Center for Champions
was opened in 2008 by African Evangelical Enterprise, the NGO I did my project
on. AEE is very focused on both
evangelism and community development and empowerment, and they were reaching
out to street kids through those programs.
They were caring for their immediate needs and sharing the gospel with
them, and many kids were coming to Christ through that. But even with knowing Christ, the kids still
had to lie, cheat, and steal in order to get by, and both the kids and AEE
clearly saw the problem there. Out of
that came the Center for Champions. The
center runs two major programs. The
first is for boarding students, who are between the ages of 13-25. These students, currently 51 (48 male, 3
female), live at the center and attend secondary school in the community during
the day. The other program is the
catch-up program. This is 6 years of
primary school condensed into 3 and is attended by vulnerable students in the
community, between the ages of 12-25.
There are currently four classes, catch up 1, 2a, 2b, and 3, and each
class has between 20-35 students. The
center has a library, art room, dorm building, classrooms,
volleyball/basketball court, indoor multipurpose room used for chapel and
sports, cafeteria, and a new soccer field which is almost ready to be used!
So, we showed up on
Sunday at our compound. It’s absolutely
beautiful- so green and garden-y! We settled in our rooms and headed over to
the center, where they were hosting a choir concert for local schools. We got to introduce ourselves, and they were
super welcoming- two boys came over right away and volunteered to translate for
us. One choir came up and sang “Soon and
very soon we are going to see the King,” which I have distinct memories of
singing in my home church, and then a song in Kinyarwanda, and then said that
since there were visitors who didn’t speak their language, they would sing one
in English, which was incredibly touching.
They sang a beautiful song about going to the river to meet with Jesus
and surrendering to Him there as He cleansed you. At risk of being cliché, it brought tears to
my eyes.
Monday we got a tour of
Rwamagana from Carrie, the director of the Center, which is an adorable little
town. We saw the market, supermarkets
where we can get water and cookies, Carrie’s house where we have bible study,
and other landmarks. Then we talked
about what our weeks would look like and got more acquainted with the
Center. Even though my job title is
technically the Evangelism Intern, I let Carrie know that I’m study Elementary
Education, and she’s changed my job to focus on getting the library organized
and up and running, and other classroom based things which are yet to
come. I absolutely love time spent
working on the library- I could be in there all day organizing and
sorting. They boys are really excited
that it’s finally coming together, because I guess it’s been a two year
project, but hopefully we’ll be able to finish the work of countless other
people and interns this coming month! We
also got to meet Jonas and Jonathan, two interns from Germany who are taking a
gap year before college and will be at the Center for a year.
The rest of Monday to Friday
is all a big blur, and it’s crazy to think that our first week is already
over. Here’s what a typical weekday
looks like for us:
8- Breakfast
8:30- Report to Center
for Devotions with Carrie
9-10- Work on projects
(ex: library)
10-10:30- Recess with
the catch-up kids
10:30-12:20- More
project time
12:20-1- COCA with
catch up kids (Co-Curricular Education time- Gym class)
1-2:30- Lunch back at
guest house
2:30-3:30- More project
time
3:30-5:30- Sports time
with boarding kids (volleyball, basketball, soccer, etc.)
6- Dinner
Off to bed!
Both the Catch-up kids
and the boarders are awesome kids. There
is a definite language barrier with most of the kids, but we’re really learning
how to communicate with gestures and motions, and are slowly learning more
Kinyarwanda. The students LOVE teaching
us Kinyarwanda, and some of them speak fairly decent English, so we’re working
on our communication skills. Some memorable
moments from the week:
1- I FINALLY GOT TO PET
A BABY GOAT. If you didn’t know, my goal
ever since coming to Africa was to pet a goat.
They’re everywhere, and they’re so precious. Thankfully, there is a woman who lives across
the street from our guest house who has 5 baby goats and a ton of adult
goats. We’ve made friends with her and
visit often to hold her baby goats. We
say our 5 words of Kinyarwanda we know, and she grabs the baby goats by the leg
and puts them in our arms. So wonderful
and SO adorable.
2- The first catch-up
class a girl came up to me and started talking to me in English during our dodge
ball game. She asked me what my name
was, how old I was, and my favorite food.
She was twelve and loved bananas, and then helped me carry the bag of dodge
balls back up from the multipurpose room. Precious. Unfortunately I forget her
name… so many to learn…
3- Playing sports with
the boys in the afternoons. They love
the challenge of us trying to steal the basketballs from them as they’re
dribbling, and it’s just a ton of fun to play sports with them. We got to play some good volleyball, which I’ve
missed so much, and just spend time together getting to know each other. The guys are great- they’re really sweet and
are a ton of fun to hang out with. It’s tough
not knowing what their saying most of the time, but we’re pretty used to it by
now.
4-Kids! Whenever we
walk down dirt roads, we’re greeted by tons of kids saying MUZUNGU! and running
towards us with open arms and giving our legs hugs. They’re so precious and adorable, and often
there are one or two not wearing pants, which is sad but adorable at the same
time. They’re so cute and always make
you feel loved.
5- Friday! Friday was a teacher's holiday, so there was no school for the boarding students or catch up kids, so we headed
over to watch some of the boarders play in a friendly soccer match. A ton of catch-up kids were there, who we got
to hang out with. The other day at
chapel they had sang “Our God is an awesome God” in Kinyarwanda, and we sang
along in English and did motions. After playing
Frisbee and teaching them funny games, I was with a bunch of young teenage
girls who were teaching me a bunch of Kinyarwanda words and wanted to teach me
the song in Kinyarwanda and have me teach it to them in English. We probably sang the song like 20 times, and
ended up sitting under a tree while I taught them the song in English and they
played with my hair. Then they taught me
a bunch of handshakes and just said things to me that I didn’t really
understand while we laughed and laughed. Such a good day. Except that I got my
first African sunburn, ouchhh.
6- Church this morning
at the Center. Hallelujah, AMEN! Some of
the most genuine worship I’ve seen in a while and it sounded dang good
too. They boarding students’ choir sang “Our
God is an Awesome God” in English and Kinyarwanda, which seems to be a theme of
this week. And He sure is. Madi took a
recording of a lot of the singing, which I’m so excited to share with people
when I return home.
Well, I know this post
is insanely long, but I wanted to be sure that I wrote stuff down for my own
memory and also to give everyone more details about my life now that I have
them. Hope everyone is doing well, I
think of you all often. Sending my love
from Africa!
Now for pictures! (Thanks to Aleaha for all the pictures besides the first one and the two of the library, which are mine) (ps, I just found out that if you click on the picture in the blog you can slideshow through all of them bigger! Just thought I'd share my nugget of wisdom.)
 |
| A bit of our new compound! |
 |
| My first goat petting! Yusss. |
 |
| I'm so good with teenagers. hahah this one made me laugh so I put it up. I swear I was having an awesome time, not at all feeling the way I look in this picture. |
 |
| My life here. Catch-up kids teaching me a handshake. |
 |
| Me and one of the catch-up kids I hung out with on Friday. |
 |
| Before shots of the library- textbooks. |
 |
| The left wall, and some of the back wall. |
 |
| The back wall. |
 |
| Right wall. |
 |
| Holding a goat. Another momentous day. |
 |
| Standing on the basketball court at the center |
No comments:
Post a Comment