Sunday, August 7, 2011

Rwanda-- finally an update with pictures!!

Our team!

On the way to Gisenyi- beautiful!


View from my hotel balcony- breathtaking! Hill to the right with the tower is DRC (Congo)

Sunset on Lake Kivu




NOEL- what an amazing place.....This trip was totally different than my last. Still amazing, wonderful, and just..Rwanda but just different. Our time with the Peace House boys was a time of bonding with just 7 precious children, this time there were 600 precious children. And I did bond with a lot of them, but I just kept feeling overwhelmed by all that needed to be done. So that's how I felt for the first 2 days. And then I remembered the Ordinary Hero motto that I love so much- Change the World for ONE.  When I looked at all 600 as a group it was too much, too many obstacles to climb, too much need for me to do anything about. But for ONE I could help. For ONE I could make a difference. For ONE I could tell the story of Jesus. And I may not have changed the world, but I may have changed the world for ONE. So my focus shifted and I looked for the ONE that day or hour or minute that I could love on, or hold, or sing Jesus Loves Me, or play with or make a medical chart for. Or take a "photo" of:)) So here are some of the 2,000 pictures I took:) Each child had a story. Each child has a savior that died for them.















When I stopped looking at the whole and focused on one at a time I realized how beautiful all these children were and how blessed I was to be there among them.






















The rooms were crowded with many kids and the "mothers" were so sweet to accomodate us when we would go in and ask to hold a specific one:) Each time we came into the baby-toddler hallway the kids would get so excited that we were coming to see them!











The medical team was amazing. They saw each and every kid and treated each like they were the only one they were seeing that day. A lot of the babies were scared and crying but everyone else was so very curious. We constantly had little ones looking in the windows to see what we were doing so that they would know what to expect!

A medical chart was made for each and every one!

Medical-chart-making-fools!!

I thought this was funny! Things to say a little one when coming into the "doctor's office":)) This won't hurt!

Not sure what Brad is doing:) but this sweet little one got the royal treatment- only 2 weeks old!



Oh my word- seriously, I could just eat her up!!!

The way sophisticated xray-looking-machine!:)


Sweet Rebekah and other nurses doing height/weight

Hook em' horns??:)





So many pictures- and I've only posted a select few:) I just realized that I have 50 more downloaded to here to share:) so I'm gonna stop here for today and post the rest tomorrow!! but these next are some of my favorites! More to come!!

Oh!! That one makes my heart happy!! Mark and Chelsea- thank you for putting all your time, effort, and energy into making this trip happen! What a blessing for everyone!