Email from the Jenkins

We have arrived in Kigali. Before we left, one individual asked us, “So where will you start? For instance, where will you stay?” To be honest, we did not quite know. The unanswered questions are far greater than our plans and thoughts. We thought we had a furnished home reserved to stay in, but we received an e-mail a few days before leaving that it was not available. We went into scramble mode. We made miscellaneous phone calls and e-mails with no success. We had Rwandese friends looking for a place for us to stay, but absolutely no idea what our first days would be like in Rwanda. Not exactly the greatest situation to step into with 5 children between the ages of 12 and 2, but we are convinced this journey to Rwanda will be one of many uneasy steps for our co-workers, supporters, and ourselves.

We are writing this message to update all of you upon this journey. We will try to hit the highlights. We arrived at the Minneapolis – St. Paul airport with 7 people and 14 pieces of luggage. We thought we had all of our reservations confirmed, but soon found our understanding and the airlines were not the same. We had booked our international flights with British Airways who had reserved a domestic flight from Minneapolis to Chicago for us. When we arrived at the counter in Minneapolis we found that American Airlines had no record of our booking. Thankfully, we were early and the woman behind the counter was extremely kind and skilled. An hour later ourselves and our entire luggage was checked in. However, there was a thunderstorm in Minneapolis and our flight was delayed.

We arrived in Chicago late and needed to transfer to another terminal. We only had 45 minutes to make the transfer, and were assured it could be done, but as we arrived at the other terminal we were informed that we had missed our flight. The next available flight from Chicago to London was completely booked. We had a few tense moments, until again a kind and skilled woman began to look into our situation. It took some time, but in the end the only available seats were in First Class. “Oh, the cross we must bear.” We were upgraded to First Class free of charge, and had the most enjoyable plane ride ever from Chicago to London.

Our next flight was from London to Entebbe, Uganda. At first we thought this would be rather uneventful. We spent the day resting in a hotel. We were still frantically e-mailing and phone calling trying to line up a place to stay in Rwanda with no success, but Rwandan friends assured us that they would find a place for us. We stepped unto the plane at least expecting a non-crisis moment. But it seemed our fortune continued to follow us. The pilot announced that in the process of loading the luggage, a truck had run into the plane, damaged a cargo door, and rendered the plane unable to safely fly. Thus we began to unload ourselves, and waited another 3 hours before another plane was loaded and prepared for our flight. We loaded the plane, and expected to soon take off, but again there was some type of malfunction, and we waited another hour on the plane for repairs to be made before we could take off.

Our next stop was Entebbe, Uganda. In Entebbe we would take a Missionary Aviation Fellowship charter on to Kigali. Our primary concern was that not all of our luggage would arrive with us. In fact, we could not remember ever arriving in Entebbe with our entire luggage. We have always arrived in Entebbe with about 2/3 of our luggage, and waited a week or so for it all to arrive. We did not know what we would do if our entire luggage was not in Entebbe, and we had to begin a charter flight without it. Fortunately, it was all there.

The next hurdle was getting our Uganda Visas. We should have paid $30 per American for a Visitor’s Single Entry Visa. We planned to be in Uganda several times in the next few months so Dave requested a $50 Multi-Entry Visa that would save us money in the long run. He was informed that he would not be able to get one in Entebbe, but would need to travel to Kampala and wait several days for a Multi-Entry Visa to be processed. We thought, “Well that will not work. I guess we will spend more money on Uganda Visas in the next few months than we had hoped.” However, one of the Immigration officials knew Dave from before, and graciously offered $15 Transit Visas. With God’s help through a friend, a few dollars were saved.

We had a few minutes between flights, and were able to visit several church leaders and missionaries from Kampala in Entebbe, and enjoyed renewing our friendship. We will look forward to returning to Uganda in a few months to say our final goodbyes to Uganda.

We next loaded unto the Missionary Aviation Fellowship charter to Kigali. The plane was a single engine Cessna Caravan that seated 9 people. Unfortunately, our entourage was about 110 pounds overweight, and we left 2 pieces of luggage behind in Entebbe. (The pieces reached us a day later, but we were about $250 poorer from the experience. However, again we found a helpful person, the air shipment manager in Kigali had moved back to Rwanda recently from Kenya, and Jana and he shared some common experiences.) Because of our delayed flight from London to Entebbe, we were about 2 hours behind schedule.

The flight was absolutely beautiful. In fact, it was moving. We saw Uganda as we had never seen it before – the land where three of our children were born, and many friends made. As we flew over different regions we saw the home regions of many of our friends. Then we entered Rwanda - our land of many new dreams.

In Kigali, our Rwandese friends – Justine Rudasingwa, former Kampala Church of Christ member; John Nkuranga, Rwandan Presidential Director of Protocol; and Hope, the Assistant to Kigali Institute of Science and Technology Rector were waiting. They had lined up a mini-van and pickup to transport us, and also several housing options. However, after two hours of waiting they left to continue their busy day, and hoped that some misfortune had not fallen upon us.

We arrived in Kigali on Wednesday, June 22 at roughly 2 p.m. We unloaded the plane, went through immigration and customs, and walked out to an almost deserted airport. We saw no one that we knew. Dave had purchased a mobile phone on previous trips to Rwanda, and tried to make phone calls. However, the service was expired. Thus he had to trade money, purchase air time, and then opened our computer to find phone numbers. Thankfully, we reached the appropriate people, and about 30 minutes later were on our way to the place we would spend our first 2 nights in Rwanda. We wondered how things would have resolved without the conveniences of a computer and mobile phone.

We met Sam and Nancy Shewmaker, and Greg and Sara Kendall-Ball at the Hotel Isimbi, where would stay the first two nights. They are in Rwanda surveying possibilities. It was very enjoyable seeing their faces, and learning what things they had discovered in the week they had been in Rwanda prior to us. We continue to hope and pray for the Lord to bring more harvesters to Rwanda. The Hotel Isimbi was a simple, clean hotel. It had consistent power, running hot water, a small restaurant. It was in a busy part of town, and we continually heard the sounds of traffic and people’s conversations throughout the night. There were no comfortable chairs in the lobby or restaurant. For 9 of us, we paid $366 for 2 nights stay.

Since our original reservation to stay in a furnished house had fallen through, we spent our first day trying to find a furnished home to stay several months as we waited for our possessions to arrive from Uganda, and found a more permanent housing situation. We saw several homes. We ran into several difficulties. First, the expense of some furnished homes ran as high as $2,200 per month. The other was that landlords wanted at least a 6 month commitment while we only wanted to make a commitment of 2 to 3 months. Fortunately, our friend, Ann – the Secretary General in the Ministry of Gender, referred us to her friend, Joy who had a furnished home to rent. As soon as we entered Joy’s home, it just felt right. There are several new housing estates in Kigali for middle class families. Joy’s home is in the Gaculiro Estate. It is one of the first true neighborhoods we had seen in Africa with street signs, house numbers, an open park for children to play, and quiet residential streets for our children to ride their bikes upon. The house was a duplex with 3 bedrooms and very spacious living and dining room. It will be perfect to host fellowships. It had a small fenced in yard perfect for Timothy to play in. Joy graciously negotiated rent to $1,500 per month, and allowed us to make just a 3 month commitment.

We moved into the home on Friday, June 24. We had a great sense of expectation about what the future of our family and ministry would be in such a home. However, our eagerness was shortly lived as our power went out the first night. We scrambled to light candles, and then began to notice that we were going through a severe brown out instead of a complete black out. (Later the next day, Joy sent an electrician who discovered some type of fault in the home’s wiring that could be corrected so that our power was stable.)

We spent Saturday unpacking, organizing, and washing clothes. There was no washing machine or dryer so the washing was all by hand in the bath tub, and the clothes were hung out to dry. Unfortunately, we did not notice our water situation, and used up all the reserve water in the storage tank. As of Monday morning, we have gone 2 nights without running water, and are eager to take a shower or bath.

The home is the first home we have ever lived in Africa that does not have bars on the windows. It is a very pleasant feel. Kigali has an exceptionally low crime rate. Everyone we talk to remark about what a wonderful blessing the security situation is in Rwanda.

We have done some household shopping, and the cost of living in Kigali is remarkably high. In fact, at this point this is the area that has us most concerned about our long-term living in Rwanda. We came to Rwanda with significantly less than we believed we needed to minimally live and work. Already, we are finding our initial estimates to be short, and we are in the continual mode of trying our best to manage while we hope for something more to materialize. For instance in our initial grocery shopping we spent about $150 for what in Oklahoma would have been about $80 of groceries. We were just trying to buy simple breakfast and lunch meals for a few days. Maybe, the biggest surprise was paying $11 for a box of Cheerios. Kigali is much like what Uganda was like 10 years ago economically. The economy is rapidly recovering, but cost of living is high. There are few locally produced goods. Most items are imported from Europe, Asia, Kenya, or now Uganda. There are no large scale South African grocery stores. The stores are small affairs that import limited numbers of goods. We also have gone looking for a washing machine and dryer to purchase. We are struggling to keep up washing by hand. We had budgeted to spend about $500 on each appliance, but at this point are finding prices in the range of $900 to $1,200 for each appliance despite our best negotiating.

The bird life in Kigali has brought a unique insight. We have not seen a single vulture and only a couple marabou storks near man-made lakes. Vultures and marabou Storks are Africa’s scavengers. They are expected to be on the African plains following lion prides. Instead, today their most common environments are urban African jungles where they sift through piles of human garbage. There is not enough garbage in Kigali to support the existence of vultures and marabou storks. We find Kigali’s cleanliness to be refreshing.

Sophia had one interesting bird experience during our second day. We were eating at an open air African restaurant. Our children were enjoying eating the African food we had missed so much on our furlough. As Sophia was coming back to our table from the buffet with a plate full of food, a kite (a medium sized hawk like bird of prey) swept down and grabbed Sophia’s plate. After the shrieks and commotion the kite dropped the plate, and though unsettled, Sophia got another plate of food and continued our lunch.

The highlight of our stay has been the purpose we have come to Rwanda – to make disciples and plant churches. It is our intention to spend roughly our first 6 months visiting churches to learn what is happening in Rwanda, and hopefully to develop some relationships with other churches so that we will not be seen as an exclusive, strange, or cultic group. Dave was invited to preach at a local independent Rwanda church, The Church of Good Faith in Rwanda on our first Sunday. The worship was refreshing with lots of African rhythm. Once Timothy overcame his fear of new people, he couldn’t stop dancing. On Sunday evening we met with Justin Rudasingwa to worship, pray, and dream about the future of church planting in Rwanda. We left feeling expectant for what the Lord will do in coming years.

So, where will we start? Just simply by trying to live, make friends, learn, dream, and build brick by brick. The Lord has been good to us in our first few days in Rwanda. We have a furnished home to live in. We have made some good Rwandan friends to advise and help us. We are concerned about the high cost of living, but are able to live today so we will just keep going forward.

We thank all of your for your support, prayers, and encouragement that have brought us this far.

Imana ikurinde (May God keep you),

Dave and Jana