Rwanda blog 17th February

2010-02-17

A very busy day! Most of the team headed to the Nemba resettlement camp to teach in the school and to minister to the settlers. They stopped on the way to visit one of the Genocide memorial sites for a time of reflection on the atrocities that took place in this beautiful country just 16 years ago. It is a small church that over 3000 people fled to for safety and yet were brutally murdered. The church is now kept as a place of memorial with all the possessions and clothing of the victims on view.

On arrival at the settlement camp it was pleasing to see that more of the settlers were now living in brick built houses and were tending herds of goats. Our children sang and played football with them, taught lessons and a puppet show was put on. Finally Bekka preached the gospel before they headed back home for some celebrations for Jono's birthday.

Meanwhile Paul, Ruth and Jon had received the call to go to meet the Education Minister and went to his office at the Ministry to share our plans for the secondary school with him. It was amazing to discover he has a brother who lives in Southampton who he insisted on calling then and there as he is also visiting Kigali at the moment and we will meet with him on Thursday. Strange to be sitting in the Minister's office discussing Hedge End Retail Park with a stranger on the telephone! A small world and a valuable contact as he too, is a Rwandan government official. The Minister himself has visited Southampton and was very positive about our plans. It was then off to meet more architects and to work on the final details of the design brief before our meeting with the Minister of Local Government who is Kagame's right hand man. He was very supportive of the project and has promised to meet with us again when we are next in Rwanda. Then more meetings with architects until late into the evening. Tomorrow the Game Park!