Dear Family and Friends,
One week from today (June 23) will be Shelly’s and my 25th wedding anniversary! It hardly seems possible that we have been married that long. Marrying Shelly is by far the smartest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I am so blessed that God brought us together. Yes, I am missing her just in case you can’t tell. ???
Simon, the boys, and I just got back from delivering our 200 pound pineapple press to the Nazarene Church in Gahinga. Gahinga is 2.5 hours south of Gisenyi on one of the thousands of hills overlooking Lake Kivu. Jimmie and I thought that the perfect place for a house is right where the outhouse is located. We’d want to move the outhouse first, of course. I wish we had more time just to sit and drink in the beauty of the area with the hills, banana trees and breathtaking lake view.
After eighteen months of waiting, we finally delivered Gahinga’s pineapple press. Simon and I had the first drink. Wow! It was amazing! Jimmie and Chuck said that carrying the 20 pound grinding wheel all over London’s Heathrow airport was worth the effort after they saw the people’s excitement and drank the juice. We took lots of pictures and recorded the event on video. Two government officials from the district were there. One is the head of the agricultural department and the other is in charge of community development. Gahinga’s pineapple press is the first one in their district of 500,000+ people. The officials were really excited at the new possibilities for the entire community that the press brings.
The pastor of the Gahinga Church told us that the people in his church like to work. He says that if someone comes to their church and is lazy they don’t stick around the church very long, because the people in the Gahinga Nazarene Church like to work. And there’s lots of work to do to support the 122 orphans that they currently support with school fees, food, and clothes.
The Golden Church and friends bought six goats and one sheep for the church a little over a year ago. Now there are fifteen. Then there are the hundreds of coffee plants that are just about ready to bear their first crop after more than two years. There are thousands of hills of cassava roots. There are vast quantities of lush, tall green grass for the goats and sheep to eat. The Gahinga Church is hoping that one day they can have a milking cow that can help eat the grass down and give milk to the area’s malnourished children (such cows cost about $800 in Rwanda). And then there are the 12,000+ pineapple plants. We cut up six pineapples today and they made a little over a gallon of juice in just a few minutes. It was the most refreshingly sweet juice I’ve ever drank in my life!
Simon’s truck stopped without warning about 30 minutes away from his house just as the dirt road changed into blacktop. We were able to push the truck about 100 feet to the crest of a hill and then coasted downhill for several kilometers. Thankfully, we did not get stranded all the way in Gahinga. The boys are definitely adjusting well to African life as they didn’t blink twice about getting stranded. Apparently they had expected that we would get stranded somewhere long before today and were surprised that it hadn’t happened sooner. We waited about an hour, laughing and joking about the large group of lookers on we attracted, until some of the guys from the Gisenyi Church came to get Simon’s truck going again. It was a long, but great day!
Love and prayers,
Joe, Jimmie, and Chuck