Pictures!

These are a bunch of kids from PEFA, River's earliest friends. The kid in the front with the superman shirt is Moses, the one who was placed with his mom. He was walking on his hands all over the place, doing back flips, and break dancing. Crazy athletic. All I kept thinking was how in America, he could end up on some tour as a dancer or playing sports. Here, he spends 6 years in an orphanage...be thankful that you can read this post from a computer. Emmanuel, the boy in the back wearing the purple shirt speaks very solid English and is 16 years old. Again, a tri lingual intelligent boy in the US would be considered very bright and have a solid future...here, 16 years in an orphanage.

GRRR!!! The internet here is quite frustrating and this is all I can get uploaded. Maybe I can email Tara and have her put them up...

(This is Tara typing now) Adam did email me a few more pictures so I am putting them up. Hopefully when he is around the internet again he can commentate on them.

These are some of the kids from the PEFA orphanage in the two pictures above here. They love it when we come there (which has been almost daily) and they are in need of your prayers and support. I will be letting everyone know how you can help these PEFA kids in a very real and impactful way.

This picture above here is a shot from the city. The "middle class" in Kigali typically will live in a small shack with a corrugated tin roof. The lower class are in the fields living in small huts, the upper class have gates and armored guards. However, the people here are incredibly joyful and commerce is growing!

I put this picture up from the genocide memorial. The stories that are here are very disturbing and very real. If you don't know much about the genocide, I would recommend getting a book or reading some of the stories of the genocide. This one struck me because the last words were UNAMIR (the government agency) will come for us. Even in the midst of terror and death all around him, this young man had hope.

Right now, there are kids outside my window playing and singing and laughing. The orphanage at PEFA is not a sob story, but a real one where we can do so little to make such a huge impact. To think about where this city and country were just 17 years ago is astounding!

I will have two more posts in the next couple of days. One will be about today where we went to the Ruhengali district to see a boarding school that is doing it right. The other will be a general overview before leaving and I will write that after I speak at church on Sunday.

Murakoze!

Adam

PS. The language here is very fun to speak. Google Kinyarwandan phrases and give it a shot