Update: Christmas Break 2009

So for those of you who might want to hear what has been going on, and not just my theological reflections on random topics, the time has come to say what I’ve been up the last several months. This December break I stayed in Africa, and after a church retreat with Nairobi Chapel, I went traveling around East Africa. I took the bus from Nairobi through Kampala all the way to Kigali, Rwanda (a 27 hour ride). I visited my friend Hillary, who had been in Kigali for a few months working with an NGO. We toured Kigali and saw the genocide museum and the hotel of movie fame. I was really impressed that the city is so clean and orderly (it felt more like being in Japan than in Africa). There is no trash on the streets, all the boda-boda (motorcycle taxis) drives wore helmets and carried one of their passengers, and its illegal to sell things by the side of the road. Then we went up to Gisenyi and stayed there for a few days, went swimming in Lake Kivu and I met up with another friend, Jean Bosco. He is from Rwanda and had graduated from NEGST. I preached at his church there and we stayed with his pastor, and then returned to Kigali.

If you've seen the movie Hotel Rwanda, this is the real hotel. I was really surprised to find it is right in the middle of the city, very exposed.
Rwanda is a really beautiful, green, hilly country.
This is at the genocide museum.
I'm not positive it was this one, but there was a volcano that erupted near this area a few weeks later.

From there I went to Uganda to visit my friend Dennis. We spent a week touring Kampala, went to the Martyr's Shrine, visited a museum, saw the source of the Nile, went swimming in Lake Victoria, and ate a lot of food. It was a good time.

In Kenya we call them matatus, but in Uganda they are called taxis.
By the source of the Nile.
The Ugandan Martyr's Shrine.
We went to a museum that had huts from various tribes.