A bit of an unplanned blog break, but we've been super busy the past couple of weeks getting ready for a short-notice trip to Rwanda. #1 and I leave on Monday night, and arrive Wednesday lunchtime in Kigali for just over two weeks at the Urukundo Home for Children.
This is from their Mission Statement:
Hundreds of thousands of children who managed to live through the 1994 genocide and its aftermath in Rwanda are struggling for survival in desperately impoverished situations. Due to AIDS, disease, and poverty many younger children have become orphans or throw away children. The number of vulnerable children in Rwanda is not decreasing. They are without help. Most of them live in loneliness, neither loved nor cared for. Many children have been traumatized and the psychological consequences of invisibility and powerlessness is devastating. These circumstances overwhelm them. Most, feeling hopeless about their future, end up wandering and begging in the streets where they are routinely exploited, girls in particular.
Hope Made Real believes that all children are precious and are a sign of hope for Rwanda’s future.
They need the love they deserve before they become blind and deaf by abuse and hardships.
We started collecting shoes with the Brownie troop I'm co-leader of back in the Fall, but couldn't find a cost-effective way of getting the consignment there. My husband and I had a conversation (in a pub, I think) and came up with the bright idea of sending me there with as much luggage as I could carry filled with donations for the Children's Home. #1 is on his gap year between high school and university (he's 19 years old) and gallantly agreed to come along and keep an eye on me/carry my bags. We booked our tickets on Christmas Eve, and started the business of fundraising in earnest, of being vaccinated (I had to have SEVEN shots), and making arrangements for the three children here at home in Seattle. For all my friends, family and neighbors who have been so generous and caring - a huge and heartfelt THANK YOU. We wouldn't be able to do this without your support and help.
We're excited to go (and a bit nervous, if I'm honest). I'm looking forward to two weeks with my firstborn, to meeting Mama Arlene, who has worked so tirelessly to raise funds, build accommodation, feed and house the kids. And she's 77 years old. Amazing. We're planning to work our socks off while we're there. I'm also looking forward to finding out more about Rwanda which by all accounts is a beautiful country with a tragic history. I'm hoping to post pictures as we go, so watch this space.
Here's a little bit about the Home :
Hello, I am Divine, one of Mama Arlene’s children of The Urukundo Home for Children in Muhanga District, Rwanda. I am Mama Arlene’s “first born”. No, I am not the youngest. But I was the first girl-child to come to live under Mama Arlene’s roof. Now thirty-five others have come. All of us are fully housed, cared for and given an education. And, an additional 245 children from the region join us at the community school with sponsored scholarships from Hope Made Real’s Scholarship Program.
I came because I could no longer live in my family home. Others come as orphans because all of their living relatives have died of AIDS or malaria. Still other older children are survivors of the genocide.
Each of us now has our own bed. The girls are housed in apartments with bunk beds with a house-mother. The boys live in a house with four bedrooms and four bunk beds in each room with a house-mother. Because of kind people I am most fortunate to now have food, bedding, clothing, school supplies, a mosquito net, lodging, education, medical insurance and basic medical care, utilities, transportation, and, of course, water.
Mama Arlene rents the houses we currently live in, but we recently acquired land and are building the first of five cottages. The plan is to have ten children and a mama or parents in each cottage. This means our little home will grow so that soon I will have fifty brothers and sisters.
