Baptisms in Rwanda

Happy Valentine's Day! We had a great one here in Kigali. We had two baptisms! The baptisms were scheduled for 1:00pm at Lake Muhazi. It is about an hour drive from Kigali. We planned to leave at noon so we told everyone to be there at 11:30am :) Aline and Odette, a mother and daughter who are investigating the church, needed a ride and they live near us. I told them to be ready at 11am. Seth was like, "why do we have to leave so early?" I told him it was so we would be on time. An hour?! he says. Well we loaded up the car with a big garbage bag full of baptismal clothes, one set was given to us by the mission president and we bought another set when we were home this past summer. We had another bag full of towels and we had a basket with six dozen muffins I had made the day before.

We got to Aline's and Rodrig was the only one there to meet us. He climbed in and we headed down the dirt road to their little cement house. When we got there everyone was running around getting ready. Aline and four kids hop in, but no Odette. Aline tells me in the little English she knows that Odette is at a marriage. So she guides us to pick up Odette. We travel to a mutatu (local for bus) stop and there is Odette and Shaka, one of her children. They pile in and we are finally on our way at 11:20am. That, Seth, is why we had to set out an hour early. We arrived at the Rumanika's where we were meeting at about 11:40am. The only ones there were three young men who are street boys who Johny has started bringing. Last activity they got left because they were too late. They were on time today! Everyone rolled in and we got the mutatu we had rented, our Land Cruiser, our Land Rover Discovery, Fabian's Toyota, and one other vehicle which John Roller, a member visiting from Virginia had loaded to the gills and we rolled out about ten minutes past noon. There were 47 of us total. The Samuel family met us there so we had 50 people total at the baptism.

We drove on paved roads until we got out of the city and then they started to be full of pothole we had to slalom through. After about 30 minutes we turned on to a dirt road that was rutted and full of puddles. We passed over three bridges that looked like they were made out of pallets laid over the creek. We arrived at 1:00pm at the Gurasaba Guest house on Lake Muhazi. Eric and Jean Maire Rumanika (that is a man's name) had gone on Friday and reserved the bungalow near the lake for changing and the bowery for the program and refreshments. Rogers was baptized first by Joshua Opar, he is from Kenya and is married to a Rwandan. Eric baptized Innocent, who is Jean Marie's nephew. It was so beautiful. While the men changed we went up to the bowery and sang hymns. We didn't have any accompaniment so we had to sing A' Capella so I had to lead. By the fourth song, I was hoarse! Eric says he could hear us as they were changing. When we sang "I Am A Child of God" he could here the local children down by the lake humming along. There seems to be something about that song that every spirit recognizes. After the men returned, we had a talk on the Holy Ghost and closed the meeting, they were confirmed Sunday in church. The Spirit was so strong there as well. After the baptism we had to have refreshments, of course. I had made six dozen muffins and there was soda at the guest house. Some of the people went for canoe rides after. Everyone had a great time. There was the Spirit, food, and fun. It looks like we will have eight baptisms next month to celebrate our branch's one year anniversary.