we've started teaching!

The first week was one of acclamation and anticipation. The second one is tiring, yet exciting. We started teaching at KIST university this past Tuesday and today we taught at SFB. We've been reading parables of Jesus with them which we discuss. We ask them many open ended questions and listen to their responses. Most of are Christians who attend a church from one of many denominations here in Kigali, so they all have very good thoughts and ideas. We really enjoy hearing what they have to say. Some of the challenges include getting everyone in the group to talk, because just as in every culture, some people are less talkative than others. We've been going through the parables that talk about being lost, they tell us about sins and the value of a lost sinner returning to God. One of my students said that he thought the main point of these parables were to show God's love and kindness because he considers his children so valuable that he would go through a lot of trouble to find them and bring them back.
please keep praying for the students we meet with. Tomorrow we will be back at KIST and teaching the same students we taught on Tuesday. PLease also pray for our encouragement, health and ability to teach English well and talk to these Rwandan people. Pray that God helps us encourage the many Christians we meet and show God to the people who don't know Christ.

Got my bags!!

So as a continuation, and hopefully an end, to my luggage saga I finally was able to go pick up my bags at the Kigali airport yesterday! My dad went to the Brussels airport and talked it over wth the British Airways manager there. He finally admitted that because of the partnership between british airways and SN brussels airways, no one was taking responsibility, so he just decided to fix it and sent the bags on the next SN flight from Brussels to Kigali. SO praise God!! Imana Ishimwe!
In the mean time here in Rwanda everything is going great! Yesterday we went on a city tour, so we learned a lot about Kigali and Rwanda. Rusty and I had already done this tour last year, but we still learned more this year and had fun. We also got to know the guides pretty well and learned a lot of cultural things from them. Their names were norbert and Junior and tehir English was really good. Today the four of us who are staying at the Episcopalean guesthouse went to church there, sort of out of 'social obligation', but also because it was easiest. That was very interesting. they were having a special women's day where their women's fellowship led everything. They invited one of their muzungu (white) members to speak: a woman from Zeist, nederland, named Yzette Verwiz, i think. We also stayed a little longer for most of the Rwandan service after that.
Tonight we had the Bible study that the Jenkins have been having at their house. We had a very good sized group! i was amazed! I think there were about 10 rwandans. One was Patrick, a professor at the university I worked with last year and will be working at again this year. Rusty and I taught his class last year.
After we finished the biblestudy we still visited for a while. I talked with a man named Charles for a long time. We talked about a lot of things and learned a lot about language (Kinyarwandan) and how things work here with three languages and education and stuff. He also asked questions about christianity in europe and the States and he told me about christianity in Rwanda.
well, thats all for now.
Praise the Lord!
Imana Ishimwe!

Welcome to Rwanda!

Well, we are in Rwanda and glad and excited about what lies ahead of us!
This has definitely been a learning experience for me when it comes to travel. If you read my saga of my trip from Oklahoma to Belgium, you might be interested to know that the saga does not end there and continues on as I type. Because of that missed flight from London to Brussels, when I got to the british airways check in desk, they would not let me check in because I "was not on the flight"! After I had confirmed it twice. And on top of that, after she called SN brussels airlines (through whom the ticket is booked) and said I was on the waiting list, she declared that my bags were overweight. Apparantly according to her I was only allowed the 20 kg weight limit for that BA flight, despite the fact that I called BA a few times from the states to make sure I would be allowed an international allowence all the way through! So, dad and I went to clear it up with the SN desk. I told hte guy my problems, he looked at my stuff, booked me another ticket and confirmed that I was allowed international allowance because my kenya Airways ticket says I can have 2 pieces of luggage. Yey! All set...right? not so fast.....when I got back to the check in desk, the girl said that the flight has been closed already! She called the gate to see if I could still make it and said if I ran I might get on the plane, but there's no way my bags will make it. SO I ran and left my bags with dad to figure it out...sorry dad! And thank you so much. However, BA wont do anything to help me get my bags, eventhough its obviously their fault (and also partially SN's fault). They want dad to send it with cargo, which would cost 350 euros to send, and more to receive on our end. I talked to an SN desk here and they eventually concluded it was not their problem and if I pay for the cargo to send it and give sufficient documents to proove it was not my fault they would eventually pay us back. Now who believes that? Ach, I'm not complaining, I can live fine without my bags...I'm really more frustrated witht he fact that no airline is claiming responsinility and keeps referring me to either the other airline or cargo.

ANyway....I'm in rwanda! These first few days have been days of acclamation, hanging out and running errands. Its been amazing! I love being back in Rwanda. I've ben able to use my Kinyarwandan and French skills, which is really fun to see people's reactions when they realize you speak their language..a little. Its a great way to strike up conversation and start potential relationships.
We will start teaching English at KIST (Kigali Institute of Science and Technology) on Tuesday. I am very excited and slightly nervous. I guess I'm nervous because I've done it before and thus feel like I should do a much better job because I'm "more prepared". We'll see. I am very excited to meet our students. We will also be teaching at SFB (school of finances and business) and I think we have about 200 students total.
We've also already had dinner with the minister of education. That was exciting! they are working on the selection of which students get to take advantage of te scholarships that OC is providing starting this coming semester. I am so excited to get to know the students that will eventually be selected! I didnt really get to talk to the minister because I as obviously not at te head of te table with her...i'm not quite that high up in the 'hierarchical system', but Adam and I had a great conevrsation with her personal assistant! His name is Valence and he told us a lot about the rwandan education system and how they're trying to improve it.
Ok, that's enough for now. Please praise the Lord and thank him for our good and safe trip here (yes, despite my luggage saga) and for all of our health..so far :). And please pray that He continue to lead us in everything we do because really most of the time we dont know what we're doing. We do everything one step at a time and have to be extremely flexible. Praise the Lord for flexibility! Imana Ishimwe!

Africa here I come!

First of all, in case you were wondering what my hair looks like now, I got dad to take a picture when he and mom came back from Paris. I'm wearing the shirt they bought me! Thank you mama and papa! This pic is just the front angle, so if you want to see other angles and a few pics of mom and dad in Paris, check out Flickr!
Well, today is the day. I'm leaving for Rwanda this afternoon. My plane to London leaves at 5:20 pm...and arrives there at 5:30, after an hour of flying. Oh how I love having different timezones! The best part is, once I get to Rwanda I wont actually have to change my body's timezone because its on the same time as Belgium.
As much as I hate leaving home after such a short visit, I am really excited about getting to Rwanda. I'm excited to see the Jenkins again and to see some of the people I met there last year. I am excited to see how God will use me this year, and through the contacts I will make and the experience I will have, how he will use me in the future in regards to Rwanda.
Well, i should continue getting ready...please pray for our team as we'll be traveling. We should arrive in Kigali on Wednesday at 3:30 pm their time, so in Oklahoma it would be 8:30 am. If you live somewhere else, you can figure it out :).

EdwarScissorhands-like Father Daughter bonding

So, who knows what its like to get your hair cut with huge garden scissors? I can now i say I do! I wanted to get my hair cut before i go to Rwanda so its easier for the African women to put braids in my hair while I'm there. (its hard for them to work with such soft white person hair, so i'm guessing that the less of it there is, the easier it is) Dad jokingly suggested that he use his new garden tools on my hair and I jokingly said yes. But if you are familiar with our family's sense of humor, you know that anything we say jokingly because it sounds crazy, we are probably serious about.
Needless to say, dad had a ton of fun! I really did not mind letting him experiment because I figure it didnt matter if it turned out bad cuz I'll be covering it up with my African hair pretty soon...but I really think dad did a pretty good job!
Look for more pics on Flickr.
Oh, by the way...my parents are in Paris this weekend, so I'll be taking care of Jesse here at home. I'm kinda sad to miss a whole weekend of quality time with my parents before I leave for Rwanda (Tuesday), but I'm happy to let them have a nice weekend with just the two of them and I'm really happy to have this weekend of quality time with my lil bro!

The blessings of being home

I am so happy I am able to be home for a few weeks before I go back to Rwanda this summer. I know the time is short and wish I could be home longer, but God is truly blessing me so much while I'm home.
The biggest blessing of all is being able to spend time with my family and being able to see at least part of the growing up process of my little bro Jesse (7) and my little cousin Gideon (6 months). The are the cutest kids and I enjoy every moment I have with them. I'm also happier than words could desribe to be able to deepen my relatioinship with my parents. As a teenager you just dont realize how important that relationship really is. Then you go off to college and all of the sudden you remember that you need them, not only financially, but you need their love more than anything. I enjoy feeling and experiencing that love firsthand, and not from the other side of the world by means of a skype telephone call.
Another cool thing I got to experience the first saturday I was home was a dutch speaking ladies day at our church that my mom organized. I got to see a lot of women who have been rolemodels throughout my whole life, true friends and sisters in Christ. I also got to experiene that story I've heard from so many preachers/missionaries...you know, they tell you they were just visiting a church when all of the sudden someone asked them to preach, or lead singing, or stand up and give a 10 mnt testimony....you visit a church and you should always be prepared for something! Well, mom asked me to lead the singing at this women's day. It felt so great to be able to just come home and jumo right into helping out the church.
I've also been privileged to help my cousin Luk both with his evangelization project in Ghent and working on his new house there. I distributed flyers for the Let's Start Talking campaign, attended their first church meeting at his house and even served as a secretary for the LST campaign by answering his phone while he was driving. I also helped him put up a plastic roof for the weekend while the roofers were gone and Luk waited for them to come back and finish putting up the roof.
I've had some great times here at home and am really going to miss it when I leave...but I know God plans on using my for His work in Rwanda, so I am also very excited to see that all come together in a little over a week! (I leave Belgium on May 23rd!)
oh, the picture here is of my dear little cousin Gideon. For more pictures, click the link to go to my Flickr picture account.

I made it....a day late, but I made it!

So, who ever knew that an exciting trip to Rwanda (or Cairo) would start in good ol' Chicago O'Hare airport!? Let me tell you my story. In Oklahoma City, the lady where I checked in looked at my schedule and immediately got a worried look on her face. I figured out that my flight to Chicago was going to be 2 hours late...but that was not the problem. She told me I would most definitely miss my flight form Chicago to London and she did not know what to do for me. All she could do was tell me that the next flight out of chicago to london was the next day in the afternoon. So she went ahead and gave me my tickets from OKC to Ohare and from Ohare to london, even though I would miss that flight. I assured her I could figure it out from ohare and thanked her for her help. She made sure my bags would follow whatever I do! So i got to Ohare and had fun walking around looking for the big dinosaur where the ticket rerouting desk was. The line was amazingly long. As we all waited in line I met Jeff Veal. He is a professor of physics and astronomy and South Western University in San Diego (I think…yea). He’s been teaching for 7 years and is now taking a sabbatical. He is on his way to Cairo and plans to travel around there for a month. After waiting in line for a while and watching people in front get frustrated with the help they were or weren’t getting, they decided to open up a few more desks with more agents to help us. So we got bumped to new lines where we got to the front pretty quickly. My agent(s): two young women, not much older than me. Their mood: frustrated, tired. Their comments: “oh (bad word)….why did I get this one?” (because my flight schedule was so long and confusing) and “Oh man, this schedule is so long and confusing.” Fortunately I have learned a lot about how helpful it can be to remain a patient and happy passenger. By the time Jeff was done with his agent and had walked over, both girls were in a better mood and soon helped me get a ticket to London on a flight the next day, and a voucher with a discount for a few hotel of my choice (from a list) in the area. So Jeff and I decided to stick together….we both had interesting stories to tell and love to listen to others and hanging our waiting for an airplane is always more fun with someone to talk to than alone. So we each got a room at the cheapest hotel, using the voucher we got a $39 room 20 mnts away. We talked for a while that evening and then met up in the morning to go back to the airport, got our tickets settled and then had lunch before we split ways…me to London and him to Frankfurt. We had some really good conversations about belief and God and about life and school and pretty much everything.
SO anyway, I got on my plane to London, had a great flight, and finally arrived in Europe. I got my next ticket figured out and then once again, as I have done quite often now, I walked around terminal 4 in the Heathrow airport and enjoyed a cappuccino at the Starbucks there. I then flew to Brussels and waited for my luggage…and waited…and waited. Hmmm, not come my luggage did. Apparently, despite my 4 hours in London, they had left my bags there. For those frequent travelers out there, this was on British Airways…so beware. They said they would be on the next flight out of London to Brussels…the next flight was later that day…and they would call me when they came in. The next day I called them to ask for progress. My trunk had arrived. I don’t need my trunk. My trunk is full of stuff I’m taking to Africa and leaving there. My trolly suitcase thing was still in London. It was supposed to arrive that evening at 6:30. They would let me know when it got there and send it to my house the next day….the next day. Yey. There was no one available for us to talk to about why they could not get the bag to me that evening, after I had been missing my luggage for two days because of their mistake. Not to complain…I did fine without the luggage for a few days…but its just something you expect an airline to do better than that. LOL, I learned that my dad is not a pushover…and takes every opportunity to teach his daughter how not to be one.
Anyway, I have my luggage now…got it Friday after I arrived home on Wednesday. Being home has been so great! I’ve loved it. I love talking to and hanging out with the fam! Jesse (my 7-year old brother) is a hoot and a ton of fun to play with and talk to! Its great to see my cousins Luk and Holly’s baby Gideon grow up (6-ish months now). And I really enjoy seeing my Christian brothers and sisters here in Belgium and Holland!
Over and out.