Musanze - At the Gateway
Written by: Stephen Henrich
Our fourth day in Rwanda started a bit slowly. Umuganda is a country-wide cleaning day held on the fourth Saturday of every month. From 8:00 am. until 11:00 a.m., citizens are asked to clean up their communities. No non-emergency traffic is allowed on the streets, and no businesses are allowed to be open except pharmacies. As a result, our cross-country trip from Nyamata to Musanze was delayed.
The three plus hour trip ended at a small Harvest Christian Church at the gateway of Volcano National Park where the great apes live. The welcome we received was incredible! Every member of the church came out the front doors singing and dancing. Never have we hugged so many people!
We moved inside to even more joyous dance and praising of God! Our team stood to introduce ourselves to a new group of people we have never met before. Heidi shared a message with the congregation on fellowship, and then we got down to the business of learning about a large number of the women in the cooperative.
These women, who now save the US equivalent of 25 cents per week for the cooperative, will receive training in order to qualify for an AWHI savings bonus. It will be so interesting to see how quickly they can qualify and then how much more they will be able to save after applying the benefits of the bonus to their businesses.
What a tremendous day! Despite a little rain en route, the mountainous beauty of this part of the country is a testament to God's incredible handiwork.
Our meeting with the Urukundo (Love) cooperative ended too soon, and we were back on the road to Gisenyi, where we will spend the next five days. I must pause here to give kudos to our driver, Alex, who navigates so skillfully along winding dark roads filled at times with people walking or biking, slow moving trucks and hundreds of motorbikes! We give thanks to God for his service!
We are tired tonight but will be refreshed and ready to get back to work tomorrow! It will be Sunday, and worship services here are like no others! Thank you, Lord, for another incredible experience!
