This blog is only a little late coming, but you have to start somewhere right? As most of you probably know, Katie and I moved to Rwanda last June. Being an engineer who loves bullet points here is the Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How of our move.
Who - Me, Katie, and our big goofy doodle Bella. Our family has grown since being here...We currently have 6 laying hens and a rooster. We also live with a Rwandan family Jackson and Pitori with their two children Peace and Esther and their Rwandan dog Foxy.
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| Left to Right: Pitori, Peace, and Jackson (Esther in utero) |
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| Bella with her best friend and wrestling partner Foxy |
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| CHICKENS!!! |
What - What are we doing? Well a lot. I work as an engineer and Katie works as a graphic designer and young girl entrepreneur mentor person for Jibu.
Jibu is a franchiser of small local businesses that purify, bottle, and sell affordably priced drinking water.
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| Me teaching an operators class in Uganda. |
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| Typical Jibu store front. |
I know you are probably asking...What? You sell the water? I thought you were trying to help people not profit from them! Well, experience and research says that giving away free stuff isn't the best approach to development. Giving away stuff does have a place in aid (think disaster relief), but what Jibu is doing is development. Not only are people getting fair priced (60% of the closest competition) drinking water, but we are also creating jobs for local people (nearly 150 as of January).
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| Launching our first Jibu store in Kenya. |
Apart from our day jobs, Katie started fermenting things; beet kvass, sour kraut, ginger ale, sparkling hibiscus cider, pineapple cider vinegar...pretty much anything that will ferment. She has also been painting and doing some craftsy type stuff to make our house feel like a home. And learning how to make tasty things from the new produce and food options available here.
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| Left to Right: Pineapple Cider Vinegar, Beet Kvass, Hibiscus Cider, Ginger Ale |
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| Katie's wall of painting |
I have taken up hand tool woodworking as a hobby. Hand tool meaning, no power tools. Its a lot of fun and a decent work out as well. Occasionally, I play ultimate frisbee, rock climb, and slackline.
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| Peace in the high chair I made for her. |
When - Well, we moved out of our house in Colorado last May and arrived in Rwanda at the beginning of June.
Where - We live in Kigali, Rwanda. Rwanda is in east Africa and is about the size of Vermont. You probably envision us living somewhere like this?
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| Photo of a random village taken while out for a cruise on the motorcycle. |
But what Kigali really looks like it this.
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| Kigali skyline |
Granted, its not uncommon to see something like this on a daily basis.
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| There are two women somewhere under those stacks of brush. |
Why - Ultimately we are here because God has called us here. Neither Katie nor I had any desire to move to Africa. But we were open to listening to where God would have us go and serve and this is where he brought us.
Since we have been here, the Lord has shown us why we are here is very tangible ways. In later blog posts I think we will share the details about some of the lives that we have been able to see God working in.
How - On a plane of course...and a hilariously large dog crate for Bella. No seriously, lots of people ask how we came to the decision to move to Africa. Well, I can say that it definitely was not an easy decision to come to. We left parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, a very stable job, a great house, awesome friends (many with new little babies), an awesome church, comfort, comfort food, good beer, cheap booze, parks, vitamin cottage, and everything familiar.
But if we really believe the verse at the top of this blog, then we must obey Jesus' command to deny ourselves of the life we would choose. Only then will we find the greater joy of the life that the Lord would choose for us.
