Newton May 2021

I am going to share with you briefly some things that have been happening here at Rafiki Rwanda.

At the end of the school break, Allison and I took off for the Rubavu area near Lake Kivu for a rest. We really enjoyed it and plan to return when her sister visits in June.

When all the students returned to school, most of them needed clothes. The boys keep getting taller, and the girls—well, they are girls and just need new clothes I guess.

On Friday afternoons, I am with the tenth graders for an hour facilitating their life skills class. We are working through a Christian money management book geared for teenagers.

The Rafiki moms are still involved in the Teacher Training Program. They are doing well with Christian education and math. In calculating the greatest common factor, they were using an odd formula. And one mom said matter-of-factly, “We learned this in P5.” And I was thinking I didn’t learn anything like that in fifth grade. One mom decided not to continue in the teacher training and opted to learn how to sew. She is learning quickly.

One day I was called to the school because a student had some bad pain in her leg. Two days later she manifested with a serious skin staph infection. So we had a visit to the local clinic and then a hospital in Kigali and then an imaging center to rule out a blood clot. Thankfully, she is healing nicely. Another student had malaria and several had the cough that sounds like a seal barking. We are thankful for the treatments we have available.

And on a different day, one of our resident boys told me he had been having headaches above his eyes. I asked him how his vision is and he said it was “okay.” I took him to the eye doctor anyway to get checked out. He couldn’t even read the big letters! The optician looked at me and calmly said, “He can’t see.” Now he has eyeglasses and he can see great.

And when I have a chance…

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