Basketball fun!

Coaching the Girls b-ball team at KICS is a blast! This is my third year working with these girls, but our team is constantly changing and growing due to new families coming, and others leaving Rwanda. I love interacting with these older girls, especially after spending my days with 9 year olds!  Our team consists of girls from all over the world, in grades 7-12. My friend and fellow teacher, Kari, helped coach this year. Basketball is new to Rwanda, and especially new to girls! Helping to develop teams at other local schools has been challenging, but this year we were actually able to play some games with Fawe Girls School, a nearby boarding school. I'm hoping a Girls League can be formed next year with three more schools to play! We practice twice a week, and once a week we travel down the road to Wellspring School to play on their new concrete court (yes, those are cows roaming in the background! Somtimes we have to shoo them off our court!) :) It's good for these girls (and for me!) to have an activity to be involved in during the afternoons, and I love being able to share a sport with them that has brought me so much joy!

and in honor of Cinco de Mayo...

Here's one of my favorite quotes from my favorite author...


"When you get to heaven, Little Friend, Abba will not ask you how many prayers you said or how many souls you saved. No, he'll ask you, 'Did you enjoy the fajita, my friend?'

"He wants you to live with PASSION, live in the BEAUTY of the MOMENT, ACCEPTing and ENJOYing every one of HIS GIFTS!"

~quote from Brennan Manning, Patched Together

enjoy your "fajita" today....whatever it may look like! :)

We did it!

This week was a celebratory week for KICS and our entire community! After 3 hard years of striving for accreditation, and writing many reports and curriculum guides and policies, and much, much more...we were recommended for FULL accreditation by the visiting ACSI and MSA teams! ACSI stands for Association of Christian Schools International, and MSA stands for Middle States Association. This is a huge accomplishment for many reasons, but primarily it gives our school much more credibility in the eyes of parents, universities abroad, and supporters. Our kids can now have access to many more universities and support organizations.

The team visited us last week, and commended us for being a close-knit community that has a common goal and vision to see Christ glorified in the lives of these students. And I agree with them! It's remarkable to see what KICS has accomplished in the few years I have been here; especially since the first year was such a rebuilding year, and no one even knew if there would be a school in the summer of 2009, before we all arrived in the fall. Before they left, they blessed us with this verse from Zephaniah 3:17.

"The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love, He will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing."

What a neat picture to imagine God rejoicing over us in song! Singing praises over us from heaven! Everything is for His pleasure and His glory! :)

Here are a few unrelated snapshots from this week! Enjoy! And thank you for all your prayers and kind words of support!

Reading to our sweet kids in the village

Joy, wearing her traditional mushanana Rwandan dress on Multicultural Day. :)

Sharing our love of reading!

The Korean Embassy invited us to their cultural center, and we met the ambassador and learned a lot about our friends in Korea. David, Lucas, and Jordan even showed off their Taekwondo skills for the ambassador!

Cycle Africa!

Last week, we hosted a team of special guests from the U.K. who are cycling all the way from England to Cape Town! Meet the Cycle Africa Team!

These guys (and gal) are doing this crazy adventure to help raise awareness and funds for street children all over Africa. They've been riding for 274 days, and have a little under 100 days to make it all the way to Cape Town! None of them had ever even cycled, or even owned a bike before embarking on this courageous journey! They aren't sponsored by any big-name corporation; they are just relying on donors to help them out, and at the end of their journey, all money raised will be split between their charities they've selected and visited throughout their time in Africa.

Check out their website here: www.cycleafrica.com

Read their blog here: http://www.cycleafrica.org/blog

Read their educational blog for children here: www.dinoandlion.wordpress.com