The world lost a great man….
David Zopoula
David passed away in a car crash on March 7/ 2009 in Burkina Faso. He will be missed by all who knew him
Although we were only gone for only a few weeks we had a very busy schedule bouncing from cities, villages and countries trying to complete all the goals of our intended mission. In summery I belive we had a sucsesful journey without running into any sickness or major problems. This is a large blessing considering the proximity to danger we encountered in a few areas.
I often struggle coming home after experiencing such a powerful journey. After seeing so much desperation and so much need, and then coming home to this great country that has been blessed with every possible resource. I am beginning to see things in a different light after this trip. A light that does not speak to the conventional clichés of “Rich and Poor.” Instead I am coming home with the pain of the Genocide on my heart. With the distance cry of small children of a refugee camp which is home to hundreds of thousands of hungry people. I come home with the faces of children orphaned by war and widows losing their innocent husband to political hatred. Still I drive the streets of this beautiful Canadian country that I call home and that is where I find the most struggle.
I see generation of young people desperate for purpose and meaning. I see a lack of community and direction. I come back eager to share with my friends and family the hard ships of these wonderful people that are a world away from us. I can not relay this heart felt message because everyone here is in just as much need. This time I come back to the third world country. I come back to a unmotivated, unfocused, spiritually lost country that has access to every possible resource they would need. No one wants to hear about these things over seas because they have their own problems.
Well Africa does have its own share of political, physical and environmental problems. They deal with these issues on day to day basis, not as an individual. Not as a family. But as a community, as a body of people that are aware of their suffering and have come together in hopes of making a better life for not only themselves but their fellow man. One thing that sticks with me is the saying I was told “you are an Africans friend until proven otherwise.”
How long will we sit in our homes on top of countless amounts of opportunity in our potential, in our hopes and dreams in our children and in our venerability. In my opinion all it will take is people to understand and recognize that we are in need and we simply do need to come together. We can also all be friends until proven otherwise. And that our community of family and friends does not need to end within our cities, or within our country. It can carry across all corners of the world. And I can attest there is more then enough need in our dying world, the question is simply when will we wake ourselves up and come together as life has called us to do.
We are back in Rwanda until monday where we will fly out to Kenya for a few days. Here are a few photos from the places we visited and people we met.
We met a guy working as a journalist for the Washington Post at our hotel. He was saying that he had several Nikon 300’s stolen from him at gun point when they were taking photos in Goma. So we are very happy to not have run into any problems!!
Yesterday we visited the refugee camp just outside of Goma. No photo, no words, no film can describe the level of dispair we experinced. It has to be smelt, seen, felt and heard to begin to understand the concentration of hopelessness in this place. It is enough to bring the hardest of hearts to its knees in tears. We all stood speachless as children began to gather are stare through us. No words were exchanged just blank looks. Our guide eventually walked us through the area. Large speakers echoed the voice of a political leader telling the people it was now safe to return to their homes. After the arrest of the rebel leader it seems people are trying to get back to life.
In the distance of the camp there is a volcano with smoke pouring out the top of it. When we toured the schools in the city we had to drive over cooled lava rocks from an eruption that happened in 2001. The city was destroyed and they are now rebuilding onto of the lava rocks. Even the floors of the schools are these hardball sized rocks.
Today we gave out the food to families. Again this expeince is very difficult to place into words. It was extremly joyful yet had an overshadowing amount of dispair. We had to select familuies who were in the most need and mee them in a church 15km away to give them the dry food. If we would have drove into the camp and begun distributing food we would have been trampled and killed. The good news is that it went well.
We will leave monday moring back to Rwanda to give the Bridges of Hope seminar. Other than that and my lack of clean underwear and new liking to goat meat there is not allot else new.
-Shawn ard
We have arrived in the DR Congo to the city of Goma just on the boarder with Rwanda. There was an instant atmosphere change upon the initial steps into the country. We did not need to hear guns shots to know we are in an area in the midsts of war. The tension you can feel is more than enough clarification of the curcumstances.
We have been given some peace of mind from locals that Goma is safe. The renegade general Laurent Nkunda was arrested on January 22. He was the leader of the rebels so without his presence the fighting has backed off. I still get some chills knowing that now that the rebels have come out of the bush they are being relocated to there base in Goma. We have driven by several caravans full of rebels. I am not able to photograph them because Tamota, our guide, warned us of high theft and crime. So we just drove straight to our hotel. The place we are staying in is safe, secure and nice. There is a bylaw that two people of the same sex are not aloud to stay in the same room. You can only share a room if you are a married man and woman.
I outlined some details about the war but on the other side it is very encouraging to see organizations like UNICEF and World Vision almost every where we look. Tomorrow we are off to the orphanige. Our friends Daviede and Diessongo from Burkina Faso arrived yesterday and we will work together for a week or so.
I will try and add some more photos when time alows. Thats all for now
PSplease forgive my spelling but the french spell check does not help anyone and spelling is amoung my weakness
Old Shawn ard
The Internet is very slow so I will try to upload as many photos as I can so bare with me. We have been told that Rwanda is the land of 1000 hills. I must say it is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen in my life. It is like a real life Jurassic park! We stopped to take this photo on the journey from the capital to northern Rwanda. We are now in a hotel in the city of Ruhengeri. Just outside our window is a large volcano where rare gorillas live. We want to go see them because they will pet you, but it costs $500 USD!! So not in the budget! Tomorrow we will be traveling to DR Congo in the morning to the city of Goma. We will spend 3 days there giving the Bridges of Hope sponsorship training seminar and doing some film and photography work.
It is so gradual that we can hardly notice a change. We are in the midst of it. Social norms & idealistic cultural beliefs have us continually summered in a mindset & life style that conforms to the masses. Often it seems that only through devoted personal awareness & consciousness of ones own heart felt beliefs can we turn direction. We begin to walk towards a broader view & understanding of life from the heart not from the head.
So what happens when you journey across the world into a country that has been ravished by war? To place a foot on soil that has witnessed first hand the real life effects of a genocide? Well you no longer must fight for your awareness, or fight to see life in the beauty that it was created to be. Your entire world stops and you are slapped in the face. I know at the very least it would make anyone fight to seek the depths and beauty for why we have been created to live this life together.
In the midsts of this reflection I pray that you passionately pursue what is lying in the depths of your heart, and unveil the fullness of your God given potential.
-Shawn’ard
We had a 7 hour layover in London so we decided to hop on the subway and see some sights. We were able to see Big Ben and the Queens pad, although we were running on zero sleep in nearly 19 hours.
That was not the end to say the least. We ended up making it to Rwanda on nearly 34 hours without sleep. We are staying in the capital of Rwanda, Kigila. It is a very green country with amazing hills everywhere you look. It is also allot more developed then I thought. Anyway just a quick update that we made it and are safe.
Old Shawn’ard
I fly out from Calgary tomorrow (January 28th) I am not sure if we will have access to the internet in either Rwanda or Congo but I will do my best to keep posting BLOG’s and possibly photos of our travels.
