Jembe's not a Jembe here anymore!

Yesterday, our team went and visited the Rwanda Genocide Memorial. It was a trying experience for everyone, and feelings were a bit mixed. It was a really good thing for our team even if it was hard to go through.

Over 1 000 000 people died in three months.

Yet despite all the evil that took place here not very long ago, the country has changed a lot. Sylvan, one of our hosts here, came to Kigali (the capital) one year after all these things happened. He was completely overwhelmed with what He saw. The system was gone, and it was everyone for themselves kind of thing. But in the time that has gone, people have changed. People have turned from a lot of the hatred that was consuming them for so long.

When we were driving yesterday, we saw at least 5 vehicles with Christian slogans... Phrases like, God is Love, Praise God, Jesus loves You... things like that... It was really cool to see how much healing has taken place and to see what is going to happen.


Most of our team now is over the travelling tiredness. Joanna was wandering around yesterday and the day before giggling at nearly anything that was normal or mildly amusing. She wanted people to know she hasn’t lost her sense of humour.

We actually have had some sun here once in a while, and we had a quick thunderstorm yesterday evening. The weather can change very quickly, though it’s not likely we’d ever get snow or anything here. The coldest it gets seems to about 15 degrees Celsius and it seems to usually be between 20 and 30. Not bad for winter! :)
There about 1 000 000 people living in the capital today. And they tend to live a lot closer to the tops of the mountains than the valleys. I know how most of the world lives in the valleys between mountains and hills... here they kind of live along them. I suppose the rainy seasons have something to do with that.



We are looking forward to going into town for a few hours today... I still want to find a jembe... and it seems Cody, from Rhys and Janelle’s GAP team this summer had a similar experience in a shop. He asked to see the jembes and they brought a garden hoe out to him. He was surprised and was like, ‘no a jembe I can drum on...’ ‘How are you going to drum with a hoe?’ was basically the reply he got. They still laugh alot about things like that here! :)

Everyone from the team says hello, and some should be able to send some emails today.
From F&F65, thank you all for your prayers and for your love!
Grace and Peace
- James