Upcoming Soccer Tournament

The reason I’m in Kigali right now is to do the required internship for my Master’s degree and to do research for my thesis. If I’m honest, though, writing my thesis is about the least important thing in the world to me, but they tell me I can’t graduate without it. Too bad.

This is why I decided to pick a topic where at least I’ll get a lot of work experience and also get to do some really fun stuff in the process. To keep it short, I’ll be writing about the role that sports play in the lives of street kids. In pretty much every country of the world except the US, the word “sports” can almost always be substituted with “soccer*” with a more-than-decent amount of accuracy, so this means I get to watch and even play a lot of soccer and honestly call it work. Yesssss.

Part of the work I have been doing in Kigali so far has been going with Pastor Augustine to meet the street boys in various parts of town to get them ready for a soccer tournament we’re going to be having the last week in April. We have six teams put together already, and we should have our last two teams put together by the end of the week.

Some of these guys are guys that Pastor Augustine already knew from the street work that he and a few others at church have been doing for years, but some of the guys are new. Soccer is a great, non-threatening way to make contacts and build relationships, and by the end of this tournament, no fewer than 120 street boys will at least have contact with multiple members of the Kingdom Fellowship Church and its ministry.

Pastor Augustine, the rest of the church and I are all really excited for this tournament, and I know the guys are even more excited. All the teams we have so far have started practicing at least two times a week to get ready. We want to put on a quality tournament for them to match the enthusiasm they are showing.

This is where I need your help.

The church leadership team and I sat down yesterday afternoon to draw up a budget of how much everything is going to cost. The budget would pay for:
-26 practice jerseys, to be used in the tournament and then kept for further use by the ministry afterwards;
-transportation and lunch for eight volunteers for the three tournament days;
-drinks and food for 140 people (120 players + 20 staff, extra players, etc.) after the final game;
-refreshments for a meeting with local government leaders after the final game (to discuss potential future support, funding, etc.);
-prize money for the top three teams (roughly $20, $40 and $60).

The total cost will be around $350 (€280).

This does not include First Aid equipment, a tournament trophy, and extra balls, all to be kept after the tournament by the ministry for future use. These items are being brought over by Amy’s parents (thanks, Bill and Barb!) when they come to visit at the beginning of April because it’s cheaper to buy them in the States. However, they have not been purchased yet, and a little help would be greatly appreciated.

If you are interested in helping out in some way (or know of someone who would be), please let me know! You can leave a message here at the bottom of the blog (not with other people’s contact info, please!), Facebook me, or send a good, old-fashioned e-mail to chelsea_diane617(at)yahoo.com. I don’t have internet access every day, but I’ll definitely get back to you as soon as I can. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask!

If more than $350 should come in, the extra money will be given to the street kids ministry of the Kingdom Fellowship Church for future use.

Even if you can’t give monetarily, please pray that God would bless the next six weeks. Pray that they boys stay injury-free. Pray that those boys who are ready to get back on their feet, to their families, and/or into school would be (and feel!) supported enough to do so. Pray that all of us directly involved would serve out of love, and that the boys would recognize the source of that love.

Thanks in advance. :)



*Actually it gets substituted with the word “football,” but we genius Americans decided to give that name to a sport played almost exclusively with the hands, so for clarity’s sake, I’ve chosen to use the other word here.

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And some pictures...

These are the boys from the bus station in Nyabugogo. We have to walk about 2km from there to get to the field.
Of course they're always tired after they're done playing so I've been buying food for them. Bananas are always pretty easy to find.

These are the boys from the market in Kimironko. They practice on a dirt field right in front of the big soccer stadium.

The boys resting in the shade after practice. On the far left in the blue shirt is Pastor Augustine. The woman standing on the right is Mary, another church member. (You can see the soccer stadium in the background.)

Good night, sleep tight...

...and for goodness sake, DON'T LET THE BED BUGS BITE!!!!

Or else.

My sheets are now washed and my mattress is chillin' outside in the sun being de-bugged. (Neat trick, eh?) On the up side, being scared of my own bed made it pretty easy to get up at 5:45am to go running.

The Kimisagara Kids

That's what I call them, anyway. Kimisagara is the part of Kigali where they live.

This is the children’s home I work at three evenings a week. I go in the evenings because these kids actually go to school every day. The home was started by a man named Antoine, who used to be a street child himself. While he was still on the streets a man offered him a job and a chance to get away from the streets, so now he wants to do the same thing for other kids. He doesn’t speak any English so communication is virtually impossible without a translator, but it is obvious that he is well-loved. All of the kids call him “Papa.”

John is the other man who works there. He has been helping Antoine for the past six months or so. He speaks English so he is my main contact. He is not a social worker, but he became interested in the work that Antoine was doing and has been living with Antoine’s family and helping watch out for the kids.

The center is home to 42 kids, all with different stories. Some of them still know their parents but their parents are too poor to be able to take care of them. Some of them only know one parent. Some have no idea who or where their parents are. The youngest child at the home is a two-year-old girl, but the rest are all school-aged, meaning they are between seven and nineteen. I would guess at least half of them are between twelve and fourteen.

I do English with them, but since they are all learning English at school and are at different levels, I have them divided into a younger group and an older group. After English I just hang out for a little while, we play, and they teach me a little bit of Kinyarwanda. Most nights they have a devotional thing before dinner where they sing, pray, and one of the boys even preaches a little bit. I have stayed for that twice now, and although I can’t really understand everything that goes on, I’m thankful that they allow me to participate where I can.

It’s been really cool to watch how they interact with each other. They really are like brothers and sisters. They get irritated and frustrated with each other, but it’s also obvious that they love each other and watch out for each other.

The funniest thing so far has been watching them take pictures of each other. The first night I was there I pulled out my camera to take a few group pictures, and of course they all wanted to be in the pictures and they all wanted to use the camera. Letting them use the camera made me really nervous at first, but they’ve calmed down a little now and are better about not grabbing it from each other. It’s just an opportunity they don’t have otherwise, so I love watching them pose for each other and laugh about the pictures that come out of it.

Here are a few samples. I wich I could upload more right now, but uploading just these five took over thirty minutes. :)

School of Mechanics [updated]

*The stuff I added is marked like this sentence.* :)

This is one of the ministries of Kingdom Fellowship Church.

It is a school for 15 street boys that teaches them the basics of auto mechanics. The goal is to enable them, several of which never had the chance to go to school, to get jobs that they can support themselves with. The boys come five days a week. First thing in the morning either Pastor Augustine or one of the other pastors in the area shares a Bible lesson with them. Then their teacher comes and they learn mechanics. *Also, those who are interested and old enough are learning Rwandan traffic laws so they can apply for a driver's licence.*

I come three days a week and teach English. It’s been a challenge because I didn’t come prepared to teach English, and I don’t actually know how. The work that I do with Let’s Start Talking is basically just using conversational English with people who can already speak, so I don’t have to do much explaining of the language at all. If they do happen to have questions about grammar and I don’t know the answer, I can always look it up and get them the answer later. With these boys I’m just sort of making up my own curriculum. If anyone knows of any good (free!) internet resources, please let me know! Right now ANYTHING would help! I don’t want to waste these boys’ time.

*I have a book that we're working from now. It's what many of the schools here use, and when I leave they will have something to continue working from.*

Fortunately I have also had help from Betty and from the youth pastor at the church, Suzanna, who come to help translate when the boys don’t understand. Last Friday I was trying to explain the difference between a/an, some, and the, and if Betty hadn’t been there, I don’t know what I would have done. They don’t have those words in Kinyarwanda. “Umuntu arakora” could be “The person is working,” “A person is working,” “This person is working,” or “That person is working.” Awesome for me learning Kinyarwanda. Sucky for them learning English.

I have a picture of most of the boys from the first day I was there but I forgot to put it on my USB stick so it will be coming later. I do have some pictures of the school itself, though. Their school is actually just a lean-to type structure with a tin roof and half-walls. When it starts raining hard enough you can’t hear anything anymore and lessons stop until the rain subsides.
Right now they have one car (pictured below) and another separate engine to learn with.

They have two pits for working under the car, although the one on the left is not quite finished yet. *I was asked if this is reinforced concrete. Right now it is not, which means that neither of the pits is really finished. However, the boys are not to the point where they have started using the pits. They know that they need to reinforce the pits but they don't have the money right now. It is definitely a priority, and they will not be parking cars over them until it is finished.*

Pastor Augustine is looking to get at least one, maybe two more cars for the boys to be able work on. When the boys are finished, he would also like to be able to provide each of them with his own small tool box to get him started. I’ll probably say and write this about a million times before I leave Kigali, but their resources are limited so this is really just a dream right now. However, they are using the resources that God has already blessed them with to do what they can. Even the teachers (here and at the preschool) work for free and only get paid when money comes in. They all just work and trust that God will provide everything else they need in the right time.

*The goal with this school is to turn it into a fully-functioning garage. This would provide better training opportunities for the boys, and it would also provide a way of making the school financially independent.*

Situation Update

All of the kids were able to go home from the hospital the same night of the accident and are still doing fine. Praise God!

Somehow a few journalists found out about the accident and came to report the news, only they didn’t want to report the actual news. They wanted to sell a big story. On Thursday afternoon Pastor Augustine got a call that the police were at the building and that he was supposed to go there to be questioned. Apparently the journalists had given the story to the radio and had blown the thing way out of proportion, saying that at least one of the kids had died. They also added a bunch of stuff about the church and the preschool that wasn’t true, saying that the kids are served food that’s gone bad (the kids don’t get food from the school—they only stay until 11:30 anyway and they bring their own snacks from home) and that the school doesn’t have a bathroom (it does). That night the pastor gave the police his official statement, they talked to Betty on Friday, and now they are in the process of making appointments to talk with the parents of the kids who were sent to the hospital. The whole thing will be taken care of, but it’s just really irritating that these “journalists” would be so careless.

They have already started cleaning everything out and want to start rebuilding, but finances are also an issue they have to deal with. Pastor Augustine estimated that it will take about $300 to repair everything. That doesn’t seem like much to an American or European, but to put it in perspective, our house worker earns $80 a month, which is considered pretty good, and he can support his whole family with it.