Living Water International

This past Monday, I took my grade 5 students on a field trip. First stop: a busy well in the heart of Kigali. Seeing the local people line up for more than an hour with their jerry cans in tow was an eye-opening experience. Children with dirty, torn shirts and no shoes focused on collecting clean water. Clean water given in the name of Christ Jesus. Precious.

Oh what a week

Late(ish) May back in Twenty-Ten... This week has felt like a month. But great it has been.

It started out with a mysterious virus I must have picked up on the weekend. I was out of commission from Saturday until Monday night. Of course I HAD to be back for school on Tuesday...there is no way I could deny my students the joy of celebrating my birthday with me. And we had a blast. David delivered flowers, a pink cake, and plenty of paper plates and forks to go around so all 15 sugar-loving fifth graders could dig in. It was definitely their highlight of the day! Mine was soon to come.

Dinner was delicious. And hilarious, actually...picture this: an Indian restaurant in the middle of Kigali with Rwandese waiters in Indian costumes. They danced and sang around our table while banging homemade instruments and drums. I danced alongside them. It made my night.

The rest of the week has been filled with various other activities: studying and discussing 1 John 2-3 with a ladies Bible study group; engaging in a lively discussion with my fifth graders on the topic of Satan ("Does God love Satan?" "Why and how did Satan first sin?" "Will Satan ever die?"); and the never-ending stream of grading assignments and preparing lessons.

My brain feels ready to explode. Boy, am I ready for Friday.

Smelling the Roses

Finding joy in little things...

The intricate carvings in a wooden cross. The sound of children's laughter. A mother bird protecting it's young. The smell of a campfire. Reading the final page of a great book. The first and last bite of your favourite dessert. A smile. A hug. A word spoken in love.

Live a life of love...

"I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy." - Rabindranath Tagore

I just overheard a conversation amongst a few kindergartners... "Let's not play hot potato. Let's play hot mango! It's better!"... You do what you know, I guess :)

My day

It's in the middle of my day here. 11:38am to be exact. My students are off to PE (physical education) and I am supposed to be marking but the grading program online is acting up. What's new. I didn't have internet access all day yesterday and the power kept going off anyway. The younger kids are outside playing imaginary games on top of a mountain of dirt or shooting some hoops. I am munching on very expensive sunflower seeds and watching a gecko climb upside-down along my ceiling before my students return. Then we'll have lunch in the lunchroom. Spaghetti with beef sauce. I'll just have the beef chunks with some carrot sticks because I'm allergic to the noodles. After school today, I will practice riding my new moto (yes, I just bought a moto!!!) around the school's quiet neighbourhood so I can head out on the streets of Kigali soon.I'm nervous! :) Intermittently, the power will go off in the middle of a lesson and we have to teach/learn in the dark; a bird or very large bug may fly into the classroom and zoom past students' heads causing screams from them and laughs from me; or, I will have requests from students to go to the bathroom often because they have some intestinal problem due to something in the food... ha ha. Fun times! _______________________________________________________
Life here is always an adventure and a never-ending test of endurance and patience. And I love every minute of it. Almost. Tonight, after feeding my puppy Goober (leftover pork, a tortilla, a raw egg, and some some ground beef from a burrito), I settled down to do some marking and prepare for this week's parent/teacher interviews. Only 5 1/2 weeks left of school. Time sure flies by!As I sat on the floor to do my marking, I soon realized what a terrible idea that really was. Ants began to climb all over me! Yes, I still detest ants. And now I am off to bed. I plan to get a whole 6 hours of sleep beneath my comforting mosquito net before waking up at 5:15am to start my new day. Besides that of my cell phone alarm clock, I'm sure I will awake to the sound of the neighbour's guard singing songs in Kinyarwanda as he washes his employer's car along with the sound of moto engines zipping through the streets. As I head to the shower, I will pray that there is still water in our tank, let alone hot water, to help wake me up. And the school day will then begin once again. What a joy it is to teach here. The students have hearts of gratitude for the smallest of things and I am also learning this attitude of thankfulness as well. I am thankful to be serving here in this place, exactly where God wants me to be.