Butare

Saturday was an amazing day.  We made the long drive to Butare where we will work directly with the giving hope program but along the way eventful things happened.  The photo is where we stopped to tour the school we will dedicate on Tuesday, a school that a family in our Church made possible.  It will be a tremendous impact teaching more than 300 students a year who will become teachers themselves.  There are multiple classrooms, cafeteria, dorm rooms, a kitchen, bathrooms, and a visible presence in the community.  We were highly impressed.  The people milling around are part of our church team and  groups from several other churches traveling with us.  On this same day we visited the Rwanda Genocide museum, after this sobering experience of learning more about the almost one million Rwandas who were killed sixteen years ago it was a blessing to see this tangible school that will make such a difference.  But we have seen more, Rwanda is rebuilding, infrastructure, churches, schools, homes, business, and even more importantly hearts.  Rwandans have made a commitment to put the past behind and build a new Rwanda that has no divisions and hate.  Our guide said it well, there is no longer any Hutus, and Tutsis, there are just Rwandans.  You can feel hope in the air.  We hope God can use us to help just a little as well as bring back the Spirit, Faith, and hope that so pervades this country of ten million.  What seems to be the key, an amazing ability to strive for justice for the victims, but also to forgive.  I think we have something to learn.  In ways Rwanda is a miracle.  What should could have totally destroyed a nation has not.  It is being born again with the help of people all over the world, and a spirit of hope and toil that is tangible.  It is great to meet the people and experience the faith they have and adding a little of our own (we ate lunch just a few feet from a hand-full of secretary birds,  Google secretary bird and see an amazing creature).