Wherever one travels in Rwanda, particularly in the rural areas, small children wander the roadsides and villages.  Public education used to begin around age 7, although it is being lowered in some places.  But before that time, children are generally left to fend for themselves while the mother or parents work.  To help meet a [...]

First thing Monday morning, the Bishop drove us to visit and observe one of the preschools started by the Shira diocese. Starting preschools is one of the diocese's major initiatives - and it is proving to be very successful, allowing Rwandan mothers to go to work and keeping the children safe during the day, in [...]

People walk everywhere in Rwanda. It makes driving a bit scary... but that's just life in Rwanda. Bikes and motorbikes are very common, with or without passengers. Precocious school kids greet the muzungus. Time to get back to class! Visiting the preschool - cute much? One of the volcanos overlooking Musanze.

We all arrived safely Saturday night, then drove two hours north (with our driver Herman) to Musanze.  Sunday dawned very early (it seemed) with pastoral duties for the clergy.  Deacon Amanda preached at two services at Sonrise School, first the primary school children then the high school, and Fr. Jay preached the kinyarwanda service at [...]

This is my fourth visit to Rwanda, and its starting to feel like a real adventure.  Without rehearsing all the details, let me just note that we are in Brussels, very tired, looking forward to actually being on the flight to Rwanda tomorrow (Saturday) after missing the flight the last two days.  First, because our [...]

This June Church of the Redeemer will once again visit Rwanda and our brothers and sisters there.  Pastor Jay Greener, his wife Dr. Susan and Deacon Amanda Rosengren will leave Chicago June 20 for a trip to strengthen relationships, bring encouragement to our Missioners Dan and Kari Hanlon, and explore new paths of partnership. Highlights [...]

Today, the 17th of March, was the second graduation in Sonrise School history. In the prior evening, it appeared there was a chance of rain, but not one raindrop did fall that night or on this day. The sun was shining and the wind provided a gentle and comforting breeze to all of us in [...]

Today (Thursday the 15th) Pat Daley, Dan Hanlon, and myself spent much of the day with Pastor Deo. Pastor Deo has been called to many ministries, but two of them are prison reconciliation and reconciliation villages. These villages are where victims and perpetrators of the genocide live together and work together in the hope that [...]

Today we started our day by paying a visit to Pastor Sam. The joy he had in seeing Pat and myself revealed true friendship. He wasn’t glad because he had to be glad, he was glad because he was glad. His friendship with us shows friendships can be made even over great distances, and these [...]

On the way to Rwanda, we spent a day in Brussels, Belgium. There, we ran into Pat Daley’s old friend, Robert, who immediately made us feel at home. We spent much of the day at Waterloo, site of the famous battle in 1815 where Napoleon was defeated for the second and final time. The term [...]