Day 2: Compassion

Today we visited the Compassion offices here in Rwanda. One of the
wonderful things about this organisation is that the initiatives
spring out of the local community - through the indigenous churches.
All but two of the Compassion workers in Rwanda are native Rwandans.
This means that the child development programs can be sensitive to the
indigenous culture and, if Compassion ever have to temporarily shut
down a program as they recently did in the Congo, the Church who has
captured the vision can continue without them.

Letters between sponsors and children.

Dattiva is a genocide survivor and Compassion project manager who
counsels children through trauma. Even 15 years on, she finds teenagers
with signs of trauma who need to be counseled in order to be made
whole. Shockingly, she found trauma in children who were as young as
one year old during the genocide. Many children do not wish to speak
about what they have seen so in counseling they draw and write to
express their worst memories. It is the road to healing for many
children who are now healthy adults.

This afternoon we went to a Compassion project. What fun! We were welcomed into a hall of 180 or so children in the
Compassion program. They sang and danced for us and then each of the
dancers took one of our team up the front to dance in front of the excited kids with incredible natural rhythm!

A compassion staff member who is now the project manager explained the
impact of her sponsor on her life. It was incredible to hear how
significant the letters were to her as a child. Hearing "I love you,
you are beautiful, God has a plan for you" gave her hope and courage
to study hard. She was then accepted into Compassion's Leadership
Development Program which put her through university. She is now an
incredible young woman! As we heard about the children in the project
today the overwhelming message was "please write to your children"!
Those who received letters from sponsors had better self esteem, more
hope and more academic success. Among the 280 sponsored kids in the
program there were 20 who had never received a letter from their
sponsor.
Thankfully these kids get a lot of love from the Compassion staff
here. In fact, that is what many children said was their favourite
thing about the project: "they love us so much". Later we were
inundated with the 2 or 3 most well-known English phrases, "how old
are you?" "Good morning" "I am fine, thank you". As we drove away
several children ran alongside the bus for about a mile, sometimes
getting so close that we feared they might get run over!

We then broke into 2 groups and visited the home of a child in the
Compassion project. We walked about 2 miles hand in hand with an
incredibly shy girl whose name we cannot remember. She was so special,
a total orphan raised by her grandfather. He invited us into their
tiny, 2-roomed house made from mud-brick. The front room seemed the
size of our wardrobe in Nashville, half the size of many closets I
have seen in the USA! Eight of us squeezed in and sat gratefully on
little bench seats. The grandfather was very humbled and honored that
we visited him. He can no longer walk far and no one visits the home
so he is lonely. He looked about 85 years old and he told us he was
born in the house we sat in. He told us he is the oldest in the
village - once this village was full of people and life. Many people
were killed in the genocide including his wife and four of his
children. His one surviving daughter had moved into the home to
support him and her niece. We asked him how he felt about his
granddaughter being in the Compassion project. "I can now die
happily," he said as he clapped his hands softly, "there are people
who care for her".

After saying our farewells we began walking up the muddy track back to
the van. We turned to wave and found all three of them walking a few
metres behind us! They accompanied us for about a mile before we said
more farewells, then had a few final photos together and still more
farewells! Most Rwandan people are incredibly quiet and reserved. It
could be confused for lack of warmth, but we now realize that it is
serenity and respect that quiets these wonderful people. The
Compassion worker told us that he is now a very happy man. It is
humbling that such a small gesture can mean so much to another person.
The feeling of respect and honor was mutual - this man invited us in
to the home he was born in and put all household duties on hold to
spend time with us. I hope we never forget them.