Arrival in Rwanda

Asher Kaufman, age 18, set out on June 28 for a yearlong trip to help spread the Children's Rosary in Europe and Africa. He spent the months of July, August and the first two weeks in September in France. He arrived in Uganda on September 15. He grew up helping the Children's Rosary and participating in it. He now is helping to spread the Children's Rosary to more parishes and schools. He is also discerning a vocation to the priesthood and has applied to the seminary through the Archdiocese of Hartford. Please keep both his trip and his vocation in your prayers. He has been sharing dispatches from the trip. 

"On Sunday, September 28, Br. Henry, Fr. Alex, our driver, a kind parishioner named Kizito, and I set out from Fr. Alex’s parish in Mutukula to go to Rwanda. This was set to be quite a long trip but nevertheless an exciting one because its goal was to spread the Children’s Rosary in Rwanda, where we had previously had no groups.

I had been told the trip from the parish to where we were staying that night in central Rwanda would be over ten hours by car. As it turned out, it was not nearly as long as anticipated and overall quite enjoyable. The quality of the roads in western Uganda and Rwanda was significantly better than where we had been, so the ride was rather smooth. We prayed for the upcoming mission and entrusted it to Our Lord.

It was hard for me to notice much about the country upon arrival since it was after dark when we began to traverse it. I of course did notice the increased prevalence of French once we arrived at the hotel. Actually, the Rwandan government in recent years has shifted emphasis to English in official communications and in education; however, French is very much still at home in Rwanda particularly among the older generations.

We stayed at the St. Andre Hotel in Kabgayi, which is a hotel run by a community of Franciscan sisters of the Reign of Christ; the hotel is right next to the diocesan cathedral and offices of the Diocese of Kabgayi. It is a very nice property, quiet but with beautiful views of the surrounding area and a small chapel available that we used to have a private Mass celebrated by Fr. Alex. After Mass, I spoke with Sr. Concessa Nyirabavakure of the congregation of sisters who run the hotel. Her order is responsible for catechesis and some schools as well, and she was very interested by the Children’s Rosary. We exchanged contact information.

After this, we met with the priest of the Cathedral parish, Fr. Celse Hakuzeyaremye.(The Cathedral is shown below and Fr. Celse Hakuzeyaremye is shown above in blue)

He was interested by the Children’s Rosary but wished to see the reaction of the bishop before moving forward. This is something I have noticed in Rwanda, that many times priests and laymen rely strongly on what the bishop advises, and thus it is often advisable to work directly through them as well as on the local level.

To that end, we set off the next day for Cyangugu, a diocese in western Rwanda, right on the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. The bishop of this diocese, Mgr. Edouard SInayobye, had been at the FAFCE conference my mother and I attended in Rome in June. (photo directly above) We had contacted him, and since we were in Rwanda again, we arranged to meet. We met not only with him but with the priest in charge of children’s affairs for the diocese, Fr. Noel. (shown below in the bright blue shirt)

Another Rwandan particularity is that the dioceses there have an official post that is in charge of children’s programming and matters. The bishop and priest were open to the idea of beginning a few groups in schools and using them as pilot groups to judge the effects and efficacy. We are grateful for their willingness and interest.

A small side note is that as we were arriving at the bishop’s house, it began to rain torrentially, so hard that I feared even to leap from the car into the open door of the building even though the distance was no more than two or three steps. The rain drenched the whole area but quickly moved out, which enabled us to retrieve all of the materials from the car for the meeting. I only mention this because as we have said before, rain is considered a blessing here, and I seem to be pursued by it. It rained buckets at Fr. Jude Ssali's parish in Mityana, and the same happened in Masaka at more than one stop.Now again it has happened in Rwanda.

After coordinating further with Fr. Noel and making arrangements for him to come to Uganda to see how the movement is rolled out there, we hit the road once more, this time with the destination of Kibeho.

I will address the visit to Kibeho in another post, but before concluding this one, I want to take a moment to speak a bit about the landscapes in Rwanda.

Rwanda is a rather mountainous country, and most of the roads are winding and steep. The scenery is quite lush and beautiful, however, such as when we stopped by Lake Kivu on Monday on our way to Cyangugu. Another picturesque moment came the next day when we passed through Bwindi National Park where we had majestic views of the mountain ranges and countryside as well as numerous monkey sightings in the forest. At one point we stopped to admire one monkey who was sitting by the side of the road, and when he caught sight of some bananas we had in the car, he leaped up onto the partially open window next to me and attempted to climb in, which he very nearly did. These creatures are very smart, and one ought to believe that given the chance they will certainly climb in an open window, steal a phone out of an unsuspecting hand, or cause any amount of mischief.

It was nice to see the monkey, though, because in Uganda I had not seen any animal that was as exotic such as one might imagine seeing when going to East Africa. Despite what one might imagine, the lions, giraffes, and zebras are rare, even here."

To see all of Asher's dispatches from his journey click HERE