Boy can these guys jump high! They got us all up dancing..and oh my gosh...the dust!

Last few days

This has beeen an amazing trip. We are currently in Gisenyi which is on the border of the Congo and Rwanda. We are on the Rwandan side..of course!!!!!!
Today we travelled up from Rwamagana back to Kigali and out to a catch up school. This is a place where they take street kids and those children who dropped out of primary school and fast track them through primary school to enable them to sit their National exams for primary school. The amazing thing is the very high rate of children that pass the exams and some of these children are in the top of the country.
The young man who runs the centre, Alexis, is an amazing guy and his story is incredible. He virtually took it on himself to go out and find children to start teaching, children from the streets and dumps. Riverview church sponsors about 150 children in this Catch Up school.

We went back to the Centre for Champions yesterday for singing and dancing and saying goodbye to the children. They gave us a lovely woven dish as a gift.

In the morning Laz and I went back to the womens business group and gave a talk on budgeting to help them be more profitable. They were so interested. They gave an example of one of their business enterprises which we now suspect is making a sowgum alcohol. They are making about 20% profit on that business!!!

Hopefully more pics tomorrow.

We are having a couple of days off now, by the lake, going to the markets and eating too much!

Saturday 9 July in Rwamagama

Today was a slightly less hectic day for the team and we were able to sleep in as we didn't need to be at breakfast until 8:30am. After breakfast we went to the Champions Centre where a group of us had an in-depth tour of the centre and the new wall around the centre. What a wall!

Jen and Chiz inspect and approve the foundations.

Wow, now Steve reckons that a wall!

After the "wall" we got to spend some time up close and personal with John and were blown away by what an awesome man he is, a man filled with both compassion and vision. It is truly inspiring to see that Riverview has developed ties with and supports a man of such integrity as John. We are evermore committed to support him, his team and the people of Rwanda with our prayers and our talents.


The afternoon saw us take what best could be described as a wide goat track to a small village nestled atop one of the far flung hills of Rwanda for a school outreach. We arrived to the sounds of the 150+ students singing worship songs that we couldn't understand but could certainly feel. After some worship and simple introductions the Riverview team broke out in song to the accompaniment of violin by one of the team, Ian, and Olivier (a local from Rwamaga) on keyboard.


Matthew started the meeting by sharing his testimony whilst Finnius from AEE translated for the students. The students were absolutely blown away by his testimony of his journey to meet God as were those of us who had not heard it before. Matthew was ably followed by Steve who preached a message about being "on board" with Jesus through the story of Noah and his Ark. A truly inspiring message that obviously had an impact on the students because Pastor Chiz gave his testimony and made an altar call that was answered by about 50 young people.

This was a truly inspirational day, as well as a day filled with firsts for this blogger, as despite being in resistance to singing in front of a crowd not only did so but did it with joy and pleasure. I realised that God brought me to Rwanda to help me to see that He doesn't want just the fruit of my talents to support a solution in Rwanda and our world but he wants me to be a part of the solution in how I am and by my physical presence on the ground.

Friday afternoon. We went to the Centre for Champions and played with the kids. They just love 'Mozungo'. (white people). They love stickers and face painting. Even stripes or dots on their faces are a huge hit. They are so lovely..big brown eyes, second hand clothes, and so open and friendly. We made kites and crafts and the guys played footy and frisbies.
We went to a lake for dinner..jon the waters edge..food is different. They eat lots of banana's..cooked a bit differently..some taste like potatoes. Not so sure about those.
We could see the Rwandan presidents house on his farm from opposite the lake. Aparently there are crocodiles in the lake but we didnt go in to see!
More pics to follow when we get to download them.

Friday 8 July we wnet out intio a very poor village where we helped with the construction of a house for a child headed household. Devotee is 17 years old and has two younger brothers she looks after and is bringing up. One goes to school and is supported by AEE (the group Riverview supports) and the other brother is disabled.

Awesome day at Adelaide Zoo

We all had a great day at the Zoo. The boys had a really good time too and are about ready to watch a movie before going to bed. Jimmy says "The zoo is very good. The tigers were good and I really loved the pandas at the zoo. Their names are Whan Whan and Funi".

Adelaide Lenards

After a long flight Adam and Laz made it to Adelaide to spend some time with Adam's 2 boys, Jimmy and Tyler (Laszlo and Jenny's grandsons). We spent a few hours on Saturday getting reacquainted and then spent Sunday at Victor Harbour just hanging out. Adam, Jimmy and Tyler are all asleap together downstairs, someting that hasn't happened for nearly four years.

Check out our photos.

Laz

Life has been really busy. We had a great time for 3 days in Singapore, lots of great food and ummy Singapore Slings! Pics to follow.

The climbers are up there if you can spot them.

Looking from further away. We counted at least about 8 climbers.

Giant Secquoia trees. They are huge and thousands of years old.

See the rock climbers going up the almost verticle rock face. It takes an average of 2 1/2 days to get to the top. Not my cup of tea.

Some of the amazing rock formations in Yosemite. They were formed through glacier movement.

Our one and only coyote. He went in for the kill and we think he got it. Unfortunately we didnt see any bears which was a bit of a disappointment. At least for me. Yogi was there somewhere I am sure!

A shot from the top of a cliff ledge. No I did not take this pic. It was the brave Hungarian!

One of the most beautiful sights. El Capitan in the background of the Merced River. I have loved this

The snow was pretty heavy here

First snow of the season at Tahoe

The trip up to San Francisco was easy the next day but after arriving at the airport we found it very confusing and busy. Definately a lesson there in arriving much earlier.

San Diego was an interesting place and much larger than we had thought it would be. The contrast in areas was interesting and it has huge gullys everywhere. They say that for every mile out you go the temp rises 1%. As we were there for the Heart of the Samuri leadership course we didnt get to see a lot for the week but hired a car for the monday and toured around. Had lunch in old town with Debbie and Tracey which was nice, eating Mexican and drinking Marguaritas (at least Deb and Laz did!) and they were huge ones too.
Old town is old! but interesting. We did a bit of a night trip to the university section which is Spanish in style and very impressive. We would love to go back there and look around one day.
We headed up the coast, through La Jolla (more upmarket part of San Diego) and breakfasted/lunched at a gorgeous arty place on the way to LAX in Orange County on the coast. The houses were much more upmarket and the restaurants and shops worth checking out with an empty visa card I think! The dollar dropping was a big sick and surprised us a bit at the tellers machine (alot really!)

Cant say much about Heart as I don't want to spoil it for anyone but it is an amazing program. Touches the heart in many different ways and I highly recommend it as a great experience in working with your purpose in life.

LAX airport is huge and busy so a great man at the hire car place dropped us off at the Qantas part. The staff there were so friendly, heaps more so than at San Francisco, jovial and joking around with us.

We flew to Honolulu and arrived at 7pm then out to Kona (on the big Island of Hawai'i) at 8.30pm. It was great to catch up with Trish and Derek, Clint and Kent Doyle and see where they are living. They all looked so well and happily settled in to their new home. We did a bit of sightseeing and swimming with turtles and eating and lots of talking! It was fun and a good down time before heading home.

Upgrade again but no airbed this time. Much smaller plane. Definately the way to go on the long hauls as heaps more leg room and great to be able to lie down and raise our legs up. They give out really glam pj's too!

Time for a quick shower in Sydney airport before the last leg home on Sat night.

We had the best time, saw heaps, learnt heaps, made great friends, gained a bit of weight (only me. The thoroughabred reckons he lost some!) and travelled many miles on the wrong side of the road. It is always great to come home especially to see the garden flowering and the cat and dog still alive! (Jase did a good job there. One small tropical fish disappeared and two more were born! Amazing!)

For me, this trip was one of achieving some long time goals. Flying in a skybed, seeing Yosemite, going down into Mexico, riding on the cable cars in San Francisco and riding over the Golden Gate Bridge. Yosemite and Mexico were 2 dreams of mine since I was about 14 yrs old so it was a real buzz.

Where to next year? Rwanda for a mission trip and maybe more of the US. Who knows.

God bless you and thanks for reading our blog (even if most of it was late!) Love you x