Day One with sponsored children - Monday, 2.20.2017

jg
Feb 20, 2017
3 min read

Meeting Adolf and Florence for the first time over lunch

** NOTE: Our days in Rwanda were busy and full, yet life-changing. While we fell behind on keeping our blog updated during the trip, we journaled each key day and will be sharing these via separate blog entries. Below is the first day we spent visiting with our sponsored children, along with a tour. **

“Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed.”

Psalm 82:3

Monday we spent the morning touring the Africa New Life Dream Center, which is in the capital city, Kigali, just down the road from the Africa New Life Guest House. ANL hosts many different ministries at the Dream Center, including New Life Bible Church, where we worshipped Sunday, the Africa College of Theology, a ministry for women to learn how to sew and style hair, a ministry serving orphans and a brand new three-story hospital that will open later this year.

Lunch Monday began some very powerful times throughout the week, where we had the first opportunity to meet two children we sponsor. We met Adolf and Florence at Afrika Bite, along with other sponsored kids that others on the trip sponsor. We were humbled and our hearts full as we greeted and hugged 12 year-old Florence, and 19 year-old Adolf. We helped them through the buffet line and got sodas for them to enjoy. As they ate, we talked about their families, school and church, and shared photos of our families. Our new friend JeJe from Africa New Life helped translate communications between Kinyarwandan and English, although Adolf already speaks some limited English as we have experienced through his letters to us. A particularly beautiful moment was when Adolf helped Florence understand what we were asking, by translating for her and us. One of our sponsored children helping our other child communicate with us. Thank you Lord, for this special memory.

After lunch, we went to visit Adolf's home, where he lives with his step-mother and two of his brothers. His father passed away 18 months ago, so they struggle severely with poverty. They live in a small, one-room home, where a pulled curtain divides the room from a single thin mattress on the dirt floor covered by a mat, and a few stools and seats along the wall. They have no electricity because it is too expensive, although Rwanda has done a very good job of extending electricity and water to village areas all over the country. Those living in extreme poverty however, cannot afford some of these modern amenities. It is difficult to understand how a family of four lives in such a small space, but they are grateful for what God has provided for them. They cook outside and Adolf helps fetch water from the community water station.

We are very proud of his focus on his studies, and he dreams of a career in computer science. His grades are above average and he is motivated to hopefully attend university after high school. It is common for children here to take more years to complete primary and secondary school, due to delays when they are not able to afford school for any years they don't have a sponsor, health issues or other family needs they have to attend to. Adolf is in secondary school grade 4, which is equivalent to our American 10th grade, so he has two more years to complete before he will be eligible for university. Rwanda also has a policy of each child taking a "gap year" between secondary school and university, where they focus on helping serve their communities and earning for their families.

Overall, we were grateful and full of love to be able to meet Adolf and his step-mother, and to share in what God is doing in and through his life. We are hopeful for God's plans for his future, where he can break out of the poverty cycle and fulfill his talents and dreams. We were also, however, distressed about the ongoing struggles and difficulties that he and his family face. The potential reality of yellow fever and malaria in their home (despite mosquito nets), the difficulty of studying with no electricity, very limited access to computers despite an interest and motivation to learn skills for the field, and many other challenges that we take for granted and have not faced ourselves. The experience of a home visit overall is such a gracious time by the family, and an incredibly humbling honor in which we shared. God showed us love at a new level and we are extremely humbled and grateful to share life journeys with this young man.