Matt's blog entry 1.1.13

1/1/13

Hi, I’m Matt Cavallo from Richmond Virginia. I am on a trip in Rwanda, Africa to visit orphaned children in a program called “New Hope Homes.” First of all I would like to say that this has been an amazing opportunity for me to see what life is like here. I have only heard stories and seen pictures, but I never thought that I would come here. I am having a ton of fun with the kids and have grown to love them all very much.

I will talk to you about the day I had spent with them. We started the day by going to the church service with the kids. I was very interested to see how the service went, being that in the U.S. ours is usually an hour long. Here the service was almost four hours! I had never been to a service that long before, not to mention it was much different then the ones I usually attend. It was very interactive and everyone could get involved by singing with the choir, speaking about experiences and praying. It was a very good way for me to see how the people in Rwanda conduct the services.

Next was lunch, after church we went to eat at a local pizza place. They also had pasta, but I still ate pizza. I had the Hawaiian style, with pineapples and ham. It is my favorite kind of pizza hands down. We stayed there for a little over an hour and talked about all sorts of things. It was very relaxing and lots of fun.

We finally got to see the kids and played a great game of soccer with them. We played at the field next to the church for a few hours. There were lots of local kids who joined in throughout the game. It was a lot of fun and I enjoyed playing with the different kids, it was some very creative soccer. Soccer is something everyone can relate to, I love it. It is my favorite sport and most of these kids love it too. It got dark so we had to get the kids home and ourselves. We dropped them off, said goodbye and went home to dinner.

It was dinnertime, and also my mom’s birthday. We all ate and then my mom went to her room to watch a movie. While she was in her room we made a cake for her, and had to finish it before the movie ended! Once she came out of her room we had the cake ready and sang happy birthday. We all sat down in the dining room and enjoyed our cake.

Our day started and ended on a good note. I had a great time but was exhausted. So I went up to my room and crashed.