On any given day we embark on an outreach trip that invariably begins and ends with a taxi ride. Oh, let me tell you about the taxis. Taxis here are actually fleets of minibuses that sputter along set routes. They are mostly beat-up toyota vans that have seen several decades of service elsewhere and have long since parted with their original components. On their front and rear windows are emblazoned random english phrases and names like "No gain without pain" or "new jersey nets", On 4 gnarly rows they squeeze in as much humanity as they can-- no bus leaves without at least 20 passengers crammed in. Carborateurs are definitely not en vogue, and the whole journey is spent inhaling the sooty exhaust that spews in from the floor and windows. I shudder to think how many neurons (and offspring potential) I've lost so far.... The buses are manned by a driver up front and a moneyman by the sliding door. It's the moneyman's job to be handy with the wads of francs for change, and to make sure the bus is filled to capacity. Driving is a daring dance with calamity. It's every driver's obligation to make his whereabouts known via horn to oncoming traffic. Cars with the greatest potential to inflict damage have the right of way. Every maneuver is made dynamically, every action evokes an adequate reaction at the last split second that prevents disaster. The taxi ride is our daily rite for the duration of our stay here.

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On friday my outreach involved taking 3 minibuses to a village on the outskirts of northern Kigali. I joined a pastoral team that day, and was scheduled to speak at a church that was holding a week-long "seminar". We left right after lunch; the usual combination of rice, boiled bananas or cassava, and bean stew; and after an hours' crammed journey, we were grateful to unravel and disentangle ourselves from our seats and set foot on terra firma. The sun was bearing down on us as we made our way up the steep goatpath to the church where we were to speak. The church was set on a hill-- like most hills here, virtually a gigantic pile of pale brown mud covered with lush vegetation. The building was a nondescript mixture of mud brick and cement topped with corrugated aluminum. The pastor met us at the fork in the goatpath next to a termite mound, his broken english and teeth perfectly articulating his joy in seeing us.

Worship begins furiously, the drummer aggressively on attack with a blunt rod, producing alternating thuds and staccatos of goatskin and wood. An earnest old man dressed in a baggy suit starts hopping, leaping from one foot to the other, palms outstretched, as though trying to avoid a severe blow to the feet. The rows of benches fill up in the tiny sanctuary. Maximum capacity would have been about thirty, but everyone gets a seat in this tiny kingdom of God. The beat picks up, and in the frenzy the old man's shoes come off as tears of joy fill his face. As the choir leads the congretation in the final song, the man collapses to his knees and lifts his hands up in praise....

That evening I spoke on forgiveness-- the importance thereof, the necessity thereof. I cannot forget how costly forgiveness must be for some here. It's like being asked to rip out your heart before the killer who hacked away at your child or your mother with a machete. I cannot forget the lady who wept by the window to my side as I spoke, uncontrollable shudders of grief shaking her silhouetted figure. Who are we to talk about forgiveness? Of course, we have nothing to say but by the leading of the Holy Spirit. The message is received with what I thought was a subdued response. A few come out to receive prayer. I asked the pastor if it was ok to do one more thing. On behalf of the foreigners who came to their land bearing violence and greed, who stole from them their dignity and peace, we asked if they could extend forgiveness to us. As the interpreter translates, some burst in tears; most respond, with determination: "yego!"-- yes, we gladly forgive you ....

When I was in Haiti last year, I heard the people say, "there are mountains beyond mountains", alluding to the challenges faced in the tortuous journey of life ... or something like that. In Rwanda, at any rate, there are countless hills upon hills. At around 6:30pm, when the sun sets before you, it's still making its journey past the hills beyond, so that the receding ray of light shining through a distant valley casts an infernal halo on the clouds just above your line of sight. We were met with this view as we descended the hill, the afterglow diminshing to a smear of pinkish red. As we turned at the fork in the path I saw what I thought were bubbles that the goatboy was blowing. Instead, it was winged termites, alighting neatly in a column, one by one, from several portholes on the termite mound. The rapid fluttering of the wings created an iridescent sphere around each termite, shimmering and catching the glowing pink of the sky, A slight breeze was just barely carrying them upward and away.... Meanwhile, along the path under foot, there was a drastically different scene. What looked like a thin black hose undulating down the hill was a frenzied swarm of ants collectively forming a sinewy tangle-- the barrage of hundreds of tiny feet per second bore deep grooves on the hardened soil. Some ants, running over the backs of others, were hurtling past at extraordinary speed. Whatever destination these extraordinary beings were headed to, it was getting too dark to tell. I gingerly walked over this apparition as we headed down to the roadside for our taxi ride home....