Good-bye Rwanda - Hello Colorado

I've been back home in Colorado for two weeks now. It has been so great to see my friends and family again. So far I haven't experienced very much reverse culture shock, but I just read it usually doesn't set in for a couple of weeks after returning home. I will keep you updated on how and when the reverse culture shock affects me.

My time in Rwanda was very challenging in many ways. After my team went home in March, I struggled with loneliness and homesickness. The ministry time was good, but going back home in the afternoons I was often lonely and I found myself longing for friends and a social life outside my housemates.

A few weeks before returning home, I met Ruthie and her husband, Craig, a wonderful couple from Canada. Ruthie and I had many great conversations and adventures in Kigali. Here is a pic of Ruthie, Immaculee (my housemate and friend) and I after we went for a little pampering of manicures and pedicures. :)

My sister came to visit my final week in Rwanda. She and I had a great time hanging out. I loved taking her around to see what my life had been for the previous 4 months. We stayed up late each night talking and catching up on the nearly 9 months since I had seen her.

Here are some pictures from the final week I was in Rwanda. My sister and I chipped in (with some support from Community Church of Gunnison) to take my photography students on a safari - quite possibly the only one they will every go on.

Here is our class on the safari and also at their graduation celebration at our house the week I went home. The pictures on the wall are the students' work (my sister brought over a printer and frames for the ministry so we could display our students' peices)


This is Emanwel from the Mango Tree Church in Kanombe.

A couple days before I left, my housemates, my sister and I took a huge load of clothes out to a church in a village just outside the city. The people we so blessed and excited to receive this gift of clothing (thanks DTS students for leaving things behind so we could pass them on to others in need and thanks to my sister to bringing donations from family and friends back at home)!