Traveling to Africa from Chicago almost always means going through someplace else, and these airline pathways usually follow the route of the old colonial powers, centered in England, Germany and Belgium, among others.  My trip to Rwanda is taking me through Brussels, where I stopped a day to make the best plane connections. Today is [...]

Traveling to Rwanda involves careful preparation.  While there has been much development over the last ten years, especially, it still serves the traveler to be aware of things to take along on the trip, such as medications and other items that you may not be able to purchase.  It also means being aware of the [...]

The children's choir at St. John the Baptist Cathedral Sundays are always big days in the Rwandan Anglican Church. They start early and run long, marked by joyful and exuberant worship services. When we come to Rwanda it's important that we participate in worship services, not only to signify our unity together in [...]

For almost the whole time the Hanlons have been in Rwanda they have been getting around the country in a small, two-door Toyota Landcruiser that they bought off a guy who worked for a water cooperative. The 1992 SUV has over 200,000 km on the odometer, and it just seems to run and run. I've [...]

We've finally arrived and settled in on this particular journey to Rwanda, after what felt like a really long trip getting here.  Following the terror bombings in Brussels our usual way of getting here from Chicago ( 2 flights--straightforward) became three flights (two overnight) with long layovers.  It meant we had very little sleep on [...]

Its my final morning in Rwanda, and I'm sitting on the Hanlon's veranda, overlooking the capitol of Kigali as it begins its day. Like most high-altitude cities the days can begin cool, but as the sun climbs heat builds quickly, especially this close to the equator. Its been a very full trip, and one that [...]

By Ethan Carlson   The concepts of time and space fascinate me. The Sunday services have concluded here in the Shyria dioceses, but the worship at Church of the Redeemer (or "Redeemer Church", as we are known in Rwanda) has only just begun. It's already "tomorrow" in the home country of today's preacher at Redeemer, [...]

by Katie Prudek The first day is a day of finding one's feet. I was the last one up this morning, thanks to the sleeping pills I took for jet lag combined with basking in the pleasure of waking up under a mosquito net (which still makes me feel like I am five years old [...]

We've now been in Kigali Rwanda for two days, and its been a very full time of reconnecting, and becoming reacquainted with Rwanda's unique and profound story of reconciliation. Church of the Redeemer has two families that live and serve here full-time (the Hanlons and Abrahams). These are dear people who are very much a [...]

I wrote about our Rwanda trip last year, that one has to go "through" somewhere. I meant, on the obvious level, that there are no direct flights from the US to Kigali, Rwanda. In a deeper and more symbolic way, though, a traveler must go 'through' in another sense, as well.  Its a spiritual and [...]