The pleasure of a voice!

Finally!! We were able to overcome the nuances of the international telco switching system, the limitations of particular calling cards, and the timing and availability of actual phone numbers and speak to Johanna. It was, of course, a wonderful thing to hear her voice after only just over three weeks.

Johanna is pretty tired and does not have much free time in a very full schedule of classes, work duties, and various opportunities for outreach involving her class. She is in a class of about 15 students - of which 6 or 7 are from North America and the majority are from the eastern region of Africa (Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, etc.). In spite of the attractiveness of the facility in which she is staying (see the YWAM Rwanda link to the left) there is no running water. That means that showers are bucket showers but as she noted, "it's not that bad." Her assessment of her time in Kigali so far was that it has been a very good time - it is hard but she is very happy that she is where she is.

The night before we spoke she had been out to attend a concert. I did not catch the name of the artist but the concert was held at the Hotel des Mille Collines (Mille Collines). For those familiar with the film Hotel Rwanda this was the hotel that was the setting for that movie (which can be seen in the special features if you have the DVD version) where a courageous Rwandan national named Paul Rusesabagina sheltered over 1,200 fellow countrymen during the 1994 genocide.

Current plans call for Johanna's class to travel on an extended outreach to the country of Kenya (probably in late March through May) although the exact location of their outreach has not yet been determined.

Johanna has asked for prayer for one of her classmates. S____ is a young man who lost most of his family members during the genocide (I got the impression that he may have witnessed their murders). His mother and sister are still living but he is having a difficult time believing that he can be loved by God or that his own life is valuable. Please join us in praying for him.

Johanna will also try to occasionally post here on the blog site however she indicated that it took almost an hour to get to a reliable Internet café. Although an hour of Internet time was inexpensive (about one USD) the speed of the connection was very slow by American standards and thus even simple things like checking e-mail on line took much longer than expected. As a result we will 'manage' her online e-mail account to keep the number of messages to a minimum since she also communicates through Facebook.