Akagera Sarfari Park.

What a day. A group of interns (Jessica, Jesse, Kendra, Adam, Sarah, and Lukkason) from Christ Church Rwanda, Dave who is one of the main missionaries of the church, and myself all took a day trip to Akagera Safari Park yesterday. It was so fun. We were in the car from 6a.m. until 4p.m. in the afternoon. It was a long day in the car, but was completely worth it to see baboons, impalas, hippos, gariffes, zebras, water oxen, etc. There is just something special about seeing animals in the natural habitat instead of cage in at the zoo. They are definitely more beautiful in the wild. Just a little history on the park. During the genocide and after the wild life was completely desomated and destroyed. The RPF who liberated Rwanda from the genocide, for some reason, decided that when they went through the park, the best thing to do would be to kill all the animals. Why, who knows, other then maybe to make room, land, and food for refugees. Over the last thirteen years the tourist industry and the government of Rwanda has been trying to restock and bring wild life back into the park. It is already a small tourist spot, but it is still struggling with only a few visitors a week. It is not expensive to go and stay and I really think in the upcoming years as Rwanda invests more time and money into the park and begins to focus more on tourism as a source of income the park will once again flourish and be a place where people will be able to not just see a few herds and packs, but many.

Young Life Africa.

Last week, I had the privilege to join about 16 African staff and 12 American committee members in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania for an African style Young Life camp. It was quite amazing to experience a YL camp that was completely run by all African staff from countries such as Liberia, Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Uganda. The backbone of the camp was just like YL camps in America with club, skits, mixers, volleyballs tournaments, dances, silly entertainment, etc., but it was different in the fact that everything was spoken in Swahili, the countries mother language, and that everything was done with a little Africa flare or touch. The songs were slightly different, the skits were slightly different. There was about 140 campers there for the second three day camp. They came from all different kinds of homes. Some were orphans, some from homes who do not have very many things or money, and some who came from really decent homes. It was a wide spectrum of kids, but they were all from Tanzania. I can attest, Young Life Africa is doing an amazing job reaching out to the teenagers of Africa. God is moving because many teenagers at the end of the camp literally bowed down, got on their knees after their twenty minutes of quiet time, and professed a relationship with Christ. Praise Jesus!

More Soccer...

Soccer Sundays.

After practice today I had the boys over for pasta, pineapple, bread, and marcuja. We had quite the time. They ate like typical boys. Actually they piled food on their plates and combined pasta with anything that was on the table. They even threw some cashew nuts on top of what they already had. It was hilarious. I wish you could meet them. They are a really fun group of boys. They also are very thankful and kept telling me just how thankful they were for everything. More pictures to come...