see the Moozoongo (white person) and laugh with him. We think it added another 5 miles to his adventure today. After dinner the rain began and we divided our trio up into took on different roles. Liles working on English with one of the staff. Kristen leading a reading lesson and WOWED by the kids abilities. I have to keep reminding people that our kids could not speak a single word of English 2 years ago. Now they can read, write and translate in it. That is a big wow. I lead the kids in more songs and then took some of the kids into a room and played our new fun game…person, place or thing. The kids are having great fun playing it. It uses their mind, their creativity and their language skills so it’s a win win all around. The volume of noise in the homes at night is often extreme with little bodies running everywhere laughing, screams, speaking in Kinyarwanda and English. I wish I could bottle up the energy and use when needed. As the rain beats on our tin roof we rejoice at so many of you who have reached out to help our kids. We thank you that families like Ian’s and Kristen’s would share her with our kids for a week and that their family and friends would send her to us with such wonderful supplies. Tomorrow we will be taking Desami to the doctor to explore options to straighten his ankle/foot. We told his “Mommy” tonight and she just kept saying “oh thank-a-you” we also will be getting out to a rural area to see how the woman that is on the CALM website who wanted to start a business is doing with the $600 that used to help her start her little store with sugar, beans and other basics for her to sell. It should be full circle experience as I met her when she first inquired about the possibility of funding and the vision she had to support her sick mother, brother’s kids and her own kid as a widow who is HIV +. The journey continues.