A Week in the Life

I haven't done anything super noteworthy this week, but I still want to write something worth reading, so I figured I'd make a post about one of my teammates. I've been pretty impressed with all he's gotten to do this week. So here's a day-by-day of the various ministry things he's done this week, as best as I could witness.


On Monday he was at an Internet cafe. He was looking at Google maps, and one of the guys that worked there asked if he knew how to embed a Google map into a website. He did, and so he put the map of the Internet cafe into the Internet cafe's website, and he labeled the building in Google maps so that it would show up when somebody did a Google search for an Internet cafe, and he showed the guy how to do this. The Internet cafe guy also works for a church and did the same for his church and his church's website.

On Tuesday, he had this really awesome good-deed opportunity. Our Rwandan teammate Elijah was applying for a job as a driver for the American embassy, and so he helped Elijah develop a pretty snazzy resume. He even wrote out a cover letter for him. He even put himself down as a reference on Elijah's resume so that he could say nice things about Elijah if a potential employer calls. Elijah really needs a job, and so I was really happy when I heard about all this.

On Wednesday, he helped out at Vida, the English-teaching ministry. Wednesday's topic include cuss words, because the students had all seen a movie in class and the cuss words were throwing them off. It's necessary to learn cuss words to increase listening comprehension and to learn that these particular words should not actually be said. I learned cuss words in Spanish and French but never got to that level in Chinese. Anyways, he even started the lesson by saying that the Bible says to have a clean mouths and we should all be better than to actually use these words, so he also taught replacement words, like “darn” and “screw.” It was a good class.

On Thursday I was around when he had a one-on-one with another teammate. I thought it was neat when he led the conversation into being a day-dream about future plans. I think that's a really healthy thing to do, to develop a positive outlook of one's future. She pretty much just wants to travel and says she dislikes all school. But he talked about degrees she might actually like, related to international studies and missionary work and then listed benefits of even just having a degree. At the end of it, she even said he affected her thinking and will keep all that in mind for her future. Cool.

Paul wrote his epistles in this order: Galatians, 1Thessalonians, 2Thessalonians, 1Corinthians, 2Corinthians, Romans, Colossians, Ephesians, Philemon, Philippians, 1Timothy, Titus and 2Timothy.
On Thursday evening, this guy read the first six. On Friday morning, he then finished reading through every Pauline epistle in the order they were written in. Also, this particular reading was all in King James Version. Wow. So on Friday morning while we were making lunch, he told a few of us about what he learned and said it was really cool to get to see Paul's emotional journeys on the mission field. Apparently, the Galatian Christians gave him a hard time, and he was disappointed in them. Then Thessalonians were a huge encouragement to Paul and they really hit it off. Then the Corinthians were another low point because of their immorality, but the Philippians brought Paul overwhelming joy. Or something like that.

On Friday afternoon, his one-on-one was with the Canadian patient. He taught her to play chess. I thought that was brilliant. She's so ditzy, and so as a solution he teaches her a mental sport. I think that's really good and empowering for her. I wish I had thought of that. Most of my one-on-ones have been kind of shallow. On Friday though Sunday, she has played and won three games against the computer (on the lowest level of difficulty, which was still a bit challenging). He helped her a lot the first game, but has been helping her progressively less each game.

On Saturday, we split into two groups. Most of us ran a church service at a youth group, but he and Michelle went with Elijah and helped Elijah's brother move. They loaded up a big moving truck, rode to the new house, and unloaded it all.

On Sunday, we did the “You're Everything” skit again. Then he preached a sermon with the theme, “God did not call me to be successful; He called me to be faithful.” He used what he had learned from reading Paul's letters chronologically. And as always, he opened with a few jokes in Kinyarwanda before continuing in English. It was a short sermon that was to the point, which all of us in the audience really appreciated.


My teammates are awesome people. It's going to be very emotional to leave all these people that I've been attached at the hip with for the last three months.