It's official....I'm the worst blogger ever!! I have been so busy over the last three months that I haven't even given a thought to writing a blog....well, besides my mother constantly reminding me that I need to make an update. So, here I am, trying to start this blogging thing again. I hope that I will find some time to make some posts about what has been going on here in Rwanda....because it is amazing stuff! My goal is to make a few posts in the next few weeks about my latest projects. Stay tuned!

The Gift of Hearing

For the past few months, I have been serving as the project coordinator with an organization called Starkey Hearing Foundation to help bring hearing aids to over 2250 Rwandans with hearing loss. It is amazing how things come together..considering this is my true passion, training, and experience. In graduate school for Speech Pathology, I went through an intensive track to specialize in working with children with hearing loss. I spent a few months doing specialized training at Beth Israel Hospital/NY Eye and Ear in New York City, and then moved to Little Rock to work at Arkansas Children's Hospital for three years in the Hearing Impaired Speech Department. This is literally what I have been trained for...and then this project just falls in my lap in Rwanda. This has been a a few months of blood, sweat, and tears...but the week is finally here and in a few days I get to witness all of these children receive hearing aids. And I get to host a few familiar names from my favorite American sport, as many NFL football players are volunteering on this mission. Adrian Peterson, Vernon Davis, Santonio Holmes, Roy Williams anyone?

More updates to come....

Here is an article that I wrote about the project that was published in the Rwandan Newspaper today which explains it a little more....

"Over 2,000 people will receive the gift of hearing next week through the efforts of Starkey Hearing Foundation, an American-based charity that donates hearing aids in developing countries around the world.

Although Starkey has contributed over 60,000 hearing aids in approximately 15 African countries in past years, this is the first major gift to Rwanda.

Starkey Foundation was recruited to Rwanda through the request of the Minister of Education, Dr. Charles Murigande. He reached out to Starkey in February 2010 and encouraged them to extend their humanitarian actions to Rwanda.

With no avenue for purchasing hearing aids in Rwanda, this donation is of immense benefit and value to the hearing impaired community. The total number of individuals with hearing loss who will receive hearing aids is approximately 2,250 people from all over Rwanda, with over half of that number being children who suffer from hearing impairment.

The recipients of the hearing aids were gathered over the last few months through Rwanda’s schools for deaf children, local hospitals, faith-based communities and other organizations serving individuals with hearing loss.

Each person registered to receive the aids has previously been fit for custom-made ear-moulds, which will attach to the hearing devices they will receive next week. Starkey Foundation will donate two hearing aids to each person, totalling a donation of over 4500 hearing aids to Rwanda.

The President and Founder of Starkey, along with a team of hearing professionals, will be visiting Rwanda March 21-25 to fit each individual patient according to their degree of hearing loss. In conjunction with the Starkey Team, another US non-profit called PROS for Africa will be hosting a group of NFL (National Football League) professional American football players to volunteer with the hearing aid project. Many well-known professional athletes will be visiting Rwanda for the first time through this mission.

Several local organizations have also been instrumental in coordinating this substantial project, including Bridge2Rwanda, Liliane Foundation, and Hope International. MTN contributed by donating SMS messages to inform the recipients and other essentials to help with the distribution. Participating hospitals included King Faisal Hospital, CHUK, Butare Hospital, Ruhengeri Hospital and PIH Rwinkwavu Hospital, in which they assessed and fit patients for the custom-made ear-moulds.

The distribution events will take place in Ruhengeri on March 21-22 and in Kigali on March 23-25. Starkey Hearing Foundation plans to return to Rwanda on an annual basis to distribute hearing aids and continue to give the gift of hearing to Rwandans with hearing loss."

http://newtimes.co.rw/index.php?issue=14568&article=39320

"What I have planned, that I will do." Isaiah 46:11

God’s faithfulness amazes me. I am so overwhelmed with how He fulfills His promises that I can’t even begin to describe the awe that I have in me.

For the past 6 weeks since I have been back in Rwanda, I have been sweating and slaving over two rather intense projects (hence my lack of blogging). Working in a developing country is not all joy and smiles and fulfillment all the time….it is extremely hard at times….it is foreign and far from home and there is so much to do and you can’t even run away from it because the need just stares you right in the face. At times I wanted to curl up in a ball and quit because things got so frustrating. I became so overwhelmed with trying to get tasks accomplished that I completely lost sight of why I was doing it in the first place. I allowed myself to get too caught up in the daunting tasks that were before me that I even started doubted that any of it would actually pull through. And then God steps in and slaps me out of it and wakes me back up. He reminds me that He is really in control and doesn’t need me to accomplish His tasks afterall.

One of the projects I have been working on is developing the first US University Test Prep Center in Rwanda. My time teaching at Sonrise High School led to the development of this idea, as we saw how many brilliant, hard-working young Rwandans are pining to go to America to get a great education and then come back to serve their country. I look at them and I feel guilty….because I know that although I embraced my education, I often took my opportunities for granted. I never appreciated what I had in front of me until I saw how badly these students wanted that same opportunity. So, I made it my responsibility to help them get there. This past year, I helped a handful of students take the necessary standardized tests and apply to several US Universities. And then we (my organization, Bridge2Rwanda) started thinking…why aren’t we doing this all over the country? This is a huge need for this country…but no one seems to be stepping up to the plate. So, although we resisted at first, we kept feeling like this was what the Lord wanted us to pursue.

Although it seems as if we have been spinning our wheels for the last 6 weeks, I finally look up today and see what God has done while I have been wasting time fretting about it all. I see that we have recruited several highly qualified international teachers to teach prep classes on SAT, TOEFL, GRE, and GMAT. We have connected with Kaplan Test Prep to potentially partner with us, and it looks as though they are going to provide ALL of the hundreds of books, resources, and curriculum that we have asked for. We have asked for more classroom space from the government, and they have agreed that we can get another entire wing in the same building as our current office. We have started recruiting students and already have a long list of students wanting to sign up the minute we say “go”. And just today, we received a $50,000 check from some incredibly generous donors to build a first-class computer lab/resource center with about 50 terminals. All this in 6 weeks! We hope to launch the program in April….and it sure seems that God is on our side, so I am hopeful that we will actually meet this goal.

Again, it is times like this when I actually see God putting all the pieces together that I wonder how I even have the nerve to worry. God is good and fulfills His promises…and I hate it that I seem to forget this and have to be reminded so often.

Some of the faces hoping for opportunity...

Here I am, where I ought to be.

"I had a farm in Africa…the equator runs across these highlands, and the farm lay at an altitude of over six thousand feet. In the day-time you felt that you had got high up, near to the sun, but the early mornings and evenings were limpid and restful, and the nights were cold.
The geographical position, and the height of the land combined to create a landscape that had not its like in all the world. There was no fat on it and no luxuriance anywhere; it was Africa distilled up through six thousand feet, like the strong and refined essence of a continent. The colors were dry and burnt, like the colors in pottery….The views were immensely wide. Everything that you saw made for greatness and freedom, and unequalled nobility.
The chief feature of the landscape, and of your life in it, was the air. Looking back on a sojourn in the African highlands, you are struck by your feeling of having lived for a time up in the air. The sky was rarely more than pale blue or violet, with a profusion of mighty, weightless, every-changing clouds towering up and sailing on it, but it has a blue vigor in it, and at a short distance it painted the ranges of hills and the woods a fresh deep blue. In the middle of the day the air was alive over the land, like a flame burning… Up in this high air you breathed easily, drawing in a vital assurance and lightness of heart. In the highlands you woke up in the morning and thought: Here I am, where I ought to be."

From the opening pages of Karen Blixen's Out of Africa.

"Dreams are necessary to life..."

I have had the privilege of teaching some of the most incredible young people I have ever met during my first year and a half in Rwanda at Sonrise High School. Inspiration and determination exude from them, and I feel lucky just to be a part of their lives. Although I am not teaching there this year, I am still connected with many of them and can't wait to see what their future holds.

Let me introduce you to one of those special students. Kevis just graduated S6 (12th grade) in November. He was the top student in his senior class and all throughout his upper Secondary career. Kevis is the most disciplined and determined person I have ever come across, as his dream is to become one of the first neurosurgeons in Rwanda. Although he was very respected and loved among students and teachers, he has not had an easy road to get to this point in life. In fact, his whole life has been challenge after challenge. But that is what makes him so special; he has courageously allowed adversity to direct the road for his future.

Only 2 years old when the horrific genocide of 1994 devastated Rwanda, Kevis vividly describes memories and flashbacks of the event. As a small child he sat on his mother’s lap in a Catholic camp where they ran for protection, sure that this religious entity would be a place of refuge for the Tutsi’s who were being brutally murdered all over the country. With other family members at their side, the rebels soon invaded the camp and started leading people out one by one. Kevis and his mother watched as they led his two uncles and close family friend, certain of their fate and sure of what would soon be their own fate. And then a miracle happened: the rebels didn’t come back for them. Something diverted their attention; whatever it was saved Kevis, his mother, and his older brother’s lives. Kevis’ mother spent the next three months on the run, trying to protect her two small children from the violence and calamity that surrounded them. Miraculously, survival won out in the end for all of Kevis’ immediate family. But at an early age Kevis literally stared death in the face, unfairly losing some of his childhood innocence and fatefully learning the injustices of the world.

But just like after any tragedy, life goes on. So his family struggled to keep living, even after the horrors they had witnessed and the many relatives they lost in the genocide. Then life even improved a bit for Kevis. When he was 9 years old, he got accepted to a new school built for orphans and needy children in northern Rwanda. A school where hope, vision, and love were the foundation of the future. A school called Sonrise School, where he would finish out the rest of his Primary education and his entire Secondary career. A school where he would learn lessons about life, discipline, and leadership…all of which would shape his future. But he was not done facing hardships quite yet.

Simply an average student in the 9th grade, Kevis claims that he was more interested in rap music and soccer than excelling in academics. Then one afternoon while he was attending a school assembly, the headmaster called him out to give some dreadful news that would change the course of his life. Kevis’ father had just been murdered. But not just by any random stranger…by his own brother. A family dispute over land caused Kevis’ uncle to snap, murdering his brother with a hammer in his own home. Devastation overwhelmed Kevis as he tried to understand why his uncle would bring such pain to his own family. Kevis represented the family by making a speech and tribute to his father at the funeral just three days later. And then the next week he did the unthinkable….he went to his uncle in prison, and he forgave him. He told him (as quoted by Kevis himself): “You are forgiven, and you are my father now.” Three years later, Kevis still visits his uncle in prison every chance he has and assures him of his forgiveness and redemption. (He has even taken me to visit his uncle in prison, but they will not let the white girl in the Rwandan prison:)

This hardship became a turning point in the life of this 15 year old boy. He watched his father’s life cut short, and determined he would spend the rest of his life becoming what his father dreamed for him to be. Kevis soon became the top scoring student in the class, winning the number one position every year after that. He not only concentrated more on academics, but he determined to build his leadership skills as well. He became known as one of the most well-rounded students in the school, being the best soccer player in the school chosen to play on a national junior team, holding leadership positions throughout various clubs and extracurricular activities, and becoming one of the spiritual mentors for many of his peers.

Soon, he developed his dream of becoming one of the first neurosurgeons in Rwanda. But this dream did not come without hardships either. The inspiration came from his beloved science teacher, who fueled Kevis’ passion for all things science. His teacher unexpectedly found out that he was suffering from a brain aneurysm; two months later it killed him. At this time, there were no neurosurgeons in Rwanda that could even attempt to operate on his teacher. Whether his life could have been saved by medicine, Kevis will never know but always wonder. This ignited his desire to pursue medicine as a career, specifically neurosurgery in dedication to his favorite teacher. He has not let up on this dream since that point. It has become the focus of his entire life. His idol has become the renowned African-American Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon, Ben Carson, who is well known for successfully separating the first Siamese twins. The story of Ben Carson’s life appealed to Kevis, as he also faced many challenges and setbacks but persisted through them. The entire school nicknamed Kevis “Ben Carson” and everyone believes in his ability to reach that dream. More importantly, he believes in himself.

For the past 6 months, I have been helping Kevis to apply to some of the top schools in the US. God brought him two angels named Keith and Teresa Devine, who visited Sonrise last year from America and gained inspiration from the dreams of Kevis. They determined to help Kevis apply to several great Universities in the US in order to reach his goals. Although it has not been an easy road the past few months, he has kept persisting. We have spent countless hours on SAT and TOEFL prep, writing and editing college essays, and gathering all the necessary but tedious documents for the applications. We are waiting to hear back about admittance to the colleges, but Kevis knows that God is in control and has a divine plan for his future…just like he has always been in control.

This student continues to inspire me with his determination and dedication to fulfill his dreams. As we get older, we often realize that sometimes life gets in the way and dreams don’t always come to fruition just like we had hoped….but there is something about having a dream to begin with. Although the specifics of our dreams may change over time, Kevis has gently reminded me of the wonder and beauty of simply having a dream to chase after.

"When one door of happiness closes, another opens" Helen Keller

“So what DO you do, again?” I get this question a lot. I have been on a major blogging lapse since I was home for the holidays, so this is my attempt to appease everyone and start a fresh new year of blogging. And explain to you exactly what I am doing here in Rwanda.

I moved to Rwanda in August 2009 with a year commitment to teach at Sonrise Secondary School in a small town in Northern Rwanda. I fell in love with the country and the people, and my year quickly turned into adding another 6 months, and now another year. So for the past year and a half, I have been teaching English to high school students and developing a college prep course at the school. I became very focused on teaching TOEFL (a standardized test of English proficiency) and SAT prep for students who were interested in applying to college in the US. I also did a multitude of other things at the school, including raising money to buy furniture and build science labs, forming a book club and writing club, counseling with students, etc, etc. My time was spent on loving my students and building relationships, as well as helping them to improve their English and reach their full potential. It was incredibly rewarding and so much of why I fell in love with Rwanda in the first place.

My Senior Class students at Sonrise

The teachers from Sonrise at my house...all my good friends!

Last summer, doors were also opened for me to begin practicing my real profession in Rwanda….speech pathology with an emphasis on hearing impairment. So, I walked through that open door and became the first practicing speech therapist in Rwanda at King Faisal Hospital in Kigali. I only worked one day a week because I was still teaching almost full-time at the school, but quickly built a caseload of children and adults, especially those with hearing loss. It has also been incredibly rewarding to be able to offer a service that the country has never had before. It is amazing to see the how my exact training and experience is just what the hospital needed, and it has been so fun to help set up a Speech Pathology program within the ENT Department with specialized services for children with hearing loss.

Two of my precious patients with hearing loss from King Faisal Hospital.

So….doors continued to be opened and I have continued to walk through them as the Lord has led me. I spent the first year and a half living the majority of my time in a rural Africa where I was one of the only white people in town and every passerby knew my name, where I shopped in one tiny supermarket and ate at the same three restaurants, and where I frequently stared out at the serene and quiet mountains and volcanoes that surrounded my house. But this year will be a little different. New doors have opened, and my African experience is changing. I am now living in the capital city, Kigali, where the bright city lights dot the rolling hills, the choice of restaurants and shopping actually take some thought, noise and traffic are common acquaintances, and the expatriate community is so big I can’t possibly keep up with everyone’s name and story. I will miss the quiet, peaceful life I had in Musanze and will especially miss my students at Sonrise, but I also feel like all of my passions are coinciding to lead me to this next phase of life in Rwanda.
This year, I have taken an administrative role with Bridge2Rwanda, the organization which brought me here in the first place. My official title is “Program Director”, which encompasses a lot:) All my experiences in Rwanda and in the US have led me to this point, and it is a position where I can make an impact in many sectors of the country. Here are some of the programs that I will be coordinating this year:

College Prep Program: Bridge2Rwanda has decided to duplicate what I started at Sonrise and form a US College Prep program to serve students in the Kigali area. We are in the process of developing a program that will train bright young Rwandans how to take the SAT and TOEFL tests, as well as offering intensive college application counseling. We are in the beginning phases, but hope to have the program up and running by April. I am excited that I will still be able to teach and invest in young Rwandan high school students through this program.

Hearing Aid Project: This project fell into my lap last year, and I am thrilled to be a part of it. I am coordinating a project with Starkey Hearing Foundation to bring the first hearing aids to Rwanda. The hearing aid event will happen in March, and I am responsible for coordinating with various hospitals, schools, and organizations around the country to find the individuals with hearing loss who need hearing aids. We are hoping to set up a hearing aid repair/distribution center after the big event to sustain the program.

Borrowed Talent Program: I will be managing Bridge2Rwanda’s Borrowed Talent program, which is where we recruit professionals from the US to serve in some capacity in Rwanda. We currently have teachers, lawyers, medical professionals, photographers, pastors, etc. serving all over Rwanda. I will help to recruit new talent in Rwanda, as well as manage the talent already here.

Healthcare Initiatives: Bridge2Rwanda has also started to increase our collaboration with the healthcare sector in Rwanda. We are starting to recruit physicians and medical professionals from the US to come to serve in Rwanda, either for short-term or long-term medical and surgical missions. I will be the liaison between the physicians in the US and the medical institutions in Rwanda, helping to find opportunities to best use their skills.

And many other programs that I’m sure will arise in the next year! I will also still be working as a Speech Pathologist at King Faisal Hospital part-time and trying to help them establish a hearing clinic.
As I look at this list, I have to admit I am completely overwhelmed. Each of these projects could easily be a full-time job. However, I know the Lord has led me to this position and will give me the ability to meet the needs of each program. I also know that I will humbly have to rely on him daily to accomplish what I hope to accomplish….I certainly cannot do this on my own. As I start this year, I am amazed at how the Lord works to bring you just where you need to be. I am thrilled to be working where all of my passions and talents align in one place. And I hope that you will join me in this year of new adventures and new experiences…