People who were there when i was taking photos sent me to tell you that, you did a great job when you brought them water. There is one of the Church leaders who said that, " When heavy rains come, People and things are taken away by the floods in this area, and it is the same place that experiece water shortage problems." But he was thanking God who brought this thought in you. The water problem was solved.

God Bless you.
Peace.


Defense Secretary Gates on Scouting

More than 45,000 Boy Scouts salute during the singing of the national anthem as part of the Boy Scouts of America 2010 National Scout Jamboree at Ft. AP Hill, Va., July 28, 2010.

http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/07/25/boy-scouts-celebrate-100-years/
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jul/26/boy-scouts-flock-to-dc/

The full set of pictures and video clips are uploaded here.

–Aaron

Two Cisterns on Primary School Classroom Building

Gutters on Primary School Building

Cistern on Church Community Hall

Cistern on the Church

Leaving Kigali

We left Rwanda on a 7pm flight from Kigali on Thursday and arrived in Newark at noon today, so about 28 hours of total travel time door-to-door.

Me with Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini

Emmanuel Kolini: The Unlikely Archbishop of Rwanda
By Audra Jennings

From the Killing Field to the Mission Field
A Prophet Emerges from Rwanda’s Pain

Any pastor will tell you that no church is immune to conflict, whether the issue in question is a central point of doctrine or the choice of new carpet. But imagine serving a congregation made up of both the victims and the perpetrators of the most brutal massacre in recent history. In assuming his new post as Archbishop of Rwanda in the wake of the 1994 genocides, Emmanuel Kolini faced huge challenges. How was he to turn a sick, confused, and broken society full of widows, orphans, and prisoners and their families into a reconciled, cohesive society?

Emmanuel Kolini: The Unlikely Archbishop of Rwanda by Mary Weeks Millard
traces the story of this remarkable man through the impoverishment and racial tensions of his childhood, the years spent in refugee camps, his life as a husband and father, and his ascent through the ranks of Anglican leadership. Based on their friendship of almost ten years, author Mary Weeks Millard shines the light on the inner workings and motivations of a leader who has inspired cooperation between Muslims and Christians, led the way in restoring a nation ravaged by genocide, and pioneered HIV/AIDS initiatives.

“Kolini felt the role of the church should be to pick up the broken pieces of a nation one by one and, by the grace of God, to put them back together. There would be no quick fix. It would be slow, painstaking work, but there could be no other way,” Millard says. “As he pointed out, no university could train a person to do such work; it was only through the grace of the Holy Spirit’s power that such a miracle could happen.”

Prior to his work in Rwanda, Kolini and his wife, Freda, had served for many years in Uganda and Congo. Much of their ministry had been focused on reconciling strained marriages, strengthening families, and training new pastors. These early experiences in the art of reconciliation would be put to the ultimate test in his next assignment.

As the newly appointed Archbishop of his native Rwanda, Kolini was the first leader from any denomination to offer a public apology for the failure of his church to respond immediately to the genocide of 1994-a murderous spree that was carried out with shocking, sickening efficiency while the rest of the world carried on with “business as usual.” Kolini inherited a region steeped in pain and bitterness, one in which many of the bishops had long since fled the country and the traumatized people were desperately in need of a shepherd. With God’s help, he has met every challenge.

Above all, the success of Kolini’s ministry rests on his unwavering commitment to obey the Scripture-a stance that many within the embattled Anglican church have been longing to see. He speaks with the voice of a prophet calling his people to return to biblical truth and is one whose example of personal sacrifice has earned the respect of the world. In a move that turns the North American stereotype of world missions on its head, a growing number of American congregations are choosing to place themselves under the authority of Kolini’s province and the missionaries he and other archbishops in the developing world have sent through the Anglican Mission in America.

Times of war, oppression, and adverse living conditions can break a man-or they can forge him into the leader for which the world has been waiting. From the villages of Africa to the gleaming sanctuaries of North America, Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini is that leader.

Emmanuel Kolini by Mary Weeks Millard
Authentic Publishing January 2009
ISBN: 978-1-934068-65-6/239

After we got to Kigali, we had lunch at the Hotel Des Mille Collines, which was the actual hotel that inspired the movie Hotel Rwanda. After touring the Des Mille Collines, we walked up and down a few of Kigali’s hills, and found a couple of interesting markets. But, we also saw that dramatic differences existed in Kigali, with the slums pressing up against the tourist district, and many people who looked like they might have lived in Bigogwe recently.

On Wednesday, we toured Kigali and the surrounding areas, looking at different memorials of the genocide. One of these memorials was within the city, because it commemorated all the people within the city to be victims of the genocide, many of whom were buried on the grounds of the memorial compound.

In the afternoon, we visited another site outside of the city, Ntrama Church. In 2007, I had visited the same site, and it shows the still-present marks of the genocide. Almost 5,000 people were slaughtered in and around the church. The bones, clothes, tools, and blood of the victims are still in the church, to show just how terrible the genocide was, and to show the Western World what happened to Rwanda as the rest of humanity turned a blind eye.

After that beginning, we arrived at Bigogwe for the final day of work. Some of the local men surprised me by having already painted the foundations. This made the cisterns look awesome!

Cistern with Painted Foundation

Using Fire to Heat Pipes and Machette to Melt Holes in the Cisterns

There are a few minor things that the local men will need to finish up in the next few days, but the project is practically done for all four cisterns now. I’m making a list of the last few items for the project write-up.

Tonight we meet with Bishop Augustin to debrief and say farewell. Tomorrow morning early we head to Kigali for a couple of days before flying home.

Uploading pictures will be hard now because my dad has handed off the computer to Peace so I can only update the blog via iPhone.

Sunrise on Shyira Mountain

It took a very long time getting back from Shyria to Gisenyi, but the views from the trip were gorgeous. We rode back a different route, and this one was along the side of the mountains, and the road was quite rough. We got back to Gisenyi in the early afternoon, and sent the rest of the day resting after spending days on Shyria.

Bridge on the Road from Shyira

The Road from Shyira

On Sunday, we got up early and went to church with Bishop Augustin in Gisenyi. Church was amazing, and there were choirs from all over, one even crossed from the Democratic Republic 0f the Congo! I played guitar in church, and we recieved gifts for our work.

Dad, Bishop Augustin, Jon, Tom, Reid, Aaron, and Jarrett

On Sunday afternoon, Dad and I went to Peace’s house to meet her husband, and see Baby Ken. It was really a blessing to see him, because we have heard so much from Peace.

Me and Baby Ken

Friday Night Sing-a-long at the King's

It was lights out around 8:30pm because the electricity goes off again. By then we were exhausted anyway.

Mounting the gutters to the building is turning out to be a bit more complicated than expected because we are creating new a whole new way to mount them. Instead of mounting to the fascia boards, we are cutting a piece of metal and welding it to the pillars in front of the school. I’ll post some pictures later to show what I mean.

Around lunch time we took off for Shyira and stopped at the Les Palames restaurant in Musanze for lunch. Cheeseburgers!!! The food here is great, but it gets repetitive and the burgers were a great change.

We met up with Dr. Caleb at Les Palames and he had with him Caleb, Jr. and a student named Logan from UNC. Logan is spending the summer at Shyira and is studying public health (I think) at UNC.

We also met up with a team of 3 engineers from Memphis who were in Rwanda to help Dr. King survey the areas along a nearby river where he hopes to build some hydro-electric plants to generate power for the hospital and surrounding areas. We drove way up into the mountains to see the sites and spent several hours hiking along the rivers. It was well past dark when we got back to the cars and then we drove to the top of Shyira mountain and the guesthouse where we stayed.

Shyira is an amazing place with a hospital, 3 schools, and a very large church. Conditions there are pretty primitive, however. We had electricity for only two hours per day and no hot water. Still, we had a great time and made many new friends.

2nd Cistern Complete!

Scout knots came in very handy in lashing together two fifteen foot heavy steel ladders to reach up to about 25 feet to install the down spout on the 2nd cistern. Luckily we brought a lot of nylon parachute cord which did the job nicely.

We will work again until lunch tomorrow and then take two days off to visit Drs Caleb and Louis King at Shyria Hospital before returning to work on the project next week. You can read about them at http://thekingsatshyira.wordpress.com/

Testing my lashed ladders 25 ft up!

More pictures are uploaded to flickr and you can see the link below.

Most importantly, we finished installing the cistern on the community building! It was especially difficult because the building was about 18 feet up and we had limited ladders. Jon climbed on top of the building and was able to reach underneath and get the downspout pvc pipe on the gutter downspout.

Another major problem was cutting the hole in the cistern for the downspout pipe to enter. These things are extremely hard to cut! Just cutting a 4.5″ hole took way over an hour, but we think we have figured out the best method so the rest should not take as long.