Friday June 11th

3 weeks in

This has been a good week. I feel like the weeks are starting to fly. The library at the Center is starting to take off. I was told earlier this week that we will be receiving 1400 books which 400 more than we originally had thought. This week I have spent time planning for the First Pres. student mission team’s trip out here in July. One of the projects we are going to try and accomplish while they are here is getting the outside basketball court re-painted. So I spent a day research paint costs and measuring out the court. One day I got to go to the market in Rwamagana which was super fun and crazy. Everybody wanted us to buy stuff from them. I have connected quickly with a few of the students which has been fun. I have had some good conversation with one young guy about being a Christian. He wants to live for Jesus but because of his life here in Rwanda he says it is hard for him to fully follow Jesus because he is always sinning and doesn’t know how to stop. Does that make sense? He is a very bright kid and very talented and it is students like that that give me hope for this world and this country.

Wednesday the students had a soccer game against another school. It was fun to go watch them play and I was invited to start coming to practices so I think I am going to start doing that on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday now that I know the schedule. The game was suppose to start at 3:15 but it started closer to 4:30 and I keep asking one of the staff member why the game hadn’t started yet and he said we are in Africa and smiled. T.I.A (This Is Africa) I keep having lots of those experiences. I bought my first ticket book on Wednesday which means I pay a cheaper fare now to ride the taxi so I am pretty excited about that. The taxi rides are still one of my favorite parts of the day. I meet a lot of people and get a couple hours a day of good prayer and time for reflection. I also had my first time riding on a motor cycle taxi on Thursday. I was running late and was meeting people in 5 min and it was still a 20 min. walk. So I flagged down a bike and it was pretty fun. I am not sure how many times I am going to jump on one of those. I also found out this week that I might go visit Uganda for a couple of days so I am pretty excited about that.

Today I took the day off to rest and watch the first game of the World Cup with Jean and Sam who is our guard/yard guy who I like a lot. Anyways that’s all I have for at this time. I am going to try and get this updated every couple of days. Hope everyone is well.

Prayer request: Prayer for leadership in this country

Prayer for the elections coming up

Prayer for the FPCB high school team as they prepare to come

Prayer for AEE

Prayer for me well I still miss home even though I have having some fun time. I miss the people that I love at home.

In Him,

Mark Grayson