If ever you could go on a road trip today, was the one to be on.  Essentially Rwanda is a little bit bigger than New Hampshire in area… but the areas we were driving, it felt like Rwanda was the size of the entire United States.

We woke up at the Anglican Lake House to a beautiful view of the lake behind the house.  The day started off with breakfast on the patio quickly followed by a trip into Rusera to pick up the well drilling equipment.  We then drove to meet up with the pastor to the church where the equipment was being held.  About an hour and a half later we ended up in remote valley on a one-lane “road”, with no ability to turn around or back up, a quarter mile beyond our destination.  So, we decided to carry the equipment to the van.  This included three pipes, a top part to anchor the pipes together, a bailer to bring up the material from the bottom of the well as we drill and the 250lb drill bit.  It was an adventure!  And we loved it.  

Probably one of the things we newbies (Craig, Bill, and Mark) found the most odd, but still loved, was the children who run after the ran yelling “MIZUNGU , MIZUNGU” (a.k.a white person).  Some of the children would even follow you for a quarter mile or more just wanting to see the weird white people who have travelled through their village.

After picking up the equipment from the church we were met down the road by Pastor Elie who led us on a shortcut to Gasarabwayi.  Once again, this was another hour and a half trip through the beautiful countryside of Rwanda.  

Upon Arrival to Gasarabwayi, people surrounded the van with their huge smiles.  We were quickly ushered into the church building and greeted by the sounds of the entire church singing and dancing to welcome us to their village.  We arrived in town around 2ish and we heard that some of the church members had been waiting for us since the morning.  Pastor Elie gave a very warm welcome and then two different choirs sang great songs about God’s love and his greatness.  

As we walked out of the building Bruce and Craig quickly got involved in a discussion with Pastor Elie on the Eco-San toilet (latrine) that the town had finished and the well drilling.  I pulled out my camera to take pictures of the Eco-San and immediately I was flocked by children saying, “PHOTAGE!”  This only started the madness.  Bruce and Craig entered into the church’s other building and Bill and I ended up surrounded by what felt like a 5 million children just staring at us and trying to get closer and closer.  Luckily Bill and I were able to entertain them by very poorly learning their language.   We really enjoyed ourselves but were exhausted when we entered back into the van for the ride home.

As I looked back on the day I realized that we were dancing with them in worship and the songs they sang transcended all language and ethnic barriers.  We were all in love with the same God.  As Eric Munyemana from the P.E.A.C.E. office told us, “We are now worshipping as one People!”