July 18

A nice, quiet Sunday. Church service this morning. About 2.5 hours total, but I have learned not to come at the beginning! I came in 30 minutes late, but people wander in during the first hour and a half. Several choirs sang, and the pastor today translated his sermon into English from time to time, so that was very helpful! The seating at church is on wooden benches with no backs, and the benches are only about 9" wide. So one kind of perches on these fairly narrow, hard benches. The Rwandans sense of personal space is different from ours, so everyone sits quite closely together, making it feel warmer. The little local kids sit there quietly the whole time, while I squirm on the hard surface, wish I could lean back a bit, and perspire a bit without air conditioning. The locals are much tougher than I am! Even with the little discomforts, the church services here are heartwarming. Most of the people are quite poor by our standards, but they sing happily and seem very spiritual.

Took the 3 mile walk with Jennifer from the U.S. today. Those are 2 of her children in the picture. The canoe is a traditional one. We see lots of these on Lake Kivu here. Some are for fishing, others are for transporting people or other goods around the lake.