Some exciting developments…

We are now in our house at the hospital. Yay!!!!

We never expected a freshly renovated home but it is a very welcome surprise. The hospital has done a really lovely job. It has white floor tiles (that are white for about 10 minutes each day as the garden is currently mostly mud, to the children’s great enjoyment), cream paint and black doors throughout. A sitting/eating area near the front door, two bedrooms and a lovely big bathroom with a bath (which our muddy children enjoy too!) at the back of the house:

 

  

a kitchen with a stove (Tim’s been baking scones already!), fridge and large larder off to the side.

  

The garden is huge (about 1100m2, over a 1/4 acre) and is being worked on daily. The hospital is building an outdoor washing and cooking area, has re-pointed the brick outhouse (around the pit toilet), made a path through the centre, and areas for lawn and vegetables. There are 3 big trees and we have plans for a cubby house for Will’s upcoming birthday! The local children and garden workers are enjoying the tyre swing at least as much as Will and Hannah. We are very comfortable and most grateful.

 

We also have a lovely houseworker, Emovine. She is 19, gets along with the kids, and is an excellent cook. Her uncle is an Archdeacon in the church diocese, so when we asked him to suggest someone he thought of her. There is a lot more work in keeping a house here (washing by hand etc.) so I am very grateful for Emovine’s help! She calls me ‘Mum’ (culturally appropriate and kind of nice actually). (N.B. I’m getting used to being made aware of my age here and the idea that it’s something to appreciate rather than shy away from.) Here is Emovine with Hannah, preparing lunch.

  

So, we are in a new community (not just a house) and have been excited to get to know some of the neighbours. Our house is one of a couple of dozen on the hospital grounds inhabited by various staff and their families. There are plenty of kids around, and Will has made a special new friend; Kenny. Kenny is 4, speaks mainly French (although can converse in Kinyarwanda, Swahili and a little English if need be) and they were inseparable today. We are so excited about this new relationship, Kenny included! Kenny’s house is a few metres away but is separated from ours by a track and our side fence (although the boys currently squeeze through a hole in it).

We call Kenny’s father ‘friend’ already, and look forward to getting to know him and his wife even better. Dr Pierrot spent a couple of afternoons at our place this week chatting. Rwandans say he and his wife are Congolese, and the Congolese say they are Rwandan, so like us they are outsiders of sorts, and ones who plans to settle here long-term. They have a 7 month old son who has never been well. Please pray for him.

Our most direct neighbour shares a wall of our house. Dr Tindaho came to dinner this week. He is a Ugandan grandfather, and travels home every month to see his family. He is very friendly and works closely with Tim, being a radiologist. He told us he doesn’t cook. He eats all his meals in town, so I think we will invite him over regularly!

We are so glad to have ‘arrived’ in our community, and are praying that God will open doors to sharing Him and life with many more people. We’ve been investigating starting a Bible study group, encouraging Dr Pierrot to accompany us to (Anglophone) church as he cannot understand Kinyarwanda fully, and Tim has been considering his next move with postgraduate teaching.

On another note, I have heard from a number of local and foreign doctors just how much difference it is making to the hospital, having Tim there. It seems his clinical and teaching skills are filling important gaps. Providing education that improves medical practice in Rwanda is the goal God put on Tim’s heart; it is exciting to be part of His plans and see them bear fruit. One of the students, previously terrified by neurological examination, which he’d tried to learn from a book, spent the whole evening after his exam grinning and chuckling, because he had got 2 neurological cases! The staff’s confidence in and trust of Tim seems to be growing weekly…

Our garden is a bit of a mess at the moment but Tim’s spent Sunday afternoon measuring it and drawing a scale diagram. Next step is to plan what we want in it and where…How many trees of bananas can our children eat each week?

                                                                                               (Kenny’s house is here)