A Rewarding Last Week – on our way home Sunday

Computer Lesson

This last week we continued our English classes for two hours each day and then offered teachers the opportunity to learn more about computers in the KICS computer lab. But now our English classes have ended and we have had our last one-to-one sessions. The last four weeks have been the busiest we have ever had in all of our LST experience, but they have also been among our most fulfilling. We have seen our teachers grow significantly in their English ability and we have seen their faith in our conversations. At first when val and I were mostly teaching English rather than reading one to one, we wished that we could get to know our students better. After our last two weeks of each of us meeting one-to-one with four students we have gotten to know them much better. What a blessing. They are very dedicated teachers, they have a strong faith in God and they sincerely appreciate our efforts in teaching them. Most never missed a single session and were usually on time.

Last weekend, we travelled deep into Rwanda to visit the home of Mary, one of our teachers.

Mary in her family tea field.

Rwanda is referred to as ‘The land of a Thousand Hills’ and it seemed like we drove over most of them. We learned how tea is grown, how good African food is and how bad their roads can be. We also learned that a ‘muzungu’ (their term for white people) is a magnet for children. After driving into the countryside for a couple of hours, visiting Mary’s uncle’s wedding, and driving down a road

Mary, her cousin and mother

that may have never seen a car, we finally had to go on foot only to find ourselves surrounded by about 30 kids.  Where they came from, we have no idea.  But it was fun; we know how the Pied Piper feels.  Mary’s mother had prepared a full meal for us.  Between arriving and leaving, three prayers were offered.  At the close of out trip to Mary’s, when we returned to Kigali, we also

Where do they all come from?

learned that 5000 Rwandan francs (~$10) will get enough able-bodied African men to pick up the front end of a Toyota Corolla to get it out of a ditch. It made a fitting and

Money will get you all the help you need, and we are thankful.

exciting end to our oddysey.

Yesterday we were blessed to visit the homes of two of our teachers. They were gracious hosts, feeding us once again some excellent African food. They probably prepared what would be at least a week’s worth of food for us. Like most Africans, their homes had no running water. Water must be hauled by hand from one of the many public water spigots. They do have electricity, but their cooking is done in a small room outside the house on a wood fire. We are truly blessed to live as we do.

Possibly a new site. Would you like to come?

This morning I (Steve) visited a small(~500 students) private school near Christ’s Church to discuss the possiblility of conducting another series of English classes for their teachers. Not surprisingly they are very interested. Their next school break is November-December. Val has a couple of commitments with her felting activities so she is not available to return then, but I am interested in going back. If you would like to join me let me know! I guarantee you will be blessed. We leave here Sunday the 9th and will arrive home Monday afternoon. Please pray for all we are leaving behind and for safe travel.

Always something new…what will our last week bring?

It has been another wonderful week in Rwanda.  Last week we told you the Minister of Education called all of the schools to begin their session one week earlier than scheduled.  So we had to finish up our instruction, etc. this past

All 14 with their certicates of completion.

week.  Well, on Thursday one of our teachers came in and said she heard it had been changed again and they would not begin classes until August 10th, like had been originally scheduled.  So when our deputy administrator from one of the schools came we asked her and sure enough…the Ministerof Education had been released from her duties, a new one in place and school will begin as planned.  They will use this week to get the schools ready physically and for administrative duties.  We already had the Certificates of Completion printed up and dated, the graduation party planned and food ordered so we went ahead with that today.  All of our teachers came to church and I know all of them were blessed, even if they don’t realize it yet.  One of our teachers who is also reading 1:1 with Steve, asked about the church here and wanted to know how to become a part of the body at CCR.  His phrasing was a little bit more simple as he searched for the words to express himself and voiced how different it was from anything he had ever experienced and wanted to know more about it. 

We introduced a new word to them this week ‘field trip’ and took them across the street to the school where Val had

Books are like a gold mine!

gone through about 20 boxes of books, culling out what would be of no use to them.  The books were from KICS school.  They had been sent to them, they took out what they could use and then shared the ‘wealth’.  The teachers were thrilled and we will deliver about 10 boxes of books to Gisozi School on Thursday.

We will continue classes this week with those able to come but only 2 hours of English instruction and then 2 hours of computer instruction ( please be praying for us as some have never turned one on!).  We are still offering 1:1 and nine of fourteen have chosen to continue everything. 

We have truely enjoyed this new experience of teaching an English class.  We have never done it before and it has been a blessing and a learning experience.  We believe the teachers have also been blessed.  And as you know, teaching English is never the prime objective of an LST project, but to introduce our readers to who Jesus is and to come to know him and the love, comfort and family being a believer has to offer.  We have included a picture of a one on one session and also a picture of what it is truely about, a result of sharing ourselves so others will come to know who God is.

Another week of teaching and experiencing a different world.

Our second week of classes passed by quickly and our students (who are all teachers) have been very regular in their attendance.  A group from Britain began offering free classes along with free transport last week and we thought we had lost three of our teachers but one was sick and another returned after only one day.  The British classes have forty students and no 1:1 conversation opportunity.  We have two classes with seven students each and all get an hour 1:1 conversation four days a week.

Val and I get up Mon-Thurs at 6:30 so we can be out the door by 7:45 for a stop at the Kigali International Community School (KICS), which is across the street from, and owned by, Christ’s Church in Rwanda (CCR) where we teach our classes.  At KICS we xerox lessons for our students and have a devotional time.  For the last two weeks our first class has begun at 9am and students from our afternoon class met with members of the Nashville LST team for their 1:1 conversation sessions beginning at about 11 am.  Our second class began at 1:30 and the morning students had their 1:1 sessions duing the first hour or two of our afternoon class.  Each class had seven  teachers, eagerly being students. 

A common sight.

Cody, Josh and Kacy will be leaving tomorrow (Sunday) for the US meaning that Val, Kelcee and I will have to cover all 14 teachers for 1:1 sessions. this demands a modified schedule.  The last week of classes we will have only one group class for all fourteen, which will begin at 11 am and run till 3:30 with a half hour for lunch.  Our morning class students will come for 1:1 sessions at 9am and 10am with the three of us and our afternoon group will read with us at 3:30 and 4:30. Sound confusing?  We’ll see who turns up when on Monday!  We bring our lunch and have told our students that they should do the same but they never do.  We provide a few snacks but otherwise they just don’t eat.

We look forward to next week as it will offer Val and I more opportunity for one-to-one study with our teachers.  Unlike many of the places where we have worked, most of our teachers seem to be fairly strong believers so we get to open up the Word and learn together.

Daily we are reminded of how blessed we are to live in the Western world as we see Rwandans hauling their daily water from the public water spigots to their homes on their heads and carrying their babies wrapped on their backs.  The roads are always crowded with people walking because very few own cars and public transport is relatively expensive.  At least two of our teachers walk an hour  everyday to come to our classes.  We have had to explain what the stock market is, what pizza is, and who Winston Churchill was.  We were able to introduce them to peanut butter this week as we served small pbj sandwiches and peanut butter cookies that Val baked.  Only one had ever had peanut butter before and I’m not sure anyone had had jam.

 Today we visited the Genocide Memorial here in Kigali.  It is a sobering place that tells all about how a nation can be torn apart by hate.  Around a million men, women and children were killed in the space of about three months and that was only fifteen years ago.  The emotional scars that come from witnessing family members being slaughtered mark most of people living here.  Many who escaped death carry the physical scars of the wounds they received at the hands of the Innerhamwe (Hutu radicals) who fanned the flames of hatred against the Tutsi’s with whom they had lived at peace for hundreds of years.  In the intervening years there has been great effort to mix justice with forgiveness and today this nation seems to be healing from the wounds of their history but our short stay does not allow us to know the true measure of healing.

First Week of Teaching a Hit!

Our first week of English classes has been a busy one. We have had four teachers from Fawe girls school, which is a boarding school and ten teachers from Gisozi School, a K through secondary school nearby. We teach them in two groups so some can be reading with the LST team from Nashville, while the others are in group class.  We are team teaching most of the time, which has been nice. Since we teach each group for four hours, we leave Bryan and Holly Hixsons’, where we are staying, before eight each day and come home about 6:30 after a delicious dinner cooked by Shatia and Fanny, our cooks for that one meal Monday thru Thursday. This last week we then spent the evening planning lessons for the next day usually until after 11. We hope that this weekend we can get a little further ahead so we won’t have to spend so much time every night getting ready for the next day.

In spite of the long hours we have thoroughly enjoyed our first week and our students. Most are so eager to learn; they were even thrilled for us to give them homework for the weekend. They are giving up three of the four-week school break for our classes. We had them interview each other a lot this week as part of various exercises so we have learned a lot about their daily lives and the schools they teach at. For those of you who wish your class sizes in America were smaller. Gisozi School has around 2600 students and 44 teachers! The students come in two shifts, one at 7:15 until around noon the other from around noon until sometime after 4 pm. Jean de Dieu told us that his morning class has 48 students and his afternoon class has 49!!! And he is expected to teach these kids in English but he so far has only rudimentary skills?

For years I have been telling people that the world is getting smaller and smaller, meaning the differences between peoples and their ways of life are becoming smaller. However, this week we realized that the world isn’t quite as small as we thought. The vast majority (including all of the teachers in our classes) have not been touched all that much by the western world. Though they virtually all have cell phones and trenches are being dug all over the country to lay fiber optic cables, those trenches are being dug by hand with pick and shovels and only the upper few per cent of the Rwandans know what a hamburger is or have ever heard of McDonalds. There are no movie theaters in Kigali, the capital, and there is little western programming on their television. Most people do know that Arnold Schwarzenegger is the governor of California. The few stores where we shop stock a lot of western goods but the prices are twice or more what we would pay for them in the States; there are no fast food restaurants and those where we have eaten average about $10-12 per person. This would be nearly a week’s wages of our teachers so they have likely never even set foot in these markets and restaurants. They do their shopping in the open markets where they can barter for the rice, beans and potatoes that are the staples of their lives. We are introducing them to peanut butter this next Thursday.

We start each day teaching them a song. This past week they ranged from “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’ to finishing the week with ‘Jesus Loves Me’. Please pray that we will have an impact on their lives other than only improving their English skills but they may come to understand why we have come.

July 13th, Russell’s Birthday

Singing Happy Birthday to Russell and then he blew out the candles, through the computer!

It has been a very busy week.  We last wrote  you on the 5th, telling about our arrival and a little bit about where we are living and the LST team that is here working.

We have spent the last week meeting teachers as you saw in the last post and spending the rest of the time planning lessons.  We have  been struggling everyday well into the evevnings to plan what they need.  After they answered our questionaire and told us what they would like, we did our best to cater to that need within the constraints of ESL and giving them some good foundations in the English language.  So, after several days, we had two

Burning the midnight oil! (kind of)

whole lessons done!  Only 2!!!!

After our first class session today we learned we had way too much planned and that is a true blessing because now we have more days planned than we thought  so now we can use the excess on the next day!  (We really knew that)

One of the schools was very well represented with ten teachers but the FAWE school only had 2 of there 8 arrive.  One had contacted us but the others not.  So we have text messaged them all, called the school director and we will see what tomorrow brings.  They all have one to one reading sessions that are an hour long in the Luke book as well.  Most of them have very good English skills. 

At the end of the class I realized we had failed greatly as we forgot to take any pictures.  We will make up for it tomorrow as we continue on.

Sunday was a blessing as we truely enjoy the singing here.  We sing in English, Kenyarwanda, Swahili and maybe some other African dialects.  It is so beautiful.  We have tape recorded some of it and if we can figure out how to attach that we will.

Summer attendance is down here, just like at Turnpike but the singing was incredible.

We took a day off and went to a national park about 2 hours from here.  The  LST team came with us and we went on ‘Safari’.  Those that are from South Africa or the Serengeti chuckle at the idea that we do that here but you see what you can see where you can see it and it was spectacular for us.           

Continue to pray for all of the teachers who are coming to improve their English skills, that they not only will improve but their interest in the Word will increase.  Enjoy the pictures.  We think of all of you often…steve and val

Kelcee, Kacy, Cody, Josh, Val, Steve, Kosto

Val & Bryan Hixson with kids at school.

            We have had a couple of days of getting oriented, buying groceries and recovering from the resulting sticker shock.  If you are concerned about the rising costs in the states…here are a few examples for you.  One can of coke $1, 1# cheese $12, 6 – 2” apples – $4,  evap. milk $5!  And the average Rwandan makes about $30/month.  We have no idea how they make ends meet.  There are some large open markets on the other side of town but nothing on this side.  But I know we will do just fine.  We did buy a case of peanut butter yesterday for $42, about $3.5 a jar…small jar, so we are doing fine. 

Steve interviewing a teacher.

Today we had a very productive morning and met with most of our ‘students’ who themselves are teachers.  Next Monday we will begin group classes, teaching English to 8 teachers from Fawe secondary school, a girl’s boarding school with about 700 students, and 12 teachers from another school that is nearby.  This school serves kids from kindergarten through secondary school.  There are 2800 students and 44 teachers!

Laundry day at FAWE.

After a short explanation of what we will be offering them, we were able to talk individually with 17 of our 20 teachers and learned that their range of English abilities is going to be quite manageable in a group class.  Thank you, God.  We gave them a questionnaire to fill out today and asked them to list three things they wanted to learn.  The top one was ‘speaking’, then ‘listening’ and ‘grammar’ and also songs.  They also want help with the vocabulary and pronunciation of words specific to the subjects they teach.  We have English teachers, biology, chemistry, physics, math and literature. Val and I are now tailoring lessons for them.  We will teach two groups of 10, four hours a day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.

Teachers filling out their questionaire.

            In addition to group classes, they will also be able to practice English in one-to-one sessions with help from a team of four college students from David Lipscomb and Tennessee Tech universities in Nashville.  This week these young folks are reading with some of the Fawe teachers, as well as many students from Fawe along with others channeled through Christ’s Church in Rwanda (CCR).  They read both at the school and at the Kigali International Community School (KICS), next to, and associated with CCR.  Cody, Josh, Kacy, and Kelcee are a great group and have very busy schedules.  Next week the school break begins so many of their readers will go home for the four-week holiday.  That will free up their schedules so they, along with us will be able to read every day with our 20 teachers.  As usual we will use passages from the gospel of Luke to guide our conversations.

3 a.m., July 5th

Finally, we arrived in Kigali.  After a short trip to Germany to see very dear friends in Hamburg and Kiel, we arrived in Kigali, Rwanda after one late take-off, one cancelled flight and the arrival of no luggage.  We were greeted at 3 a.m. by Bryan Hixson who is our host.  We have been graciously welcomed and are looking forward to all that is ahead of us, most of it is still on the drawing board but we know this is going to be a very blessed trip.

We will meet with one school director tomorrow and hopefully all of the teachers we will work with.  The team here from DLU lives near by and is filling their schedules with readers.

We will do our best to update this on a regular basis and our next note will come with pictures.