An Apology - "...Our Response is committed to stopping by the side of the road, looking these childr

Sunday 11/8 6:30pm (Rwanda time)
Sunday 11/8 @ 6:30pm in Rwanda (10:00am CST) Muraho. Amuruku? I can’t believe we only have one more day left in our Area Development Project in Rwanda.  We will spend time with the people of Rwanda tomorrow before driving town tomorrow evening to Kigali (Rwandan capital) where we will spend the night closer to the airport before getting up Tuesday morning and flying back to Nairobi.  Tomorrow night we will be reunited with the other folks from New York who travelled to a different part of Rwanda and then Tuesday we will reunite with all of the people on the trip (those that travelled to Ethiopia and those who remained in Kenya).  It will be a great re

Sunday 11/8 at 6:30am Rwanda time (10:30pm 11/7 CST)
I finished the blog as a separate document last night, but was just able to post it this morning (Sunday here).  Enjoy & thanks! Saturday 11/7 @ 11:00pm in Rwanda (11/7 at 3:00pm CST) Muraho…. Another amazing day in Rwanda.  I’m telling you the people are so amazing here, it would blow your mind.; so friendly, generous, and joy-filled.  It’s like I’m in a movie, because the experience is so contrary to my normal American life (including how I approach life most of the time). This has the potential to be another mega blog, but I’m going to try to keep it reasonably short (we’ll see). We started the day at the ADP (Area Devel

Saturday 8:15am (Rwanda time)
The internet connection wasn’t working up until now… so here is the post I did last night… what a day! Friday 11/6 @ 9:00pm in Kivuruga, Rwanda (11/6 at 1:00pm CST) Muraho (Hello in KinyaRwandan) – Nitwa Steve (my name is Steve).  Witwa nde? (what is your name?) This has certainly been an amazing day.  I’ll apologize up front for the length of this because I expect it to be large.  I’m writing in Microsoft Word in hopes that the wireless internet this hotel is supposed to have gets fixed sometime tonight (I’m not hopeful, but I’ll write my thoughts anyway for whenever there is a chance to post this). The day started fo

Thursday Nov 5 10:00pm (Nairobi time)
Jamba… It is Thursday night (about 10pm in Nairobi, Kenya) and I’m just getting ready for bed (certainly the earliest I’ve gone to bed yet).  We have finished the orientation phase of this trip having had another fantastic 5-hour session from our World Vision staff.  Today we focused on the World Vision model for community partnership as well as the financial elements of child sponsorship and other funding. We also had training on cultural dos & don’ts while we are in our ADP (Area Development Program – for us, Kivuruga, Rwanda).  It was very helpful & informative in understanding the role of Child Sponsorships, the impact our efforts will have, and how ou

Wednesday Nov 4 11:45pm (Nairobi time)
Hey y’all.  Wow, this was quite the day and this blog post certainly won’t do this justice.  Started with another great breakfast, but went more “American” other than the beef bacon and passion fruit.  We then enjoyed a time of worship led by some local World Vision staff with the words “Mambo Sawa Sawa, Jesu Akiwa Enzime” which means “everything is alright with Jesus on the throne”; we followed that up with a devotion on Romans 8:31-39 realizing that nothing (no famines in Kenya; no AIDS in Rwanda) can separate us from God’s love. Steve Haas, a VP for World Vision U.S. then led us in a 5 hour studyon HIV and AID