A Few Minutes - Visiting the Gihembe Refugee Camp

View from the high school campus

Shawna and I realized a dream of many years yesterday. We traveled to Rwanda and received government permission to visit Gihembe Refugee camp where many of our Boise, Idaho friends were born and/or had lived for nearly 20 years.

The road trip from Kigali to Gihembe was a crazy beautiful climb to 7,200 feet.  A winding road filled with motos (motorcycle taxis), bikes, cows, goats, blind corners, police with AK-47s unsuccessfully attempting to pull us over, buses, cars and trucks. One large truck tragically did not make the corner and crashed through homes.

It is hard to anticipate the beauty of Rwanda. Here people live life on the edge, both literally and figuratively.  Many homes are perched on the edge of steep mountains with thousands of vertical feet between homes, gardens and water sources. Collecting water to drink and clean from the valley below and climbing back home can be an all day and exhausting experience.

ADRA runs all the refugee schools in Rwanda and had kindly opened the door for our camp visit.  When we arrived at the Gihembe camp we met with the camp director.  He was very kind to us.  The director wanted to know our backgrounds and our motivations for being there.  He is responsible for order and security wanted our visit to be well managed, safe and orderly.  He gave us camp rules and instructions for our visit.  He later checked on us, and saw the love and joy being shared, and he smiled warmly.  He has a big job running a camp with tens of thousands of refugees.

It was a deeply moving experience to walk the dusty red paths among the school buildings and homes carved in the steep banks of mountains with little goats prancing about.  To visit the families of our many Congolese friends in Boise.  To hold their hand, look into their eyes, and wonder at their life journey.  A journey tragically disrupted by wars, violence, deaths and intense trauma and loss.  A journey that forced them from their farms, families and friends in the Congo to this temporary mountaintop refuge in Northern Rwanda for the last 20 years.

To share just a few minutes of our friends' life and experience was deeply touching and a gift from God.  To sit in the same homes that the children in our bible study class in Boise grew up in!  To see the talent and creativity that enabled people to survive in mud brick huts with a dirt floors, rafters made of branches and a roof made of UNHCR plastic for 20 years!  These families birthed and raised children here.  They brought honor to these homes.  I stared at the painted house number on the door.  A mark of order, a residence, a home.

We praise God for the opportunity to see and experience just a few minutes of the lives of our Congolese friends in Boise.

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Kevin Benedict

Read Shawna's Blog! Words on the Way