Rwanda Mission Partnership

Even before arriving in Kigali, two and half years after my first visit, I was hearing stories of change.

The in-flight magazine tucked in the seat pocket of my twin turbo-prop flight from Entebbe in Uganda talked about a recent visit by Rwanda’s President, Paul Kegami, to the US. He had met with the heads of F-500 companies including Google and Starbucks. He negotiated deals that will see Google become the major IT solutions provider for the Rwandese public service and Starbucks begin opening stores in downtown Kigali.

If people have money and time to spend on coffee and in cafes things must be changing in Rwanda.

Within minutes of landing at Kigali international airport some of these changes in the fabric of city life in Rwanda became apparent. On the 40 minute drive from the airport to the Kimisigara community on Mt Kigali I saw many late model cars on the road, including Mercedes Benzs and BMWs. A plethora of new apartment developments and construction projects also lined the clean, palm tree and grass lined streets.

Another noticeable change was the service (gas) stations. In 2004 all they sold was fuel. In just about every case their storefronts were completely empty shells, but now they were full. Fridges stocked with the big cola names and walls lined with shelves brimming with potato chips, chocolates and snacks and the kind of ordinary grocery items you would expect to see in any convenience store anywhere in the developed world.

John’s wife Gladys was driving us from the airport and I commented to her that things appeared to be improving economically for Rwanda. I couldn’t believe the changes I was seeing in the relatively short amount of time since I last visited. She replied that while on the surface this looked to be the case, in reality it was those who already had money that were making more of it, while the poor were still poor.

This was confirmed when we arrived at our destination - things on Mt Kigali hadn’t followed the path taken by downtown Kigali. In fact very little had changed in the time I had been away.

I was greeted by the same badly erroded dirt road, 3 room mudbrick houses and children clad in dirty, torn clothing. This was the same place I had said goodbye to the last time I left Rwanda.

Perhaps the rich do just keep getting richer. When Starbucks open the doors of their new Kigali cafe I don’t expect to find too many of the Mt Kigali locals sipping lattes or cappuccinos!

I arrived in Uganda on Saturday night after a pretty gruelling 28 hour journey from Perth.

I met up with John Mihigo, when he arrived at Entebbe airport about an hour after me. We then travelled with local representatives of the CUF in Kampala to a guest house to crash out for the night.

Sunday morning we attended a service at the CUF Uganda site, in a poor area of Kampala near the hospital.

For the past 4 days I have been in Mukono with John at the Amahoro Africa gathering - a conference exploring the emerging church as it pertains to the African context. A big focus of the gathering has been partnerships, with around 60 odd westerners in attendence.

Topics included: The gospel of reconciliation versus the evacuation gospel, the empowerment of women in the church, and ways of building and growing the church in a more ecumenical fashion as an expression of the kingdom of God.

You can read an overview of the conference at the Amahoro Africa blog site - http://www.amahoroafrica.blogspot.com/
Tonight John and I fly to Kigali in Rwanda and will meet the team from Australia at Kigali airport tomorrow night.

In coming days I will post updates from the individual team members on their experiences in Kigali.