Divine Connections

What a beautiful week this has been! I’ve met with several graduates of the Business Development Center and had the opportunity to hear their stories. 

One entrepreneur is Grace. After graduating from the BDC, she started an online magazine (www.identity250.com) and starting writing feature stories about entrepreneurs in Rwanda. Her goal: to show people the faces of Rwanda. According to Grace, when people learn about Rwanda, they learn about the genocide and maybe learn about President Paul Kagame, but there are many other successful Rwandans. Her desire is to share their stories as an encouragement and testimony to younger Rwandans.

As she was talking, I thought of Patrice, the entrepreneur I wrote about previously. Patrice has high school students who want to become entrepreneurs. Some have even started businesses already! I shared with Grace about Patrice, and she was very excited about writing some stories about his students which can be used in her magazine as well as for promotional materials for Patrice. 

I introduced them via email and they’ve already begun working together.

Later in our conversation, Grace expressed a concern she had about her time commitments. She is having trouble finding time to write all the content she’d like for her magazine, since she also works a full time job. She’s looking for an intern. 

 

I immediately thought of Desire. I met Desire at the reception we had to say thank you to all the partners and friends that helped the Regent class with their projects in Rwanda. One student, Andrea, worked with Serge, another BDC graduate, who has a business and ministry for street kids in Rwanda. He provides them role models, community, guidance, and teaches them to be men. Desire just graduated from high school this year and is saving to go to university in the fall to study journalism. Desire came as Andrea’s guest to the reception. We paid him a small stipend to write a story about the reception. It was very good! 

As I told Grace about Desire, she was very excited about the possibility of sending him on interviews and mentoring him in journalism and writing. 

God is so good. I realized this past year that one of my favorite things in the whole world is connecting people who should know each other. Perhaps is my extreme extrovert showing, but networking, especially networking for others, is invigorating!

What a privilege that I can do that 3,000 miles from home!

I wanted to share Desire’s story about our reception. It’s called “Muzungu’s Party”. Yesterday, I shared that muzungu means white person. In the story below, you’ll see that the relationships we made in Rwanda go far beyond race, occupation, or culture. They are divine connections!

Muzungu’s Party

By Desire BIZIMANA

It was Friday, May 18, 2012 at 8 PM when Muzungu’s team, coming from the USA, was celebrating in a party after spending two weeks in Rwanda. Everyone were smiling there, taking pictures for each other, sharing food. Everything here at Solace is good. Muzungu and Rwandese is sharing joy and opinions here.

After praying, the party began. Everyone was able to talk to everyone, telling the names to each other, after everyone takes drink and food which was delicious.

Everyone watched documentary talking about Rwandan culture, like dancing, and visiting where the king stayed, and seeing some animals in the park.

After the documentary, every muzungu explained the project they did.

Eric and Trevor were talking about their project and using minerals.

Andrea was the wonderful woman in that muzungu’s team. She shows her project working together with Serge, who is in charge of street boys. She met Desire and helped him see how he can be a good journalist by telling him to write a story. That was good for Desire because she pushed him to get his vision.

Julia also shows her project about gender based violence and she works with Serge in the program of street kids.

Laura shows her project about Bible Studies.

Dori shows her project about working in MTN. She did a training of leadership in MTN.

Latrilla, Zandra, Bernadette, Joanna, Trevor, and Eric were able to talk to a community of pastors, economists, etc. in order to get development with the Solace Project.

Qwynne and Karen show their project about the seminar at university.

Brittany shows in leadership training. She thanks every project done by each team.

Eric and Emmanuel was tour guides of the muzungu’s team. They thank so much muzungus for their relationship. Emmanuel said “that they are amazing people and special team.” Eric said “even it is so hard to share with the people from different culture, but we worked with team very well.”

Dr. Mulford, the professor at the university, he thank Bernard for his effort when the team was need him. He was a driver. When they needed him, was coming fast.

Jean Marie is the man who cooked food for muzungus. They thanked him because he cooked the best food to them and worked fast.

Really, the party was good, even they are some were going to leave and others stay, but everyone said that the meeting of two weeks was very good to them. All projects they have opened is a project of vision which can prosper the world in all situations such as: life, economy, development, health, sports. We are thanking so much muzungu’s team to choose to come in Africa, especially in Rwanda. 

That was good meeting. We would like to wish you to come back again. And God may protect you in your journey and in your life of everyday. 

God bless you.

Umuhoza

When you go abroad, you get called many things - adventurous, lucky, even crazy. But when you get abroad, you never know what you'll be called.

In Rwanda, we hear 'muzungu' a lot! Basically it means white person, but the alternative definition is thief. As we drove up country when the class was here, we heard it every time we passed a village - "Muzungu! Muzungu!" It was usually accompanied by children waving or asking for something. You get used to hearing it because it's at least one word in Kinyarwanda that you understand.

You never really get used to it when you don't hear your name anymore, though. They can't really say Brittany. The sounds just aren't in their native language. It makes it very difficult for them to use my name, so other than my husband and our lead facilitator at the BDC this week, I haven't heard my name much.

For several weeks, I've been on a crusade for someone to give me a Rwandan name. No one has taken the challenge until two nights ago. I was at the Business Development Center spending time with our entrepreneurs and mentioned my crusade to one of them. He thought for  minute, ripped a paper out of his notebook, and started writing - "Umuhoza".

I asked what it meant and when he began to describe it, I couldn't believe it. Umuhoza, in English, means someone who give hope, someone who gives moral and emotional strength, a counselor, and even better, a consoler. he said that he thought of it after watching me interact with the other students.

This for the same girl who scored the lowest possible on the compassion scale her freshman year in college. I think that God has has answered my prayers about growing in compassion and grace. Maybe marriage has helped. Maybe maturity has helped.

All I know is that I have a new name, and the more time I spend here the more I have a new perspective, a new appreciation for home, and a new character.

Umuhoza... I think I like it.

And Justice for All

My how time has flown by here in Rwanda! I feel as if I have barely blinked and now I’m nearing the halfway point in my internship. But at the same time, it is remarkable how engrained Brittany and I have become in this place in such a short time. We absolutely love it here and we are both thrilled with the work that God has given us to do.

Since my updates have been terribly lacking thus far, I feel as if it is most appropriate for me to provide an over-arching post on what work has been like for me at IJM. I cannot thank everyone who has supported me to get here enough, so suffice it to say that I am incredibly and forever grateful for this amazing opportunity!

My job with IJM has turned out to be almost entirely special project based. Of course I am only here for about seven weeks, so it is difficult to get too much into the everyday workings of the organization. And yet, I have been amazed at how much I have done already!

The first several days were filled with on-the-fly training and education on how to fit in with the team and what it is like to work/live in Rwanda. I wish I had this sort of cultural sensitivity training every time I visited a new country… it was so good to hear all about Rwanda from two folks that have lived here all their lives! I was warmly welcomed, and had really no trouble at all finding my way to fit in. My office is a reasonably small room that I share with two other team members. It was awfully nice of them to fit me in though, because one of them even had to give up half his desk for me, and I mean that quite literally. As in, they sawed his desk in half and gave it to me. Both of these Rwandan guys are great though and it’s a pleasure to work near them on a daily basis. 

The most notable things that I have accomplished thus far are internal research and memos. This means that I’ve been given several random legal issues that have been problematic for our office recently and told to find a solution. These are things that I’m well prepared for as an American law student, and I’ve been consistently amazed at how the legal research process is basically the same no matter what you are doing. Whether it’s a 4th amendment issue for class or an East African Community tariff law question for an international NGO, the whole idea is basically the same. You know absolutely nothing about the subject at the beginning, and by the end you have produced a memo that actually sounds like you know what you are talking about. I love that!

I have also started to get more involved with the real substantive work that IJM does here. Our mandate is Child Sexual Abuse cases, and so a big part of my time has been spent becoming familiar with Rwandan law on that subject, as well as a lot of our case history. One of the most difficult things that I have ever had to do is reading through the scores of stories that we have in our files. It is impossible to describe how painfully sad and discouraging so many of those stories are. And at the same time, they are a vibrant reminder of why we are here, and the good that can be done by organizations like IJM.

To wrap that all up in one moment, we got a conviction today! A perp was sentenced to 20 years in prison and a relatively large payment of over $1,000 to be made to the family. This was the trial that I had sat in on several weeks ago, and so it was an awesome experience to celebrate the win with the rest of the staff. It was also a little bit of a surprise that it came out so well, so there was a lot of excitement to go around.

There is no doubt that this is where God has for me to be this summer. I am learning a lot both academically and otherwise. Thanks again to everyone for your thoughts and prayers!

The "Man with Unlimited Ideas"

I started a new project yesterday. I am trying to interview and photograph all of our graduates from the Business Development Center, at least the ones who have started businesses (which is a lot of them!). My first meeting was yesterday and it was WONDERFUL.

Meet Patrice HABINSHUTI. He's the one on the right. Patrice participated in the BDC during his third year of university. Two winning competitions and two graduations later, he has a flourishing business – Eden Flowers and Business Support. 

His biggest initiative is the Africa Innovation Prize – High School Initiative. Basically, he is starting entrepreneurship clubs in high schools all over Rwanda. Right now he has Memorandums of Understanding with 12 schools. 

Ready for the crazy part?

In those 12 schools, there are 4,000 student members!!! 

Just one of those students owns a brickmaking business and employs more than 100 people every day.

By the end of the year, Patrice is planning on being in 50 high schools and expanding his programs to offer a lecture series, relax time, and a chance for the student entrepreneurs to share about their own businesses. 

I was so inspired by Patrice and his initiative. He told me that when he was in the BDC, Dr. Mulford called him the “man with unlimited ideas.” He described himself as being “too entrepreneurial” at times. 

I think I related. :-)

For Your Glory, My Lord

Isn’t it funny how God knows exactly what you need and then provides it… every time! 

Now that the class is gone, I’m switching gears. I’m doing staff training and office development for our Business Development Center in Kigali. There is a lot to do! Our team developed 19 areas of improvement and now we are working through each issue one at a time.

I had a meeting this morning with Barbra, who is our Office Administrator and a beautiful Christian woman. We had a fantastic meeting and I just could not have been more pleased with the ideas and creativity that we had. Our conversation was so rich.

At the end of our meeting, Barbra said, the one thing we can always do is pray. So we prayed together. Right there in the office. It was the sweetest 15 minutes of my day.

God amazes me every day when he uses other people’s words to really spark a fire in me. While Barbra prayed, I was just so moved by the Spirit. I wish I could recount every word of her prayer, but she just kept praying that every idea, every word, and every action was "for your glory, my lord." At one point, she even thanked God for me and for the opportunity to meet together as sisters, friends, and colleagues. What a blessing!

It was just what I needed today.

A "Rwandan" Day

Today was an incredibly “Rwandan” day.

I left the apartment for the walk to work and a beautiful blue sky (albeit quite humid) was there to greet me. I got to work on time… so of course I was one of the first people to arrive. When I sat down at my desk I immediately noticed a problem – no power! This doesn’t happen often in Kigali, but it’s not a terribly rare occurrence. But of course, no power means no internet is available. No internet meant that I couldn’t really work on my project. The power comes on at around 10:30am and I get to work. Then around noon comes the rain. You’ve never seen it rain if you’ve never been outside the US. Next to Hurricane Irene last fall and the tsunami like downpour that I had the pleasure of assisting a dental operation through in Haiti, today was the hardest I’d ever seen it rain.

With the rain came another power outage. So there I was again, just sort of chilling out in Rwanda. I wandered downstairs to see some of my colleagues only to be informed that President Kagame had just announce a new public holiday… tomorrow! Apparently it’s not unusual here for the workforce to be informed of national days off less than 24 hours before.

So here, I sit… the sun is all of a sudden bursting out from what 10 minutes ago was a completely gray sky; it’s Tuesday afternoon; I’m almost done with work for the week; and I can guarantee that dinner tonight will be at least a three hour event.

Every moment for the rest of this day that I manage to overcome my OCD, allergic to “wasting time,” American attitude, will be spent pitying all of my friends back in the States that are forced to work for law firms where they expect you to “only” take an hour for your lunch break and in a country where the last surprise holiday was… does anyone even remember one? :-)

- Kevin