Villages of life 2025 Monitoring trip to Africa.
A moment together in Melbourne on the 5th of June and boarded a flight at 10:55 PM to Dubai then onto in Entebbe. This journey took approximately 36 hours with a three-hour layover in Dubai.
So that brings us forward to the end day 2, where we arrived at our accommodation and a beautiful resort village in the region of Mpigi. The wonderful house we're going to feed us a chicken dish and local vegetable fruit and vegetables, however as it is advised not to eat the local chicken unless you know its source and how well it is cooked we declined the offer and just stuck with the full vegetarian meal for the evening which was fantastic with amazing flavours of local produce.
Day 3 - time spent at alpha true vine church ministries nursery school and villages of life project number 4 or VOL 4.
The last stage of the roofing was being put on during this day, I met Paul the head engineer in charge of the building project in Mpigi.
It was amazing to watch the workers as they worked away in their height high vis safety gear not and during the day got almost all the roof completed.
Roof was completed by 5pm
Elanora our travelling artist on the team of eight set up an Africa canvas that she has prepared to share with the children with every child participating in adding colour to the painting. This exercise took 3 hours bringing joy to all involved.
Visited Christine’s home and made some mud bricks, well at least Simon, Peter & Caleb did after Christine showed us how it is done.
Day 4 – Attended Alpha True Vine Church service, 10-12pm, service was reduced from normal 3 hours to allow Canan and his team and VOL team to travel to Idudi, a 5-hour trip. Left Mpigi at 1pm, arrived at Idudi at 6pm with several toilet stops and to get a bite to each for lunch.
Team had Dinner with Canan, Irene & Brittany their eldest child of 4, Africa time, ended up being 10;30pm to bed.
Day 5 – Breakfast at 7am,
Arrived at school to a beautiful procession – Photos…
Dancing acts and welcome from the school to VOL team…
Worship service and then a short sermon from Grant
Canvas was then set up and stretched over frame ready for kids to do finger painting…
Food Distribution to every child and teacher in the school. There are 233 students currently in the PCM school.
Lunch at the school , which VOL Trip team provided funds for.
Grant, Caleb, Peter and JR went to visit the Motorbike taxi rider’s home. He invited the team to visit his home for a meal as is a gesture done in Africa which is considered an offence to refuse.
The rest of the team, Elenora, Simon, Kaye and Sheena finished the painting with the children.
The whole then went to visit Canan’s family home.
Dinner at the Continental Hotel with the teachers and some of the committee members.
Day 6 – Breakfast at 7am
Left Continental Hotel at 8:15am
Went to the Project land site, met with Ibra and Abel there.
View the master plans for the school, project VOL 5
Walked some of the site –
Headed back towards Entebbe, stopped and viewed new hotel for next visit…about 15-20 mins from project.
Stopped at Jinja for lunch at the Source of the Nile, went for a boat cruise with the team.
Left Jinja at approx.. 3:30pm, arrived at Entebbe at 7:40pm, very heavy traffic up to the bypass of Kampala.
Stayed at the K Hotel. Dinner at Horizon’s hotel rooftop bar & restaurant.
Day 7 – Checked at of K hotel at 7:45am to head to the airport on the shuttle bus ($10USD).
Flight to Kigali at 10:50, took 50 mins, Arrived at 11:00AM local time.
Richard picked up the team, dropped bags off at the guest house. Had lunch at Camellia Café
Did a short city bus tour back to guest house. Went to dinner at Richard’s favourite Indian restaurant. Back to guest house by 9:15pm.
Day 8 – Breakfast at 7AM.
Leave for Butare 7:30 – left at 8:30(TIA).
Drove to Butare to view the project site. (VOL 6?) Walked the site reviewed the plans, recommended to construct a detailed masterplan.
Luc shared the masterplan from a visionary perspective.
There are some challenges to be overcome, the most significant being the acute decent on the side of the hill. It will need to be terraced, and the plans should reflect that.
Went to Emanuel’s home, met his wife, some of the street kids he is working with and a couple of the mothers gave testimony of the work being done
Photos…
Drove back to Kigali via new highway. Arrived back at Kigali at 7:00pm.
Out for dinner with JB, Luc, (Caleb & Kaye had an early night)
Photos…
Day 9 – Breakfast at 7am.
Leave for Byumba at 7:30am, Gicumbi Campus.
Arrived at 9:30.
Upon arrival we were greeted by welcoming party for an inaugural opening of the Gicumbi Campus. Local dignitaries were present including the Lord Mayor, Chief of the Rwanda Army in Byumba and the Head of Police for the community.
Opening ceremony included words of appreciation from the National Director John Baptiste, Lord Mayor with Grant representing the Villages of Life. The Mayor made comments stating that the town economy has increased with more people interested in moving to the area and attracting increases in land value by 300%.
The conversation included the power of partnership when God is at the centre.
There are many people who have made this school happen, Villages of Life, Builders without Barriers, YFC International, and a German organisation,
The Mayor, National Director, Villages of Life Chair, the school principal all cut the ribbon to signify the opening of Gicumbi Campus. The entourage of leaders viewed the operating classrooms.
The children entered the stadium from their classrooms and the national anthem of Rwanda was sung. The celebrations were closed after several speeches and words of appreciation with several dances from the children. The community all joined in.
A lunch followed. The. The children got to paint the Tree of life for Africa.
Evening meal was attended by all the team accompanied by Richard, his wife Rado, John Baptiste and his PA.
Venue- The Hut, rooftop restaurant.
Day 10 – Relax morning at RYFC guest house.
Left for the airport at 12:00.
Flight to Bujumbura 2:20pm.
Meet Jackson at Buj. Burundi customs system has improved over the last couple of years.
Went to Jackson’s house, stayed in his guest house. Dinner at Jackson’s, prepared by his wife Aceline
Day 11 – Breakfast at 8am
Went to church at Pastor Isador’s. 9-12.
Went to meet kids in orphanage, including a walk around of the grounds and visit to Christophe’s house.
Lunch with orphanage kids from 2-4pm, BYFC attended, Euphrates, Jean Paul, Juvenal and Jaraph.
Went to view new school site for Jackson’s school.
Showed the team the Dogodogo property.
A quick visit to Dogodogo Beach Hotel
Day 12
Breakfast at 8am at Jackson’s
Prepare the drums for food distribution.
Relax for a bit before heading to Jackson’s school to do painting exercise with the school.
About 11:00 set up and started painting with the school children.
Painted with 530 children and arrived back at Jackson’s for a late lunch before the food distribution event for the rest of the afternoon.
Mid-afternoon (approx. 3pm) the team stated the first stage of the food distribution.
It was very hectic for a while as we were requested to take photos of the drums with donor’s names on them (who’s idea was that…hmmm, Sam). Guess what? They were scattered all over the place, which was an interesting bit of fun and a logistics challenge. However, the team got names of donors together, photos were taken, the food parcels were distributed and thousands of people had food for a couple of weeks.
756 parcels were handed out by the team!
The rest will be done by the BEEDAY team over the next couple of days.
Day 13 – Future Hope School painting day.
Today we set a new level of achievement, to do 2 paintings simultaneously.
This proved to be a huge challenge but with some resilience and perseverance was done in a reasonable amount of time, at least in African time anyway.
Arrived at the school at 9:30, was greeted by the whole school, giving gifts and a Burundi ceremony dance performed by a few of the students.
The painting of 2 canvases got under way a bit after 10am and by 1pm it was decided it was time to have lunch with the sponsorship kids.
Lunch was a time of celebrating the success of the sponsorship program that Villages of Life initiated for a limited time which spanned about 4 years due to the pandemic.
Jackson picked up the team from Future Hope School at 4:15pm to have a look at a couple of the projects that Jackson has underway, including the medical clinic of 60 beds. This clinic is running at over capacity every day, with 100 people per day being treated daily at the current over capacity at 200.
Evening meal was prepared by Aceline at their homestead in the guest house alfresco area.
Day 14 – Travel to Nairobi, Kenya.
It was an early start, leaving Jackson’s place at 6am sharp for a 8:55 flight. The check in process was quite smooth, having all the correct documentation prepared and luggage weights all checked prior to arriving at the terminal is key.
The flight arrived early, fully disembarked and met by Shem from Kenya YFC and his driver at 12pm.
Dropped luggage off at Tamarind Tree Hotel, then off to lunch at a Java House café. First western style meal in a few days.
A short stop at the giraffe park before going into an Afrikan shop to buy some African souvenirs for family, friends and the next Villages of Life fund raising event.
Dinner with 4 of the KYFC board members at Fifteen Rooftop Bar and restaurant with views of the Nairobi National Park on one side and city views on the other.
Day 15 – Kenya Youth For Christ
Today we spent all day with Shem the National Director for Youth for Christ Kenya.
First stop we visited one of five slums in Nairobi. The 1st one has 700,000 people living in it. We visited a centre where YFC Kenya meet with the kids as they run after school programs.
Second stop, we meet with Stella, a lady that oversees one of most impressive schools we have visited here in Africa.
The school is called Chosen Children of Promise.
CCP is in Kawangware - Nairobi County and it’s more respectful to call it by its area rather than the “slums”
All kids loved being in school with their red uniforms, but it’s not lost on us as to where they live when they walk home each afternoon.
We then visited the new school site that Villages of Life have partnered with YFC Kenya, looked over the plans and construction should start in September. On the same site YFC Kenya assist with teen mums who have been left without the support of the babies father and sometimes her parents and they receive education and nurture through the later term of their pregnancy and up to the baby is about 6 months of age. They live together, support each other and learn new skills like sowing, jewellery making and business. As a team we wanted to support them by buying their products and blessing them.
The last event of the day we squeezed into our program to visit Pillars of Hope Children’s Home. A home with 75 children cared for by a husband and wife along with a small team of volunteers. What an incredible work they do in providing a safe place to lay their heads each night and a meal every day and all with in a safe nurturing environment.
Grant’s job as tour group leader is done 😊
Day 16 – Debrief day!
We have a day at the hotel to debrief in the morning, possible swim in the pool before a nice dinner at Carnivores restaurant.
Day 17 – The team start to deploy onto other adventures.
John and Caleb depart whilst the rest of us head off on a safari to capture some photos of some African animals.
Grant’s summary;
This incredible journey has had a lot packed into 2 weeks, 4 countries, 6 different organisations and it certainly achieved it’s purpose of connecting us with people of these amazing people doing amazing work bring hope through education to thousands of precious lives. Each life is valuable and valued and whilst we came to give we are the ones who bring back a whole lot more than we brought with us.
Each of us will have our own stories to tell and we all look forward to how that story plays out.