Angilcan Cathedral: Kigali, Rwanda

The flight to Kigali Rwanda was quite uneventful. After landing, going through customs, and getting some money exchanged, I meandered from the parking lot to the road and hailed a motorcycle. I jumped on, put on the green helmet and sped off. That's the nice thing about not having a lot of luggage...you can ride motorcycles around instead of taxis and save yourself a load of money.

I arrived at the Anglican Cathedral and was in the process of booking a room when I saw the Archbishop of Rwanda slowly driving his car away down the drive way. I waved to him and went out to greet him.

"Hello, from America", I said overjoyed at seeing my first familiar face.

"Hello," he said hesitantly not remembering me and not really knowing what to do with me, but knowing he had to do something. I quickly told him of why I was here and what I was doing in Rwanda. He went back to the reception desk and talked for a while to the receptionist and had me booked in a nicer room. He then invited me to get into his car. He started the engine, drove about twenty feet, and slowly stopped the engine. He walked me up to the "Faith House" and into a nice living room where two white girls were sitting at the table eating lunch. I immediately recognized them as two girls I had met in Washington DC a few months prior and I knew they had been planing on traveling during the same approximate time. Archbishop was glad to see that I knew them.

"Have you eaten, Archbishop?" the girls asked. Archbishop was apparently Archbishop Kolini's nickname around the cathedral.

Archbishop slowly sat. "I have been eating for 60 years." He smiled at his joke and the girls giggled. He looked much the same since I last saw him a year ago. He didn't have his bishop's ring on, and was waring a leafy Hawaiian shirt. His nicely trimmed mustache perhaps had a few more speckles of white. We all sat and talked for a while and I told them about how I had lost my luggage. "I'll give you a driver tomorrow to take you to the market to get new clothes", Archbishop told me.

The girls, Brittany and Laura, were from the Church of the Resurrection (an Anglican church in DC), and were there visiting their sister church. We went to dinner that night at "The New Cactus", a nice restaurant on the top of a hill over looking part of the city. It was nice to spend some time with some acquaintances and relax after a somewhat stressful day.

That night I slept like a babe, and woke the next morning to go shopping for clothing I would need. I had breakfast with another Anglican group from Virginia who were there to visit their sister church. They were a bit older than me...all four were married but traveling without their spouses. They tired me out a bit.

I was given a "driver", whom I never really learned his name, who drove me off in one of the church trucks. He only spoke French, Swahili, and Kinyarwanda, so we never had more than a few words spoken back and forth. But he got me around the whole city...money at the bank, ducking through the maze of stall through crowds of hawkers, and got me even found me an electrical outlet adapter. I got back to the hotel, washed my clothes in the bathroom sink, and lay down for a bit.

Britney and Laura invited me again to go out to dinner at a nice Indian restaurant. We met up with a couple of American girls who were teachers at an International School in Kigali. The four girls talked up a storm. I barely got three sentences in the whole two hours we were there. But it was good food and all the waiters were dressed in exotic Indian costumes. Quite amusing.

I was coming down with a cold that night, and though I had packed plenty of vitamins and aspirin, they were in my bag. So I suffered through a restless night. I was feeling anxious that I would get sick out in the bush with no medicine and no one to help me. I didn't feel very excited about being here with no bag. It has made things harder and less comfortable. I have to wear new clothes, don't have my battery charger for my camera (I'm hoping I'll find another one in Kampala), and it's kind of thrown my balance off. So it's made me more reliant upon God and has taught me not to trust in my own strength. I kept praying, "When I am weak, you are strong", but it didn't sound too attractive.

This morning I spent sometime hanging out with kids at the daycare at the Cathedral, packed my things, and was ready to pay my bill when the receptionist told me that Archbishop wanted to pay for me. I went up to his office and thanked him and told him I'd be back sometime next week for a short time. I threw all my stuff into a big plastic bag, threw it over my shoulder, hailed a motorcycle and got a ride into town where I'm typing this to you.

In a few minutes I'll be leaving this internet cafe to go find a bus that will take me north up to Gahini Diocese where I will be meeting with Bishop Alexis and perhaps tomorrow meet some of the people at our new sister church. Then I'll be back in Kigali on Tuesday or Wednesday, when I'll write you next.