Back on the Scene

Well it’s been about 2 months since we last had a chance to make a post. It’s been a crazy couple of months too. I’ll briefly recap a few of the things that have gone on.

A Visit to the US
I went back to the US on December 15th and stayed until January 17th. It was my first time back since I came out here on March 13th 2006 and it was quite a culture shock going back. I really hadn’t imagined how different it would seem to be back in Nashville, TN after being gone almost a year. The cars, the traffic, the people, the gifts, Christmas, the hustle and bustle, the food, and just every day life. Everything was so different. And to be honest, I could not wait to get back home to Rwanda.
However, I had a great visit with my family and friends. Christmas was great and I enjoyed catching up with everyone. I did a few speaking engagements on behalf of Sisters of Rwanda and they all went quite well. I spoke at The Tennessee Women’s Prison, Fisk University, The University School, Mercy Ministries, Virtuous Artist Ascension Church, and Belmont University. I spoke on what we are doing with Sisters of Rwanda, gave some of my personal testimony as to how I got to Rwanda, and spoke much about business vs. aid issues. The responses from all of the venues were great and I was pleased to see people being moved and interested in what is happening at SOR.

I must say, my favorite venue was Mercy Ministries. I was quite intimidated to go and speak there actually. I have known Nancy Alcorn (Founder and Executive Director of Mercy Ministries) since I was about 12 years old. I’ve followed what she’s done with MM since that time and I’ve been continually impressed. I also know her to be an excellent public speaker, and I am a novice at best. It was also the first time that I was speaking to a group that is similar to the women of Sisters of Rwanda. While they are not generally former prostitutes, they are a group of women that have been dealt a bad hand and most all of them have been abused. So it was a new dynamic for me to be in as far as telling the story of Sisters of Rwanda.

However, it ended up going really well. I was so blessed to be there among all of the women in their program. They were so welcoming and it was quite an emotional time for everyone. I think I got choked up about 4 different times. I could see so much in the eyes of these young women. It was that same mixture of pain, heartache, and desperation, mixed with joy, determination, and the desire to take control of their lives and follow their dreams. It’s the same look I see in the eyes of our Sisters. I felt so many different things at that time, but most of all, I felt at home. Like I was supposed to be there. It was an amazing experience. And to top it off, Nancy presented up with our largest donation to date. I had no idea that they were going to make a donation to Sisters of Rwanda. It wasn’t even on my radar. So when they did, I was really taken by surprise. And it was a great surprise to have! I’ve since received (just yesterday) a thank you note from Mercy Ministries with signatures from all of the women there and a letter with feedback from many of them. I think it was the most thoughtful and beautiful gift we have ever received. I am so honored and blessed to be connected to what them. This is definitely the beginning of a long friendship between both of our organizations. Thank you Mercy Ministries for all that you do!

Our Current Projects
We’ve begun to take many of our thoughts and ideas from theory to application in the past few months. It’s certainly been a learning process. The first guy I hired to help teach the Sisters pottery skills ended up being a bit of a loose canon and ended up stealing money from us and smashing the first batch of pottery. And I was in the states during this fiasco, so that just made it more difficult. I did however handle the situation when I came back, I gave him a scolding, but still went pretty easy on him considering. We did get one good teacher out of the deal though. So that was a blessing in disguise. He’s proven to be exactly what we were looking for, gentle, kind, honest and an excellent teacher. So now we are moving forward with the pottery project, creating different kinds of vases, and should be ready to take some finished products to market sometime next month.

We are also moving forward on a new project. We will be opening Ubutunzi Salon in the next few months if we are able to get the funding. The mission of the salon is to create an atmosphere were our customers are “treasured” and treated like royalty. Customer service in Rwanda is something that people just don’t think or care about. People just don’t value the customer here. They often treat you as if you are a nuisance. However, in Ubutunzi Salon, we will be treating each person as if they were the president or a king or queen. I really do feel like this salon will encapsulate the whole “treasured” them that we are trying to get across to this city. We are excited about the creation of the salon and seeing our vision come to life.

We hope to also start the jewelry project here in the next couple weeks.

Registration
We received a letter from the Mayor of Kigali (Mayor Kirabo) in later November of 2006 that granted us permission to operate in Rwanda legally. However we are still going through the rather arduous task of finalizing everything and obtaining our official papers as a legal non-profit entity in Rwanda. Furthermore, we just started the process, after much debate, of registering as a 501(c)3 non-profit in the US. This is another long process. Fortunately our US team and Lawyers Without Borders are helping us to get this process going. LWOB is also accepting donations for us as we share some of the same initiatives in Rwanda. They will also be providing tax write offs for donations made out to SOR until we have our own 501(c)3 status. Our hope is that by year end (2007) we will be 100% on our own and have all of our legal papers both here and in the US.

Cool News
We were fortunate enough to be tracked down by a new media group called 80 Percent Angel a few weeks ago. The group is put together by a group of young journalists, videographers, photographers, etc. They are headed up by a young couple by the names of Parker and Kasia. They are excellent people and we feel very fortunate to have hooked up with them. They came out and shot a few hours of footage of the sisters and our SOR staff. They then produced about a 10 minute promo video that will be available online and on DVD. We can then use this on our website so people can get a good look at what we do. We can also use it to give to churches and bands and other groups that want to promote our work here. This will be a tremendous tool for promoting us and we are extremely grateful to 80 Percent Angel for picking us out of so many worthy organizations here in Rwanda. We are honored. And we have gain some new friends in the process as well. Thank you Parker and Kasia!

Education
In January we were able to send 26 children to school, many for the first time. These are all children of the Sisters that are now attending primary and secondary school. We are really excited about this happening and so are the Sisters and their children. A good friend of SOR’s, Susi Duerr was able to raise all of the funding (and more) for the school fees program in her home town of Velburg Germany. She has raised all of the funding for the children to attend school, for their uniforms, and even for extra food for the families. It’s been amazing to see all of that come into fruition. Thank you Susi!

Additionally, one of our interns, Tonia Kaufman, has done an amazing job of assembling and teaching an after school English program. She is teaching about 30 children and 40 adults English now. It really is amazing to walk into the Treasure Center now and here the sisters and the children greeting us in English! Tonia has done a wonderful job with this group and she is also interviewing the Sisters for us. She is an excellent writer and you will have the privilege of reading much of her work here shortly on this blog. Thanks Tonia!

In Closing
So we have lots of projects going on and things are going well. We are currently working on our marketing ideas and ways to get the word out about SOR. Lots of people ask how they can help, and honestly, the best things to do are to help advocate what we are doing at Sisters of Rwanda, and to donate funds. In reality, if we had money in the bank account, we could carry out every initiative that SOR has. Project capitol is one of the biggest things we have a need for right now. Once we have funds for expanding the projects, we can create more income for the Sisters, and that always the goal.

Stay tuned for lots of stories and thoughts from our Sisters of Rwanda staff and the Sisters themselves.