February 28, Monday

Greetings from Sunny Rwanda,

Today we saw off three of our team members at the airport to head home to Massachusetts, Christina, Tom, and Lisa. Neal and Theophile saw them off this afternoon.  We had a good time of prayer together after a breakfast of fresh pineapple, bread with honey and coffee. David and Frank went to Masaka for the first time to begin their teaching. David had a particulary restless night last night and was only able to sleep about 45 minutes all total.  The music from the outdoor bar next door kept him up until 3:00 and then the misquitos after that.  The team prayed for David to be able to concentrate as he would be teaching all day the book of Colossians.  Frank and David arrived at the pastor's training center in Masaka and were greeted in typical Rwanda style as celebrities.  The teaching went very well  and the pastors had some very good questions very similar to the kind of questions that we discuss back home.  After a good meal of rice and beans with some meat with sauce and spinach we tried hard to keep the pastors from dozing off.  When Neal arrived with pastor Theophile around 4:00 the Rwandan pastors honored our team by giving each of us a suitable Rwandan name.  Neal was honored first given the name Mugiraneza  which means good labor.  Neal was honored as the good laborer that he is in organizing the trip and calling together this team and in planning future return trips to Rwanda.  David's new name is now Micomyiza and it means kindness.  I thought they might have chosen either grumpy one or sleepy one from the 7 dwarfs but they assured me that this name suited me well.  Frank is now called Rukundo  which means lovely one for his love  for God and the Rwandan people is so clearly shown. Lisa, John, Tom, and Christine were no longer here but they wanted to honor them and give them Rwandan names as well.  Tom is now Umuhuza which means Ambassador. Christina is now Gisubizo  which means Answer to our prayers. John is now Kwizera which means faith. Lisa is now Mugisha which means blessings. She has been such a great blessing to the Rwadan midwives.  I think of the movie Dances with wolves where Kevin Costner received his new native american name.  Except our names were chosen by these deeply appreciative servants of God who celebrated our ministry with them with a special dance and song in a ceremony of new name giving.  We finished our time of ceremony with a special toast of Fanta sodas outside the meeting hall under a beautiful cloud filled skies as the local children spied from behind the bushes.  I thought that I'd try to learn a little kinyrawandan and pointing to a papaya tree said in English this is papaya what is it in kineyrandan?  The men said with a smile, Papaya.  Hey I'm learning some Kinyarwandan.   Thank you for your prayers for our whole team.   We stopped on the way home to get some fresh papaya for our breakfast.   why not?  The house is so quiet now as just Frank, Neal and David are here.  Frank is getting ready to teach Ephesians tommorow.  David hopes to meet with Eric and Bonita tommorow, two friends of the coopers back inHarvard, Mass.  Frank also was planning to meet with Eric from the Peace Team to play another trip of his own with his wife this June.  He might be teaching either the purpose driven church or purpose-driven life teaching in June.   Better sign off before I fall asleep on the key board zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Whoops too late.

Grace and peace for the whole team,

David Smith
Micomyiza