Road to Rwanda----Spiritual Emphasis Week and War in Goma

 I want to write first about our Virunga Valley Academy Spiritual Emphasis Week. I felt moved this summer to start praying about having a spiritual emphasis week at VVA.  God worked it out, as always.  Mark Little Elk, a Native pastor, from my home area in Minnesota, contacted me about maybe visiting.  I passed it on to our Director and Mark will arrive next Saturday for 11 days.  I am so excited...and so are the kids. 

 Mark writes on FB: "I'm going to Africa! I fly out at the end of the week and will be there for 11 days. I will be teaching at a school in Rawanda for their spiritual emphasis week. I will lead three assembly times along with having devotion times throughout the week and talking about Naive American History in a social studies class.

"To maximize my time I will also be teaching archery and training archery instructors so they can start their own archery program. Please pray for my travels and that there would be no issues getting the archery equipment into the country. I am taking 5 bows, 25 arrows, three arrow quivers, a bow stand, and 21 paper face archery targets to donate to the school from our program. I am so excited for this opportunity. If you feel led to send a gift for extra expenses here is my CashApp: $MarkLittleElk."  Please help us bathe the campus in prayer for the students to really recognize Jesus as Lord. 

The other area I need to write about is that over the weekend, the Democratic Republic of Congo is ready to declare war on Rwanda.  The accusation is that the Rwandan government is supporting the rebel group, M23, which just claimed the city of Goma.  Goma is a city in the DRC which is about 30 miles from our home here in Musanze, Rwanda. It is a very mineral rich area, which of course complicates everything.  Our news here is some different from the international news, but plug in "Goma war" or something like that and read more details.  Truly, it is only slightly tense here, which I suppose is a little surprising, but no one seems terribly concerned.  The 10th grade students are the only ones who spoke of it today and they asked me that if we have to evacuate could we fit them into our suitcases.