Going Native

Day in the Life

We spent most of the day simulating a day in the life of a Rwandan.   African Transformation Network (ATN) just recently started doing these simulations behind the welding shop.  They have a small house and demonstration fields.  The house is a traditional one you'd find in rural areas with walls made of clay and are painted white inside using flour.  If you touch the wall, you'll get some powder on you.  A small house to the side had a kitchen which amounted to an indoor fire with a pot of boiling water on it.  This is where they (Denise  with her baby on her back) cooked our lunch of boiled bananas, sweet potatoes, and beans accompanied by avocados, Japanese plums, and passion fruit.

Prepreparing for the Day

The woman started the day by putting on traditional wraps and head scarfs.  The men chopped wood for the cooking fire.  We all took turns peeling green plantains for boiling.  The juice under the skin was very sticky and hard to get off our hands.

There are three types of bananas grown in Rwanda: table bananas for that look like the little "manzanita" bananas you find in Latin America, plantains that are typically boiled, and bananas they make beer out of.  We were shown an earthen oven where the unpeeled green beer bananas are baked, fermented, and added to sorghum to become beer.

Farming God's Way

ATN teaches agriculture to the locals.  Anyone with land grows bananas, beans, & vegetables that form a major portion of their diet. ATN teaches them how to farm God's way without tilling yielding up to four times the yield of traditional Rwandan farms and gardens in a way that is sustainable. Tilling produces hard land and let's moisture escape. ATN teaches how to use ground cover instead of tilling. The ground cover serves as both mulch and soil for the seedlings.

Then group got to practice this form of farming in ATN's demonstration fields. The men weeded and pruned banana trees. The flowers of the tree need to be cut, dead bark cut, and flayed bark tied back to the tree.

We were taught to grow three generations of trees together at the same base: the oldest generation to yield fruit, a younger less mature generation with no fruit (yet), and a sampling.  This way, you have bananas year round.

The women made hats out of the banana leaves. These aren't ornamental, they are functional.  Woman carry large heavy things on their head and the hats provide a cushion, support, and balance.

Clean Water

Rwandans struggle to find clean drinking water. Many walk miles to fill a 50 lb "Gerry Can" of water from mud puddles and marshes with hippos in them. This water has all sorts of nasty stuff I it causing large parts of the population to have intestinal problems.

ATN combats this by drilling wells. The western approach brings in heavy machinery and gets the job done fast.  The problem is that it cost $10,000 and the well falls into disrepair because the locals don't feel like they own it nor do they have the ability to fix it when it breaks.

ATN finds communities who are willing to partner in the creation and maintenance of the well. Drilling is a manual and very long process.  A big tripod is erected and drilling begins with two people turning a drill bit.  The first few feet go fast.  When they hit rock, they may only a few inches in a day.  It can take 3 months to drill down to the 45 feet it takes to make a well.  Even then, there is no promise that the well will make.  One  out of the five wells they've drilled so far was too salty to be used. They'd  like to find a motor to use  that can turn the crank on the drill bit.  The current manual process takes several people and is slow.

Once the well is drilled, the welding shop creates the pump for the well. It is made simply with local parts that the locals can fix if/when it breaks. The pump is locked at night to prevent abuse.  During the day, a man stays at the pump to protect it and help pump the water. Locals pay the guard $0.03 per haul for clean water closer than the bad water before.

We were then privileged to haul water for the family that lives in the house where we ate lunch. We carried Gerry Cans down hill 2 kilometers to a well drilled behind ATN. We then carried the cans back up hill to the house. It is hard for me to imagine how people do this every day.  We were all huffing and puffing at the top of the hill!

Irene's Well

We drove out into the rural countryside to see a new well being dug.  This well is partially funded by donations made in memory of Donna's mother Irene who passed away not too long ago. We took the opportunity to bless the well and dedicate it to Irene's memory.

Street Boys

ATN started a ministry back in 2011 with boys who live on the street. These are children of prostitutes and families without fathers who are malnourished and illiterate. They are around 14 years old and in the first or second grade.  All of them are very small for their age due to malnutrition.

These at risk kids leave their families and move into a peace house run by ATN.  The house has a few rooms with bunk beds. It is a place where kids can escape the cycle of bad choices, live in a safe environment with peers, study the Bible, and learn about Jesus.

Kids rotate through the peace house annually in January.  Twelve kids spend a year transitioning from a live of despair into one of hope. After a year is up, they go back to their families, stay in school, and go onto a better life than they would have had before. For some, finishing sixth grade is a success because they will be literate enough to get a job.  Many go on to secondary school.

Playground

The workers did great work on the playground.  You can see from the photos how it is coming along nicely. They made then painted the merry-go-round and slide fort.  The rock wall is half done.  We took the big sand pile and spread it over a third of the ground after picking up rocks and smoothing out the dirt. More loads of dirt will come next week to finish out the playground.

The street boys helped spread the sand around.  There aren't many playgrounds in Rwanda.  Since this one is visible from the street, they are hoping to attract more kids. There aren't primary schools in that area, so one of the dreams is to open a primary school on the ATN campus.  This would be a Christian school that could impact lives of the area kids and street kids.  It could also be a needed revenue source because people will pay for their kids to go to a quality school close by.

Dorms

Another dream is to build dorms. They are going to start raising funds for that next summer.  The dorms would house the iron working students.  They would receive room and board and ATN would get paying students that would make the ministry self sustaining.  They could also triple the number of students with this.

Giving people skills is part of the secret sauce at ATN.  People come for help and education, they get involved in Bible studies, and stay for the Kingdom community.

Rwandan Weddings

There are some men that won't marry a woman until she is pregnant.  Children are a very important part of Rwandan culture and the men don't want to commit to anything before they know the woman can deliver the goods.

Rwandan weddings have three ceremonies: the dowry, the civil, and the religious.  Weddings last all day (and night).  Brides hide in with the crowd while old men pretend to argue for an hour over whether or not the bride should be allowed to marry the groom. Finally, they relent at which point the bride pretends to not want to go because she will miss her family.  When the bride has no family, others step into that role To fill the gap.

Prepaid

Everything in Rwanda is prepaid.  You buy minutes for your phone and use it until they run out and then you buy more.  You by electricity and use it until you run out and then you buy more.  Being able to send and receive money over low end phones is a critical aspect of how this works. It would be interesting to see how this impacts the debt people live with.

Josian

We went to visit one of the former ATN folk whose college education was funded by generous members of Greenville Oaks.  Josian lived in a remote area close to the Burundi border. Her college degree helped double her expected income and allowed her to meet a husband with a similar education. Together, they bought 200 square meters of land on a hillside near upscale new homes where Kilgali is expanding into.  Once the infrastructure is in place, they'll be able to sell the land beside their house for a nice profit. None of this would be possible without the help of generous donors.

ATN People

The Kingdom is flourishing in Rwanda because their are so many Rwandans who lead the disciple making movement.  The colonial approach to Christianity hasn't worked. What does work is partnering with the locals on their vision and letting them lead the way.

Charles Mapendo

Charles is a major figure in ATN.  Officially he manages the business side of the NGO, dealing with visas and such.  His real value is in leading multiple Discovery Bible Studies (DBSs) and introducing spiritual concepts to everything done at ATN. Charles sees DBSs as critical to letting people discover God or learn about who God is strictly  Bible. He doesn't believe the traditional church model works because it reinforces bad practices: delegation of faith to a priest or pastor, passivity, compartmentalization, etc. Charles sees DBS as a call to obedience to what you recognize in scripture.

Jean Paul (Mzamutashya)

Mzamutashya leads the farming God's way and drilling wells. He describes his mission as a way to connect people with God through something they think they know: growing food and collecting water. He shows them how God created an ecosystem that works a certain way. Man is a part of that ecosystem as both good stewards and consumers, if we do it God's way, it will flourish.  The same is true with our spiritual lives.  When people want to grow more food or get clean water, they also are brought into a Kingdom community.

Gil and Pauli

Gil and Pauli run the peace house for street kids. Gil says his strategy from the moment they arrive is to them Jesus.

Serge

Serge isn't a part of ATN.  He just graduated from ACU and has returned to Rwanda to work with a day school for kids. Parents drop off kids before work and pick them up after work. In between, the kids are taught academics and Jesus.

Bunani

Bunani manages the ATN finances.

Many Others
There are so many others I am unintentionally leaving out.  Sorry!