9/5 Well, I’m back in Rwanda and having fun. Christ is here and the Spirit is moving.

My flight to Rwanda was amazingly simple. What a contrast to last March’s marathon and the stress of Cheapo Air screwing things up at every step! My flight to Oakland was uneventful. Big brother Chris met me easily and took me to the outdoor pool at his Athletics Club on the campus of the College of San Mateo. We swam for half an hour in his outdoor pool. It was a good stress reliever. Then we drove to a Chinese restaurant to meet with his pastor, Karl Ortes. What a delightful, winsome Christian! His wife is from Hong Kong and he knew Chris from the time he was a minister to the English speaking college students at the Korean Church in San Francisco about 15 years ago. He is very open to Rwanda and really wanted to go this time. But his Labor Day church event was too important to the congregation for him to miss. He said we need to schedule it after Labor Day next year. So it sounds like he wants to go! Then a couple hours visit to Chris’ house. Liz seemed much more content and relaxed than in the past. She is looking forward to visiting us at Thanksgiving. I took about an hour long nap and we set off to the airport.

We met up with the Chris’ team from Western Hills Baptist Church at the San Francisco airport. . Ken and Shirley and Mei dragged in all the luggage prepacked for CASR. Mei’s husband Jack was there with their two beautiful late-teen daughters to see Mei off. We checked in with Turkish Airlines without a hitch and started out on our 16 hour flight non-stop flight on their brand new plane. Istanbul is almost directly east of San Francisco. But if you look on a globe, the shortest route takes you over Greenland and north of Iceland. Chris and I sat together and had plenty of time to talk about CASA, CASR, and the conference. It was cramped and tiring but excellent.

We were about 30 minutes late into Istanbul. We had to run to the next gate to catch the direct flight to Kigali. But that flight was a little late in boarding too. So it wasn’t a problem. Then another 7 hour flight directly south. Again there was very good service. Overall this was much, much better than in the past. My Southwest flights to DC always had a layover in Chicago. Then a stopover in Ethiopia before flying on to Kigali. But this short hop to Oakland and a rest at Chris’ was great. Then direct flights to Kigali made flying to the other side of the world much easier.

Upon arriving in Kigali airport there was the groggy wait in line past customs, the happy meeting with Franc and David, and the taxi ride to the nearby Amani hotel. Franc had spent his honeymoon there a decade earlier. So Chris had to rib him about the staying at the place where Narr (his eldest daughter) began. It was past midnight and we just stumbled into bed.

The next morning we met up for a short devotional by Ken and a good breakfast. I got to meet Mavis, which was delightful. She is an English widow of 17 years with three grown sons. She is Vicar of an Anglican Church in London. After breakfast we counted out the $100 bills with Franc that we brought over for CASR. Then we drove into Kigali with Ken and Mei to exchange the money and rent a van. Mei took many pictures out the window as we got to know each other. She is blogging every day. So if you want to see more pictures go to her blog site at westernhills.org. She was trained as a computer programmer and now works more in administration and development with Adobe. Her husband is in international business and travels all over Asia “businessing”. When Chris asked Pastor Karl at lunch what Jack did, he said that was a good question. Something mysterious that made a lot of money out of money.

We met Garry Friesen for lunch at the Tex-Mex African restaurant in Kigali. He is the retired Bible professor from Multnomah University who now heads up the Africa New Life Seminary in Kigali. Mavis, he, and I had a great time talking C. S. Lewis. He was excited about the speaking at the conference and meeting Chris. He had read Chris’ book and enjoyed it. Franc arranged for him to travel down to Butare next Wednesday with Amon (another of our conference speakers).

I then took the three hour drive down the road to Butare with Mavis, Mai, and Pastor David. Mavis and I chatted the whole way. It was delightful. She was raised an atheist and converted as a teen-ager. Her father reminds me of Lelia’s father’s blue collar 1950’s anti-Christian bias. Her husband was a nuclear physicist and college professor in London. Her sons are all grown accomplished family men in London, Liverpool, and Cambridge. She has seven grandkids. They had met David in the mid-eighties when he was in England in seminary. She was a teacher then with a young growing family. Her husband died in the late 90’s. After three years of widowhood, she went on a mission to Pakistan and was recruited to be a teacher for the missions school. It was a little too uncomfortable for her as new single woman. But it brought her to the decision to go to the London Bible College. Her sons agreed to let her use the remainder of the education savings that her husband had set aside for the them. They all got advanced degrees, but some funds had remained unused. Upon graduation. she went to Peru for two years and served as a teacher at a high Anglican church there. There she decided to be ordained and upon return to London became a vicar. Her church has about 150-200 attending, is fairly racially diverse, and is pretty evangelistic. The senior vicar sounds like he’s “retired on active duty” and she pretty much runs the church. She is just completing her 3 month Sabbatical. She’s also been to Sudan, Ethiopia, and a few other exotic locales. The lady get around!

We arrived at the Lighthouse while it was still light. Chris and the team were delighted at the progress. The kitchen and most of the rooms are nearly complete. Franc, David, and Jane seemed pleased and not as stressed as when Debi met them last month. I think that the success of hosting all the visitors at the big international sports event put quite a bit of wind in their sails. Here is a YouTube of Secondary school sports competition hosted by the Lighthouse last month. It was a BIG DEAL.

They put me and Chris in the Missionary apartment. After we settled in, their new chef from Uganda prepared a meal for the entire team that we shared in the apartment dining room. The team is delighted with accommodations and seemed pumped about the mission to come. Ken is in construction and is thinking through how to hang the three completed baskets for Chris’ art project. They have a temporary metal tower built into the atrium. We are thinking that just three of the baskets will be hung. The rest may be free standing and in various places. We’ll figure it out this week.

My feet were pretty sore and swollen by the time it got dark. But I took a short walk with the Western Hills three. Mei and Shirley are pretty tight. Shirley works in the finance office of one of the school districts. Ken and Shirley are a year or two younger than me. They have a son and daughter around thirty years old. They laughed that it’s kind of unusual, but they share a house together. The daughter is a worship leader at the church. But the son is not a committed Christian. Shirley is a large lady and travel isn’t easy for either of them. Ken broke his back in his construction work as a young man. He mentioned his high pain threshold. I think that his frequent strained smiles means that he’s in pain and won’t mention it. They are both veteran mission team troopers. They’ve been on multiple trips to Chili and elsewhere doing construction kind of stuff. They are feeling out how the mission of CASR would fit into Western Hills Baptist missions. I think that building bush churches would fit them well. But Shirley loves children’s ministries. There are many, many opportunities here once the Lighthouse is fully functional.

Saturday was supposed to be a rest day. It was for Chris and me. But the rest were pretty exhausted by the end of the day. After breakfast we had a good devotional and sharing time. Then Pastor David took us for a walk down to the women’s cooperative. Last March we were saddened to see that the mushroom business that Lelia helped Pastor David had stopped operative with the roof on the facility aged and caved in. We donated some money to restart it. So it was a blessing to see the new roof on the building and the mushrooms back in business. David told us that the cow got sick in the spring and the cooperative needed to spend part of our donation on veterinary bills. But they still had enough to fix the roof and get a few tubes of mushroom spores. Now they are again running the business full speed. They are again increasing their income about 50% by selling the mushrooms. David says that they have about a 500% profit from the cost of the tubes to the selling of the mushrooms. The leader of the 38 woman coop thanked us and I prayed for them and their children. They all said a hardy “Amen”.

Chris and I needed to focus on our sermon tomorrow. I’ll be preaching at the Anglican English service. Chris will be going with the Western Hills team to a bush church. He will also be speaking on the 30 minute Sunday morning radio show that Franc and his pastor host. Mavis will be speaking at Franc’s church. But while we stayed here and napped and tried to prepare, the Western Hills team went to the local museum, market, and were invited to attend a traditional Rwanda wedding. They had a great time, but about collapsed upon return for dinner.

Meanwhile, Chris and I had some very productive discussions with Franc about the future of Lighthouse. Franc is tiring out but both David and Jane say that he is more encouraged since they hosted the sports event. He is looking at hiring more help and delegating more of the responsibilities. But he does carry a heavy load and needs our prayers. Franc and I also had a good discussion with Ken and Shirley about opportunities to minister in south Rwanda through the CASR and the Lighthouse. We will see what God plans are.

Please continue to keep us all in your prayers. We are excited to see how our Father will use us and our African brothers and sister to bless this country.

9/7 Sunday was a blessing. Chris spoke at the bush church that I preached at in March. The three from Western Hills Baptist went with him and were really blessed. I preached at the English speaking Anglican service. It was sparsely attended because the students were not returning until mid-week. The young lady who led the singing of “How Great Thou Art” was wearing a heavy coat and apologized for the “cold”. Four or five heavy thunder storms had passed though during the night and shook the metal roof of the Lighthouse explosively on repeated occasions. When I got up to preach I told them that 65 degrees was prefect for me. I also told them that the song spoke of how seeing the stars and hearing the mighty thunder makes us know how great God is. I hadn’t seen many Rwandan stars, but its thunder was very mighty indeed! I preached on the father of deaf/mute boy at the foot of the Mount of Transfiguration. It is a passage that I identify with greatly. “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.” It is often a prayer of mine. I met Javin’s old friends; the Australian family with the doctor daddy, teacher mommy, and three beautiful little kids. Really not so little. Both parents are well over 6 feet tall and all of the kids are a foot taller than their peers.

I then went to the Eden Temple service. It is only 100 yards down the road from the Lighthouse. It is the church that Franc now attends. We have known the Pastor John since 2007. He introduced me to the 300 or so in the congregation. I told the congregation about being at the service during our first visit when John announced his engagement. Then he thanked me excessively for us buying his wedding suit. He said that we had helped him pay for about 60% of his part of the wedding. I’m afraid that I had completely forgotten. Undoubtedly a case of the right brain not remembering what the left brain is doing. It was a kick hearing the sermon in the lilting English accent of Mavis on women in the Bible that God used greatly. When she recognized that over 65% of the Rwandese legislature are women, she got a loud round of applause. Rwanda has come a long way, baby!

Sunday afternoon I worked on my presentation for the Apologetics conference and rested. That evening about 40 people gathered for Baby Chris’ Naming ceremony. This was a special Muzungu event. Naming ceremony are done when the baby is about a month old. But since Brother Chris couldn’t be here, Franc and Claudine made an special event in his Honor. Lots of food and short speeches! Franc gave the origins of each of the baby’s three names. He said that he named his son Chris after the two men that he loved the most: Christ and Chris Foreman. Chris was happy and blessed. A Christian doctor from Spokane who trained in San Francisco and had the cutest 18 month old son running around was there. He teaches at the University, because It’s safer for the baby than their last ministry in South Sudan. We also met an Ameri-Korean Christian,, married to a Mexican American, with six children, three adopted from Ethiopia. He has degrees in business and divinity and was working with Saddleback Church. But at present he is consulting with a Kigali coffee company. He was really interested in the Lighthouse concept. He would like to explore the possibility of relocating his family to Butare and helping with the business openings. Wow!! If it works out, we will certainly praise God!!! Please pray. Schooling for the children is the major concern for the mother. You meet the most interesting people when you step out in ministry!

Monday we tackled the challenge of hanging the three completed basket sculptures in the atrium. Ken gave suggestions and helped the Africans think through the process. But in the end we just stepped back and let them do it the African way. We were holding our breaths and praying that no one fell from the ceiling. But they turned out beautifully. These are three of the seven sculptures that Chris’ son, Simon, designed 20 months ago at the last Apologetics Conference. We shipped over enough rope to complete three of the seven. These will do for now for the building dedication with all the important government officials tomorrow and for the conference with the international students the next day. We discussed options for the other four without having to import the expensive rope. We will explore the banana fiber weaving like they use for placemats at the table. If it’s strong enough, I think that is will look great, use local product and workers, and be a lot less heavy. We’ll see.

In the afternoon, the Western Hills team went to Genocide Memorial and came back pretty sobered. It is challenging to stomach, but necessary to understand the Rwandan experience. They also purchased 6 hoe heads for the Mamas. We’ll give them away tomorrow when we meet with the government officials and they walk down to review CASR’s Compassion ministry.

I spent the afternoon and evening completing the PowerPoint for my Apologetics presentation. The Lighthouse was abuzz with activity, as 20-30 workers cleaned and painted and organized the books in the library. They want to make a good showing the mayor, governor, and assistant US ambassador. Things are really shaping up!

Thank you for your prayers. It is a great blessing to see the Spirit move so powerfully in the Rwandan church.

9/9 Tuesday was a red letter day for CASR and the Lighthouse. The building is complete and the businesses are opening. So a ribbon-cutting ceremony and an open house was scheduled. The provincial governor and military general, the city mayor, the Anglican bishop from Kigali, and the U.S. Ambassador were invited. All made it except the Ambassador. Also planned was the graduation ceremony for 19 of our University students who finished their three year discipleship program with CASR. It was a busy day. But God was there!

It kind of reminded me of cramming for a final exam. Or better still, frantically cleaning up the house just before the guests arrive. The great cleaning and painting touch-up and spit shining of the Lighthouse continued to midnight and started again early in the morning. The library was completed, the exercise room arranged, and the baskets were hung. We were ready.

After breakfast, Mavis helped focus us with her devotion taken from Isaiah 61. Then she left for the day to teach at a bush school on Apologetics. She insists that she was able to communicate it at their level and I believe her. She was a teacher for a long time.

The dignitaries arrived an hour late, during the graduation ceremony. But that was just the routine of doing things on “African time”. It was not a problem. Brother Chris presided over the graduation while I was run down to meet the governor and all the dignitaries. We cut the yellow ribbon and followed Franc in for the tour. The governor and general were very impressed by the openness of the building and the hanging baskets. They were shown the shops, the hotel rooms, the library and classrooms.

We then went for a short drive to the Mama’s mushroom project. The bishop was pleased to hear of Pastor David’s success in helping the widows with the cows (a second one had just arrived) and the mushroom business. Ken and Shirley had purchased six new metal hoe heads for the widows. They handed them off along with goodies for the children.

We then arrived back at the Lighthouse and went up to 4th floor restaurant with the great view. I was surprised to see Mark Shin with the people from the Saddleback coffee house ministry. Several from their Nehemiah Project were making espressos for all the dignitaries. I was blessed that the leader of their project, Skip, was there. I had met him in March and spent several months exploring the possibility of partnering with them in a vocational training ministry. That door closed. But Mark told me after the meeting that it may be opening again. The timing in March was just bad.

Chris, Franc, and I were ushered into a private room with the dignitaries. We were served excellent espresso and discussed in private the potential for the business and ministry aspects of the Lighthouse. There was a very open and cordial exchange with the governor of this province of about 2 million people, the mayor of the city of about 80,000, the Anglican Bishop of Rwanda, and the regional military general. It was fun and very encouraging.

The graduates, their families, and local pastors made a great audience for the speeches that followed. David, Franc, Chris, and I talked briefly of the ministry, its history, and its vision. The U. S. Ambassador didn’t make it. But the governor made a very encouraging speech in English and Kinya-Rwandan. The government in Rwanda is very open to Christian organizations and recognizes and encourages their enterprises.

There was then the inauguration of the Lighthouse restaurant. Mark Shin, his family, and the two other young women who accompanied him from Saddleback Church were a great blessing. They all have experience with the hospitality industry. So they pitched in preparing the food for a couple hundred people. The Western Hills three worked in the kitchen too. Then the young ladies especially helped with serving the tables.

There was further sharing over lunch. Two star General Kagame (yes, like the president) was very interested in my son David’s Special Forces service. When he heard that he had done some training for Uganda, he said that Rwanda needed him too. At the end, Franc was very pleased with the reception and the potential that it will have for opening doors into ministry.

For the past two days Chris had spent quite a bit of time talking with Mark about opportunities for him to minister in Butare. As a start-up business consultant and with a background in hospitality and an interest in vocational training, he was interested. If he and the Nehemiah Project and Skip can figure out a way to work with us, it would be a great blessing. After he left in the evening, Chris discussed things with Franc. They emailed Mark and made him the offer of free boarding in the Missionary apartment and close-by rooms for his children in exchange for 20 hours of week as a consultant. We believe that it would be a blessing, But God knows.

Today was the lull before the storm. We rested and prepared for the Conference. The two young ladies from Saddleback joined us for breakfast. They are both college graduates from Saddleback who are spending an extended time in Rwanda in their entrepreneurial encouraging ministries. Again you meet very interesting people serving Christ.

The electricity was off most of the night and the generator failed. So David took us out to meet the worker that handles the generators and tries to keep them working. Ken was very helpful and understood much more about it than we did. Hopefully he can help them get the right part and get us the back-up that we need. The same pattern happened with the PowerPoint projector. It only worked for a few minutes yesterday before it overheated and the bulb turned off. They messed with it all day and couldn’t get it working. So they went out and got another one. I’ll take the new one that we brought here in March back with me. I’ll see if I can find someone who can repair it and bring it back for the next conference in 2016.

Pastor Gordon and about fifteen from Uganda arrived before noon. Chris has known Gordon for over a decade and has been blessed by his faithfulness. Over the afternoon most of the Burundi and Congo contingent arrived. The Ugandans are gathering upstairs for an evening of worship and ministry by Pastor Gordon.

The three from Western Hills spent the day with Pastor David. The drove quite a ways to visit a tea and then a coffee growers’ enterprise. They were back at lunch and then off again to the market and the Anglican choir practice. They just got back for a late dinner. Garry Friesen and Amon will be arriving from Kigali tomorrow morning. I’m hoping that they’ll get here by the beginning of the conference at 10. We’ll also see how many actually make it from the more distant countries of Kenya and Tanzania. God knows who needs to be at the conference and what he plans to work through it. Just pray that all of the speakers will be open to His Spirit and His workings.

9/12 Thursday and Friday were full, fulfilling, fun, and exhausting days. When you are operating in the gift that God has blessed you with it feels as if the wind is in your wings and you’re soaring. At least that’s how it feels for me when the Father blesses me with an opportunity to teach about Him to brothers and sisters who are open and involved. African University students are hungry to learn and open to the ways of God. I believe that they were blessed by what the speakers at the conference were sharing. But the speakers were equally blessed to be used of God. I know that I was.

By the opening of the conference the final tally was about 66 from Rwanda, 5 from Tanzania, 12 from Burundi, 11 from Uganda, 8 from Congo, and 1 from Kenya. So it wasn’t bad. About 150 were invited and 109 were able to navigate the difficult logistics of travel in Africa. Wednesday evening Pastor Gordon from Uganda lead the worship service until nearly 10. For our devotional of Thursday morning, Ken read the 23rd Psalm and we all spent a long season praying for the seeds that God had planted and what further He had planned. We shared breakfast and worship with the students and the conference started at 10 am.

Brother Chris was most kind to me. He allowed me to speak first. In a three day conference with 15 hours’ worth of speaking, it’s a blessing to speak to a fresh congregation. I first introduced CASA and CASR to the students. I told them of the history of Chris and Kim and the purpose and concept of the Lighthouse. Then I defined Apologetics. I showed a pictures of an offensive and defensive soccer player. Evangelism is offense and Apologetics is defense. Then I showed a picture of the most important player on the team: the goalie. They understood completely that the goalie was solely a defensive player. Yet the team that won was almost always the team with the best goalie.

My talk was then on “Orthodox Reason”. It was really on the Trinity and why it is not irrational to believe in One God in three Persons. I spoke of Paul’s speech to the Greek philosophers on Mars Hill in Acts 17. I argued that reason requires faith to keep itself from arrogance and vain imaginations. And faith requires reason to keep itself from superstition. I waded into deep waters as I tried to describe how 21st century science has shown that our universe is much more mysterious than reason can cope with. Curved space, expanding universes, and quarks seem as unreasonable as the Trinity. Light, that is both a wave and a particle is as reasonable as God becoming a man. Most students seemed to keep their heads above water.

After my presentation, questions and answers from the students indicated to me that they had followed the arguments pretty well. Garry Friesen arrived from Kigali shortly after I had started. We then shared lunch with the students and guests. After lunch Garry presented on “Orthodox Faith”. He used the example of Billy Graham and Charles Templeton. They worked together as young evangelist. But Templeton fell away and you know the story of Billy Graham. After his over three decades of teaching at Multnomah School of the Bible speaking to college students in groups and individually is as natural to him as breathing air. He is one of the youngest 70 year olds that I have ever met. He told the students that he plans to teach at the Kigali seminary for another 30 years. He just might!

Pastor David had taken the Western Hills three out to see the Rwandan schools and hospitals. When they returned Ken looked at the new battery brought down from Kigali by our speakers. He had carefully read generator manual. He determined that we could not start the new $20,000 generator that we shipped over in March because it needed to registered online first. So Friday morning Chris got online and registered it. This morning we’ll figure out if we can actually get it working. So for six months, they had been using the ten year old refurbished Army Surplus generator that we had sent over two years ago.

Thursday evening the Western Hills three cooked us and our hosts an “American” supper. At least it was as American as it could be given that American ingredients could not be obtained at the Butare market. But Shirley had brought over the ingredients for the most American of desserts. The Africans thought it was bit messy and it was a first for Mavis too. But they all enjoyed their S’mores.

Thursday evening Pastor David’s boss, the Anglican bishop from Kigali, spoke to the students. We were a little disappointed that most of the Rwandan had taken the evening off after eating the supper provided. Chris told them the next day that if the ate the supper they had to stay for evening worship. But the bishop was pleased when he found out that the 40 some students were from other east African nations. It was a unique opportunity for him. David told me afterwards that the bishop is more of a preacher than a teacher. And Boy, did he preach! He is very evangelical and orthodox. And his style is much closer to Pentecostal than Episcopalian.

After breakfast and walk with Chris the following morning, Chris opened the conference on Friday with an hour long presentation of Christian cults: Mormonism, Jehovah Witnesses, and Seventh Day Adventists (maybe). Mavis then gave her presentation on Islam. I had worked an hour or so on her material to convert it into a PowerPoint at 9 pm the following evening. The students from Tanzania, Uganda, and Burundi were especially interested. Islam is not a significant issue in Rwanda. The student especially enjoyed when Mavis had two students from Tanzania role-play with her witnessing to Muslims and answering their questions.

The afternoon Chris spoke on Heterodoxy. We all feel that the greatest threat to the Christian church in Rwanda is from within and not the outside. Independent pastors who are greatly influenced by American media celebrity pastors to combine extreme faith and prosperity doctrines with the magic of African shamanism. Increasingly on the internet and over the media African superstar pastors are raising a lot of money for themselves by offering prophesies and prayers and angelic protections for small contributions. Like Jim Bakker 25 years ago, several have ended up in prison for embezzlement.

The leaders and students really responded to this presentation. There was a great deal of give and take and many questions. I discussed it with Pastor Gordon after the meeting. In the future these students will be the leaders of their churches; holding up their pastors. Many will be more educated than their pastors. They need to understand the strong current of distorted doctrine that these “wolves in sheep clothing” are flooding into the African church. They will need to be strong to keep the focus of their pastors and churches on Christ and His love for the poor and lost. Gordon heartedly agreed.

Friday evening the Western Hills crew brought Chinese take-out to the Missionary apartment for supper. It was as good as any in America. Franc’s Pastor John ministered to the student that evening. The singing and dancing continued past the time I conked out from sheer exhaustion.

Saturday, Amon Muneza presented on the Future of the African Church. His friendship with Chris goes back to 2001. He and Franc were both college students and good friends back then. He courted and married Erica, a young missionary from Indiana. Chris flew to Indiana to perform the marriage. They then moved to Portland so Amon could go to Multnomah University. He started a non-profit in 2005 and I was on his founding board for about three years. That organization, Africa Mission Alliance, outgrew our little Portland board. But we have been sponsoring two children from them for nine years. On Friday, I dropped of a couple watches for our kids at their office just down the road.

Amon and Erica and now their two little girls moved back to Kigali this year. So Chris invited him and he drove down with Garry on Thursday. Franc started the Saturday meeting with a testimony of his experience as a child, apprenticing with his grandfather who was a witch-doctor. It was a look back into the past before Amon looked to the future. His presentation was very educational for me. I’d forgotten that his doctorate paper was on the Future of the African Church. So his presentation was very well researched. His primary message was that Africa could not be Christianized until African Christianity was Africanized. It was very well done.

Over lunch we sat down with Amon and Mavis from England and Garry from Multnomah. We see in the African church a hope both for Africa and for the world. Amon said that he couldn’t wait until the new wave of educated African Christians entered into the African Church. Mavis said that the leaven of the African Christians was reigniting the Church in England. Let us pray that it is so!

Chris gave out donated sunglasses to each of students that pleased them no end. All of the visiting students also received a book by Barnabas ministry on Islam. The students are filtering out. Amon just drove off with Garry. Chris and I just collapsed into our beds. Thank you for your prayers. We needed all the strength that they gave us to sustain us through this wonderful, blessed, exhausting experience!

9/15 Well I’m sitting at a Starbucks in Istanbul, Turkey sipping on my vente caramel macchiato. I’m about half way there. But I’m really neither here nor there; as my body and brain are shouting at me. But I’ve got three hours, so I may as well begin the last of my African journal emails.

Things really didn’t slow down after the conclusion of the conference. There was a brief rest, but I really needed a walk. So when Mavis indicated that she wanted to walk down to the market for some shopping for the grandkids, it sounded good to me. Jane drafted Franc’s nephew, Ishmael, into baby-sitting us. He really would have preferred to drive us in his uncle car’s, but we weird Westerners actually like to walk. It was a good chance to chat about England and her six grandkids. One of her sons has three boys, 8, 6, and 4 year olds. They love to visit grandmother’s garden and play warriors. So we shopped until we found some fabric that looked rather African warriorish. Mavis could sew this into something the boys might like. I bought some skirts and a dress for our granddaughters.

When we got back we were all bundled off to a nice hotel restaurant in downtown Butare. Jane’s new husband, Charles, had arrived in town along with Computer Ben, the president of the CASR board. Ben was a CASR student in 2007 when we first came to Rwanda. He was a superstar high tech student, who was immediately hired as a professor after graduation. He joined our CARS board then. Within a few years he was promoted to head of university department, moved to Kigali, and works half time consulting the government. He is one of the most intelligent people that I have met. Charles is working at the Kigali airport in coordinating ground transportation. He is the reason that Jane needs to resign from CASR and find a job in Kigali.

So our thirteen member party all sat at a long table and pleasantly teased the newly-weds. Ken explained that the American custom was for the couple to kiss every time someone at the table tapped their glass with a spoon. Jane and Charles said that they were very happy that they were not Americans. PSA (public show of affection) is a thousand miles from Rwandan custom. Jane had been a little ill and tired since we arrived. The second day I saw her rubbing her tummy. I mentioned it to Chris and he immediately asked her. Yes, she is pregnant, but didn’t want us to share it now. By the end of the week, it was public knowledge. The baby is due in May. So we’ll get to see Charles and Jane’s four month old when we return next September.

The spaghetti, that most of us ordered, took about an hour to get to the table. The fellowship was fun, but it was getting late. Ben had driven down from Kigali for the CASR board meeting. It didn’t start until we got back to the Lighthouse at 9:30 and didn’t conclude until well after the witching hour. Overall it was a positive meeting about figuring things out as we turn another corner. The building season of the organization is essentially complete. Now Franc must re-create himself again; from CEO of 5 year, $800,000 building project into the CEO of this unique multi-business/ ministry hybrid. We will all be learning as we go. Since Jane is ending her employ with CASR to move up to Kigali with her husband, we drafted her to be the board treasurer. David will resume sending us quarterly reports on the financial and ministry aspects of CASR. During the frantic building phase over the past few years this critical communication tool had fallen to the wayside. Franc will be attempting to hire business consultants and new lead employees on a shoestring. Chris presented his 20 / 20 vision for a long-term strategy. The Foreman brothers will be approaching 70 year old by 2020. CASR independence by then will be our strategic goal. We encouraged them complete four-year strategic plan by January.

After the short night, I was up early to be the guest of the public radio program that Franc and his Pastor, John, host. So for an hour, they interviewed me about the conference and I discussed the concept of Christian Apologetics. In an African context, its best summarized by: “If you have the Word without the Spirit you dry up. And if you have the Spirit without the Word, you blow up!” The church in Africa is truly exploding. But the mission field is littered with bomb craters. They need the word.

After a brief rest, Ben drove me over to the Anglican church so I could preach at the Kenya-rwandan service. Chris was preaching at Franc’s church. David was driving Mavis off to the Anglican bush church to minister. I was surprised to find that the Anglican Bishop was still in town. He is a good man and a powerful personality. It was a blessing to see him again. I asked David and he said that it would be good if I preached the same sermon as the Sunday before. The 300 some Africans received the message of the healing of the mute boy at the foot of the Mount of Transfiguration very well. It seems that whenever I share our struggles with Lucinda, it touches their hearts.

The Anglican service went long because the bishop announced to the congregation that had just won a 17 year long law suit over the church’s property. It is emblematic of the chaos and challenges after the genocide 21 years ago. So many people were lost or disappeared that there were innumerable controversies about who owed what. The church had brought many witnesses forward over the long process of the suit. But either the witnesses or the judges were bribed by the people who wanted the land and nothing would be settled. The church refused to offer bribes, so it was at a disadvantage. Things have been getting straighter in Rwanda recently and bribes are getting harder to hide. So there was great rejoicing in the church. Especially when a 97 year old man came forward in the church. He had testified in court concerning the ownership of the property prior to the genocide. He was a very spry 97 year old!

After church I was the last one back and hurried to pack up to leave, But Chris called me upstairs and into the guest room for lunch. And there was everybody and cake with a great big sparkler in it. By Golly it was the 13th and my 64th birthday! They also sang happy birthday and Chris had to make sure that I remembered the old Beatle song: “Will you still need me? Will you still feed me? When I’m 64!” The Rwandan’s also tried to shake up a bottle of bubbly cider and dump it on me. I barely escaped. I was wearing my last set of clean clothes. I intended to wear them on the 35 hour odyssey home. I certainly didn’t want to feel sticky the whole way home. And I had no time for a shower. But they said it was a Rwandan custom. I said back that I’m happy that I’m not a Rwanda!

We all hugged and said our good-byes to Chris, Mavis, and the Rwandans. Mavis was leaving Monday and Chris Tuesday. We were packed pretty tightly into the back seat of Ben’s car for the three hour drive back to Kigali. During the time I and Ken and Shirley had a good discussion about the future relationship between CASA and Western Hills church. We answered each other’s questions and ironed out some details. They will meet with their Mission’s committee over the next month and we will see how the Lord leads.

Our Turkish Airline plane didn’t leave until 1 am, so we had some time to kill when we arrived in Kigali. Ben took us on a driving tour of the city of 3 million and showed off its spectacular growth. So many new large, beautiful buildings and planned housing development! Shirley asked how much that beautiful new mansion would cost. Ben estimated about $70,000. She laughed that might buy a broken down trailer in a back lot in the Bay area.

We met at an American restaurant with Amon and his family. I had a cheeseburger and fries and my stomach complained. It was used to the much healthier, but bland, Rwanda food. It had been about three years since I gotten together with Amon’s family. It was really fun to see their beautiful five and three year old daughters and to catch up with Erica. We got to know and love Erica when we worked together with her and Amon as they were starting up Africa Mission Alliance in 2006. Erica said that she and the girls had settled into life in Kigali pretty well over the past year. She was home schooling the girls and really enjoying it. She said that she would love to have more access to children’s books and remembered the books that Lelia had sent over 6 years ago. Some had been given away by Pastor David to start school libraries. But I told her that I had still seen some of the books at the Lighthouse in boxes. I talked with Chris and Franc about it. We invited her to come to visit the Lighthouse and look through the books. I’m praying that she will find a ministry use of them in Kigali. That was Lelia’s heart when she collected and shipped them over.

Jane and Charles met us at the airport and we boarded the plane after midnight. I managed to sleep some on the flight up to Turkey. Now I’m somewhere over Greenland about half way back to San Francisco. My final stressor will be when we land there at 4:30 in the afternoon. It will be 130 African time! I have to get my luggage and catch the BART train to the Oakland airport for the 7:30 flight back to Portland. It should work…. In theory. Ken and Mai said that would help me get to station and buy the right ticket. But so far our travels have been almost “Murphey” free. I’m praying that the final leg of this long odyssey will remain so.

And my prayer was answered. I’m at home now with my feet up. But it wasn’t “Murphy” free. We touched down in San Francisco about 15 minutes late. Getting through customs was okay, but there was a 40 minutes wait for the luggage. A quick hug and good-byes to Ken, Shirley, and Mei and I was running through the airport to the BART station. My very fussy brain had a hard time processing buying the ticket. But the BART employee was very helpful pointing me to the right train and transfers. It was a commute at rush hour under the San Francisco hills and bay. I thought of Bilbo the Hobbit. “Over hill and under hill and through the barrel” to get to the Oakland airport about 20 minutes before lift-off. But I really like Southwest. They checked my luggage, I raced to the gate. They ushered me into the already loaded plane. I slept through some of the final 90 minute leg and was greeted by my beautiful, smiling wife as I exited. My luggage even made it! God is good!

Again thank you for the prayer covering. God was with us the whole time and worked out all the details. Chris and I are confident that He will use CASR and the Lighthouse to accomplish great things for years to come in Rwanda.