Well, the first day in Rwanda is over. Nothing supernatural, but everything went according to plan. Except I still can’t get Internet service and my phone won’t pick up a signal. But then, this is Africa, so that is expected too. I hate to buy a phone just for the few weeks that we’ll be here, but that is my only other option. Maybe I can get one cheap like I did in Uganda for 12 bucks … or maybe I can just sink into the background without any phone at all.
Now that’s an interesting proposition! I could get lost like in those travel stories where the author completely unplugs so he can wean himself out of our electronic world. After all, it wasn’t too many years ago when our world of instant and ubiquitous communication was unheard of. If you went to Africa on a steamship, especially into the exotic central jungle, no one heard from you for months. Not a totally bad idea.
On the other hand, one of the main underlying ideas of these missions is to use the fire that is started here to provoke America to jealousy, and I have to communicate to do that.
Rwanda is like much of the rest of East and Central Africa. I have only seen Kigali, the capital, but it seems a bit more prosperous than the other places I’ve been to. This city is much less populous than other capitals like Nairobi and Kampala and so it is able to escape the extremes of poverty, dirt and filth, and the crowded competition for life that you find there. Still, it seems a bit more prosperous than what would be natural. You can see a lot of new money here in the infrastructure of the city, the new roads and the new buildings. I wonder if it is a result of a ton of international aid since the Genocide.
I am told that since the Genocide, there was an almost universal revival here and that almost everyone in Rwanda is now saved. Well now, either this universal revival was pretty shallow, or I just never heard the news about it. It is true that there is a strong Christian influence here, but I’ve seen that in other places and it has turned out to be just superficial. Throughout both services today, it kept coming up that these people, who have come from several different churches, do want revival. I suspect that the devil has sent out a false picture to hide their desperate need. At least that’s how it seems after the first day.
I’ll keep you posted as we go on.
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