Road to Rwanda----Christmas Traditions

  I thoroughly enjoyed reading Dicken’s   A Christmas Carol   to my middle school students this December.   However, it did open up many sentiments and thoughts in my own mind as I processed the differences between US and Rwandan Christmas traditions.   As one of the anticipatory set activities before we read A Christmas Carol, I had them discuss (agree/disagree) with a list of statements.   One of the items was the statement: “Christmas traditions are important.”   Almost complete unanimity on their part that they were NOT important.   As I questioned further, I found out that none of them really receive Christmas presents.   These are not at all destitute students.   Most of their parents pay a nice tuition sum for their attendance at our school.   They are middle and upper middle-class children. The more I thought about this, the more my heart was hurt. The next day I told them that this fact brought tears to my eyes.   (Bei...

Road to Rwanda----End of Semester

 God is so good. I was so concerned that I would not be able to get all the end of semester things done because of being gone to the US for those 2 and a half weeks. But I am in better shape than I nearly have ever been going into the last week of school before Christmas break.  School at VVA (Rwanda) has been delightful, sharing A Christmas Story  with the students, and I will be able to enter their final grades on Wednesday.  For Peking Univeristy, which will also end the semester on December 16, rather than the 31st,  I have nearly completed their grades.  Because PKU is closing early,  our assignment schedule was compacted. Rick and I have had one long essay, one short essay, and a portfolio between December 1 and December 16, which means we have each grade 300 items during that 2 weeks.  I am very close to being done.  I am now just costing through the last week of classes, enjoying my students and anticipating Christmas.  I am sure...

Road to Rwanda----Almost

 God sends his angels.  Here and there.  The Brussels Airline helper that we just grabbed as she walked by.  We weren't even scheduled for any leg of our flight to be on Brussels Air, but she made the luggage happen so that we did not have to cart 70+ pound bags all over the airport.  We went down to retrieve our 5 bag from baggage claim.  We had an email from Luthansa saying it was coming in late from Frankfurt.  It was not there, but somehow it apparently made it to our Rwandair flight that we take from here to Kigali.  Could there be any more airlines involved? We were able to access a very nice lounge and took a shower and had nice hot food.  God is good....and I am tired.  I would have loved to have been able to take business class on this leg, but our points are for United, and this is not that.  I tried talking our way on, but it has not worked yet.  Finally found a wheelchair man to take me through security, which is ni...

Road to Rwanda----Saga Continued

 Saga continued.  So after waiting 3 hours British Airways opened up, but when we tried to check in we were told it was economy and not business.  I really wanted to lie down for part of this flight, but more importantly we would owe tremendous amounts of money for our 4 overweight bags.  I took off running ( or my version of it) back the mile to terminal B to see what could be done.  They have rescheduled us and I am waiting now to get on a flight that will go Boston-DC-Frankfurt-Brussels-Kigali.  Half of it is business class so we can take our bags.  But rather than getting into Kigali at 8 p.m. on Nov. 29 we won't be there until 6 a.m. on NOv. 30.  I will still go straight to school after my 2 hours car ride.  I would not be able to sleep anyway.  One real draw back to this particular itinerary is that we will need to get our 70 pound bags in Brussels and take them to the next airlines.  We could not check them clear through....

Road to Rwanda----Pray Us Home

 We had friends in Panama who asked us each vacation time what flights we were taking so they could schedule themselves at a different date/time.  The number of times that our flights are disturbed is legendary. True to form, we arrived at the Boston airport after a very restful night at the hotel to find that they had no record of our reservation.  I guess our flight/flights had been canceled, but no one informed us.  We sat at the desk for an hour and they were able to reschedule us out on British Airways to London, Nairobi, Kigali.  So we packed up our huge, huge 70 pound 4 bags and hiked off from terminal B to terminal E.  It was a bit of a walk, but, PTL, I can do walks like that now. (I am talking a mile or more.) Here we sit for a couple of hours until the British Airways desk opens and we can confirm this ticket. With our tickets we should be able to access a lounge and wait even more comfortably then.  We have been told our business class seat...

Road to Rwanda---Up and Away Again

 We had a lovely time with family, but now are on the move again.  Paul and Purity took us to the hotel in Boston, now, the night before we take off tomorrow. If we did not come today, Paul would have had to take time off work, and this is a nice respite before that long flight.  We were able to use points and money given from Rick's sister and husband to upgrade to business class for 2 of the 3 legs of our flight.  It means so so much.  We can lie down and arrive rested, or at least more rested.  We don't arrive until 8 p.m. Tuesday night, have a ride contracted for the 2+ hours to our home, and then I will be at school at 6 on Wednesday morning.  Please pray for rest and even extra special energy to meet the needs of my students.  They are writing saying they hope I am back soon.  We will do Dicken's Christmas Carol for the weeks leading up to break.   We have most of the paperwork ready to sell our RV to Camping World.  We a...