Welcome Back! Karibu Sana!

The road to church was good, today. The best it’s been in a long time. Gone were the potholes and washes that plagued us before we left for furlough. They must have graded the road recently, because they were still working on a section of it toward Kabazana and the rain hadn’t had a chance to damage it — so within the last month.

We rounded the bend to Ngarama and I could see Elizabet and several of the church children waiting outside the church. They were laughing and yelling in excitement as we pulled up.

Several of the other church ladies ran up just then. We all stood there laughing and crying and hugging and saying “You are very welcome!” (Karibu Sana) and “thank you!” (asante sana) over and over again. 

My heart felt like it would explode from the joy and excitement of it!

All the children had grown. Some of the boys we left are now young men some of the girls are young women.

Gloria’s baby boy, Trevor was shy and didn’t want me to hold him, but he flirted with me all the way through church at Isanja. She was still expecting him when we left last year and I’ll I’d seen so far was pictures. I think he’ll warm up to us. 😉

Both Kabazana and Sangano had prepared food for us. I understood Kinyarwanda today when the one of the ladies who’d cooked for us said “We’re happy you’ve returned.” I was so surprised to understand her that I couldn’t even reply in Runyankore which is the language I know best here.

I hope there will be African rice, stew, and beans at the Marriage Feast of the Lamb. It’s some of the best food I’ve ever had. Oh, can our church ladies cook!

A few weeks ago, in the throws of all the goodbyes we were saying I wrote about the sadness it caused. There is so much joy in saying hello! In seeing people you haven’t seen in a long time, on both sides of the ocean. Just think, one day we will say hello and never have to say goodbye again! That will be the day!