A Birthday Party and Church Movies

It has been a while since I have sent you any posts so today I am

trying to get two done.  Life has become very full again. 

Since the kids I was teaching are now in boarding school... I have 

begun to teach young adults... some at home and some of the 

students at CMU, too..  I enjoy it and I learn a lot from everyone, too. 

Also going once a week to the Kigali school of music to 

teach and work with the piano teachers.  We are working

on methodology, technique, and style.  It too, is rewarding. 

Of course, the AIC secretary position is always keeping me 

on the Internet... and writing newsletters and announcements, etc.  

So... not lacking for things to do... 

But the one fun thing that happens to many people each day 

of the year all over the world is 

having a Birthday!  

This day was Gary's birthday and we met 

him and his wife Shirley at the Serena Hotel for 

the Mongolian Buffet!  

This is when the staff brought Gary his birthday cake and sang to him.
We all joined in!   

Then deciding what to do since he'd already had some
desserts from the buffet... But it was his
birthday... so what's wrong with 2 pieces of cake!  Right?

  This is Jan and Jack!
It was just the 3 couples for dinner..
Shirley, Jan and I are in Bible Study together on Tuesdays.
Jack and Gary are both pastors so a lot of our talk
time was centered around how that world works
in Rwanda.  All of them are going through interesting times
of challenge and also encouragement. 

Birthday boy and his girl, Shirley.

Sunday Morning I decided to try to get some short
videos to send back to Sunday School at Hebron.
So, the following pictures reflect church for us on Sunday! 

This is right before all the kids come down to the front for the Children's sermon.
When they are come out of their seats and head to Sun. School.. the place
seems empty.  There are a lot of kids!  

    I think some of these are movies and others just pics.. but not sure which! 

Sometimes when I upload... they work and other times they say "sorry"

there was an error.  I wish they would work.. but I never know until finished

and even then it is hard to know....why they didn't work.

"Same Procedure as Last time"  but one works and one doesn't. 

( this one "took" but it isn't any good!)  

This is Emily down front preparing to talk with the kids and they are just starting to come up front.

Ok... the videos aren't working for some reason... 

 If i get them to work someday, I'll send them because they are quite good

of capturing Sunday morning for you.

That day after church I think we had 10-12 kids in the car
( in the back 2 seats)  to
take home...  No car seats here!

Only a couple of the kids speak even a little English
so we never know what they understand and they don't
know what we understand either.  BUT
some of these little ones walk... at least 5-6 miles to get
to church and they usually beat us there in the morning.  
Shame on us for being tardy!  No excuses.

  We try to give them rides when we can... and usually we can. 

Today I taught the 10-12 yr old class and it was on loving your enemy... and if

someone asks something of you.. how you are to respond.  So, when the kids 

asked for a ride... we couldn't very well say no.  No, instead we "rode" with 

them not just 2 miles but several miles. ( pretty easy in the car though).

Lately we have been struck with just how hard life is for folks here... yet
you never hear any grumbling...  Just a big smile and a thank you when
you do extend a hand.
This picture I took because there used to be some very nice small houses
here.. but they have torn them down.... All this right in front of Innocent's
pastor's home up on the hill behind.  Still don't know why they've torn them down. 

 Now this is a story.. Not a good picture shooting through the windshield, but...
On the way out to take the kids home we saw these boys basically 
"hanging" on the bottom of this big dump trunk.  They were clinging to the 
tailgate.... I guess trying to have a tailgate party.  I thought they were just 
playing around and even said to Bruce.. "Boy, i hope that truck doesn't stop
too fast... those boys would go flying." 

We drove on out to the village, called Gasozi (or something like that)
where most of the kids live...and on the way home... followed the same truck ... 
for about 4 miles back into town.
But now we understood what the boys were doing.   
They didn't want to walk all that way so they had attached themselves to the truck, conquered scaling straight up the back and had made their  
 way to the top... where they RODE all the way to the main ROAD in Kagugu! 
Pretty clever little boys.  They jumped off and the trucker never knew they were there.

We never did look to see how many kids were on top of our roof!!

All in a days drive! 

Love,
margie