No Light

At the moment I am writing this I am learning to be very thankful for internal lap top battery power. My new Kigali home looks out across a valley to a neighboring hillside. The hillside is sprinkled with homes and shops and a road or two. The buildings differ in appearance. Some are nice and large and occupied by Rwanda's richest. Other homes are small and run down and are evidence of the obivious fortune and missfortune that seperate two populations in Kigali. I've only lived 23 years, but I continually recognize the seperation that money brings upon societies world wide. Rwanda, is a prime example of the power of seperation and horrors of that concept. Rwanda's dream is to be ONE and tonight we all join eachother in experiencing ONE great missfortune. Tonight, the city of Kigali unites together and grieves our loss of light. Power and energy in Kigali is really a hit or miss. In the evening I usually enjoy the view of the city lights outside the porch windows, but tonight there is no view.

It's been an hour or so since I wrote the above paragrah. The city power just came back on, my view is back and the sound of bumping discos and night clubs can be heard once again. Funny that the first song playing in the distance is "Freedom" by one of America's past divas. Freedom has been a word circulating in my head since I have been in this country. Christ used many symbols and objects to make his point about the Kingdom. He often refered to light. I am living in a country that is united with a dark past. Amazingly, this darkness affects all people of all economic levels. Just like our short power outage, pain, sorry and grief cannot be prevented with any amount of money. In the past 6 days I have met a variey of people who are working to restore LIGHT and freedom in the hearts of Rwandans! Please pray for Rwanda. Pray that LIGHT can be restored. Pray for the workers. Pray for Rwandans. Pray that light and freedom from sorrow and seperation will be Rwandas new story.

Below are a number of photographs of Kigali. Kigali is a city of hills. It's surprisingly clean and much calmer than Nairobi or Kampala. The first photo is a picture of the Jenkins home that Kyla, myself and a fellow KICS teacher will be housesitting until January. It's a great place. The other photographs were taken in Kigali. It's dry season at the moment, so everything is not at it's greenest.

Click on the photo to view a larger image. The last photograph is the view from our school.