Ndagukunda, Rwanda

Long time no see. haha I am actually so behind on blogs and we have been in Romania now for a month and have been working with Ukrainian refugees. Now we are headed to Greece for our final month on the field. We are so close to finishing its wild. Here are just a few of my thoughts from my time in Rwanda. Enjoy:)

1. When we love God and have experienced his goodness, “we cannot help but speak about what we have seen and heard,” just like the early church did in Acts. Our love for others gets to flow out of this. 
2. Learned a lot about boldness and courage and how to walk in my unique authority.
3. We lived in an area with lots of poverty in Rwanda. On the race we often interact with these populations and it has opened my eyes to a lot and every time I learn something new.
4. Sometimes when you have younger brothers you also revert to a 12 year old boy and wanna fight them.
5. The amount of people that want to learn English abroad is a lot. We as Americans are really lucky because so many people know english. 
6. You can try really hard to speak a different language, but it will still sound funny to the natives. They appreciate you trying though.
7. It’s important to fight for your time with Jesus. Like I said everything flows from it. 
8. It is okay to be okay when everyone else isn’t. It is also okay to have a bad day and that doesn’t mean your whole life is falling apart. 
9. Rwanda was a lot of experiencing and living in Gods abundance! 
10. I really loved the 50 cent energy drinks right outside our door:) According to my friend Addie it tasted like a white rockstar. 
11. I learned how to play a card game named Amaturufu and played it often with the boys.
12. Teaching the kids in the nursery school reminded me a lot of my clients back home in how I taught them and in how I interacted with them. 

Here is an overview of what ministry looked like in Rwanda and some pictures:

1. Teaching in the nursery school and helping the teachers. This school is a part of the church and it allows parents to go to work while their young children ages 2-6 get to come to school. This not only keeps the kids off the streets and out of bad things but it allows their parent or parents to provide for them. 
2. Preaching, preaching and more preaching. Each week team spice prepared about 8 preaches (aka sermons). These happened in the church, on Zoom, Tv and YouTube! We spent some time writing these.
3. We spent a lot of time with Pastor Innocents three boys! We love them a lot and spent time playing basketball, playing cards, and music with them. We got to talk to them about a lot of things and invite them into the ministry that we were doing. 
4. We also spent time with the neighbor kids and the kids down the street. Some of our neighbor friends go to the nursery school, but the others are just some we befriended. We played games with them and did music and ultimately just gave them our time. This was the same with the kids down the street. I got to know each of their names. Wow I miss them. There is a story about the boy in the last photo. I hope to tell it one day, but I don’t think God is not done writing it yet. His name is Mugisha. 🙂
   
5. Here my team really lived out “Ministry is life and life is ministry.” Everywhere you looked was an opportunity to share Gods love. An opportunity to learn someones name. An opportunity to look people in the eye and hug them. An opportunity to display the fruits of the spirit and walk in who God created us to be. 

I loved Rwanda and I have so many more thoughts, but this will have to do for now. When we were in Rwanda we also switched teams and roles. So goodbye Team Spice and hello Team Happy Feet! And I am now the new treasurer, so I handle all things money related.

Okay folks, keep a lookout for an update on Romania coming so soon!

I love you all and am incredibly thankful for the support you guys continuously provide. Thank YOU! 

Xoxo,

Cass