Ruhengeri adventure

Sarah: Pancakes. I opened my eyes this morning to the news that we were eating pancakes. After realizing I slept in to an embarrassing hour I quickly put clothes on, contacts in, and headed to the breakfast table. Pancakes . . . the size of my plate and of quality equal to those found at Maria’s Café, one of my favorite Minneapolis breakfast spots. I was surprised, but at the time too distracted to put any more thought between those cakes and my belly. While I was finishing my meal (coffee, bananas, pineapple, passion-fruit juice) I began to contemplate the incredible gesture that was behind it all. Abby, Donna, and I had left Kigali yesterday for Ruingeri. We were staying with Chantal (founder of New Hope Homes) for a night while we were picking up the older kids from Sonrise Boarding School. Chantal and her husband have just recently moved from Kigali to Ruingeri as Mbanda, her husband, was consecrated to be the new Bishop of the regional Diocese. Chantal has had her hands more than full with moving across the country, unpacking, managing her family, running the 3 children’s homes, and coordinating its volunteers. Not to mention the constant stream of visitors that requires her time, food, and beverage. If this was your life, would you have risen early to cook for three pesky visitors from the states? I doubt it. This meal was emblematic of the magnanimity of Chantal’s compassionate heart, her self-sacrificing nature, and the passionate love for God that cannot help but flow through her hands. I remember sitting back, astounded by all that Chantal has done for the children of Rwanda. She loves these kids deeply and well, and is always trying to think of how to better serve them. She is savvy, a little sassy, and always just. I have SO much respect for this woman. After breakfast we went to Sonrise to pick up the kids. Chantal and Donna found the kids. Abby and I were paparazzi. You’ll see the picks and love them! There was much hugging, smiles, kissing and celebrating as we loaded all 12 of us, plus luggage, into the minivan and drove back to Chantal’s for lunch. Our lunch numbers grew to 17 as more visitors stopped by. After lunch, Chantal gave us a tour of the church compound. We ran into a group of women who were gathered together to weave baskets. From the sounds of things, they had organized a sort of microenterprise where they sell their baskets to the church, and then the church sells them to travelers and tourists. The work was tedious, but the baskets were beautiful and the women were obviously proud of their product. We continued on to have a little outdoor photo shoot with the kids, we met some local students who were playing soccer (Donna will write more on this later!), and we made it back to Chantal’s house just in time to greet 3 more unannounced visitors. Finally, after getting the van packed, saying our goodbyes, and making sure all the kids used the bathroom, we loaded up, gave a quick wave to yet another visitor, and began the 2.5 hour trek back to Kigali. We were prepared for the worst (apparently quite a few of these kids are known pukers), but ended up having a very peaceful ride home. No vomit, only laughs and songs emitted from these kids’ mouths. I spent the last hour with Mary Rose sleeping on my shoulder and Kayetise sleeping on my lap. When these beautiful kids are falling asleep all over you, it’s impossible not to recognize that something very special is happening here. I mean . . . we could all imagine what life would be like for any one of these 27 children if it weren’t for these homes. It’s in these moments that I’m forced to reflect on my life and my choices. I know that I have been born with a ridiculous amount of privilege: white, affluent, American, educated family, etc. The challenge for me is finding some way of reconciling who I am and the life I have with the incredible disparity witnessed in places like Kigali. It all calls forth the famous question, “how then, shall we live?” No worries, I’m not going to get into any heavy pontifications on that now . . . Donna’s blog readers have probably had enough of my weary introspection! All I will say is that I feel very blessed to be playing a part, however small, of the process of rewriting these children’s futures.