Christmas in a New Culture!

As is always the case, we try to balance the expectations of the culture we're living in while maintaining our own family traditions.  This year was a bit more exciting due to the fact that we are unfamiliar with the culture we're living in, and thus had no idea what to expect!  In Indonesia, visiting and hosting family & friends was a huge part of their Christmas celebrations; everyone always had little cookies and cakes ready for whoever dropped by.  However, we've been finding that this isn't the case here.  Another difference is the lack of Christmas services throughout the months of November to January--in Indonesia, every church had their own service and then the women, children, youth--everyone!--would have their own service as well!  Daddy would be asked to preach at tons of services every year (to the point that the last few years we were in Pontianak, he'd print off a copy of the month of December, know which dates were already booked/which were free, and then say yes until they were filled up).  We did have one church ask Dad to preach on Christmas Day, but we went a couple weeks ago instead (see Gisenyi Trip - PART 1).

We inquired as to what usually happens here on Christmas Eve/Christmas Day in terms of services.  We were told that the Christmas Eve service could start at 6 or 7, and then last through midnight--until Christmas Day.  And then there would be a service on Christmas morning, including a baptism.  CLA (English church) was having both a Christmas Eve and Christmas Day service as well.  We decided to do Christmas Eve at CLA and then Christmas morning at our Rwandan Baptist church.

The Christmas Eve service was really nice at CLA.  It was only around an hour long, and there wasn't a huge attendance.  They had "planks" with candles on them resting on the pews (in the middle of the pews, dividing them in half).  Mr. Gaskill played his trombone and another lady played a flute for most of the singing.  And then Mr. Gaskill, along with Grace & Adam, played a beautiful piece on their trombone, clarinet, and French horn.  It sounded amazing!

One of our Christmas Eve traditions growing up has been that, after church, Caleb & I "hang up" our stockings (usually it's draping them over a couch) and open one present before bedtime.  Since we didn't have very many gifts this year, we decided to open one of our family gifts from Nanny & Grampy Bustin--flashlights!

On Christmas Day we got up, opened our stockings, and headed to church for 8 o’clock.  One of Gato’s daughters was being baptised and the best time we could come up with for starting time was 8:00.  When we arrived, there was a long line of people going down the middle of the church—the people being baptised and their families.  Other than that, there was no congregation...other than us!  J  The baptisms took until around 8:15, and then there was a break while they put the stage back together, etc.  The actual service started at about 8:50 . . .

 . . . and lasted until ONE O’CLOCK!!!!

There were several choirs that sang, including a huge youth one – probably at least 60 members!  They were getting ready for a celebration on the upcoming Saturday, and so sang a couple songs and there was a special offering for their event.  There was also a baby dedication during the service.  It started to pour rain right near the end of the service, but we snuck out and made a dash to our car!

The line up of people who were about to get baptised, plus some
family members.

 

Because Gato’s daughter was getting baptised, we had been invited to their house for a visit around 2:00.  It turned out that it was actually a big celebration with lots of people (including one of the 5 governors of Rwanda) and included a meal as well as lots of greetings and words of encouragement for Promise, etc.  During church, I had started feeling unwell and it had continued to worsen, so we finally decided that I would just stay home.  However, the others still all went and didn’t get home until 6 o’clock.

Promise and her mentor.

So, 5 hours at church and 4 hours at Gato’s.  Not our typical Christmas Day!

I keep saying that we got up and opened up our gifts at 6:30 . . . just PM, not AM!  J

We didn’t end up with very many gifts this year, so we brought them out from under the tree and piled them on the floor in the middle of our couch & chairs and then took turns one at a time opening a gift.  It was slower than normal, and after the busy day we’d just experienced, we all thoroughly enjoyed the quietness of it!

Stockings in the morning, before church.

6:30 PM -- Finally ready to go!

Boxing Day was a very quiet, lazy, stay-at-home kind of day and we had our Christmas Dinner at lunch -- using saved-up-from-Canada treats!  And then the whole week between Christmas and New Years was very relaxing for us and included mostly doing puzzles, playing lots of games together, reading, and watching some shows.

As usual, even though our Christmas may not be "normal," we always make lots of memories ("Remember that time we spent 9 hours in services on Christmas Day??") and make the most of the time we do have together as a family!

 

How to Comment & Signing up for Emails

Two blog-related things:

Firstly, I've had several people ask about how to comment on one of my posts.  Here are the steps:

1. At the bottom of a post, it says "Posted by Bronwyn Bustin at such and such a time" and then says "No comments" or "2 comments", etc.  Click on the words "__ comments".  This should take you to the bottom of the post where you can write your own comment.
2. Type your comment in the white box.
3. Select what profile you want to comment under.  If you have your own blog and account (with Google, WordPress, etc) you can use that account as your name.  If you don't have any other type of account, you can select Anonymous.  If you do this, please sign your name with your comment, so I can know who you are!
4. Now you can either preview your comment to see what it will look like, or go directly to publishing it.
5. Click on "Publish."  You will then have to type in a combination of letters and numbers to prove that you're not a robot!
6. After you do this, a white box will appear that says "Your comment will be visible after approval."  This means that your comment has successfully been submitted!  I will then approve the comment, and it will be published (because of the time zone difference, it may take several hours for it to appear on the blog post, so please by patient).
7. Congratulations!  You have now succesfully commented on my blog!

Secondly, I've also had a couple of people ask if there's a way to subscribe to my blog posts.  As of a few days ago, now there is!  And it's very easy to do!

1. In the top right of my blog page, there is a box that is labeled "Follow by Email."  All you have to do is type your email address into the box and click "Submit."
2. A new window will open up and you will need to type in a combination of letters.  Click "Complete Subscription Request."
3. It will tell you that you have received a verification message in your inbox.  Included in that email is a confirmation link.  Click on the link.
4. Another new window will open saying, "Email Subscription Confirmed!"  Every time I update my blog, you should now receive an email with the new post included in it!

Thanks for all of your interest in my blog!

Merry Christmas from Rwanda!

Merry Christmas from the Bustin's!!!

Cookies & Carols - December 21, 2012

Mom had the brilliant idea a few weeks ago to invite a couple of families over to sing carols and eat cookies together!  We had the Maxwell's and Gaskill's over plus two sets of visiting grandparents.  Dad & I played our guitars (with a little bit of ukulele from Dad & Caleb), but we have quite musical friends, so at times there was some trombone, clarinet & flute going on as well!  It was a great night & I think everyone had a blast!

Mom got a kit of cookie cutters that are star shapes of all different sizes to make a tree.  She & Caleb worked together to make the dough and put together the tree.

 



The final product!

 

Another exciting part about the night was that we had a total of 18 people and we had chairs for everyone!!  :-)

And now onto the cookies!!



Caleb's lego nativity scene.



The "kids corner" was very loud & full of laughter...

Except for one member who was tuckered out...

Akagera National Park - December 20, 2012

The Soucy's planned a trip to Akagera National Park for the CBM Global & National Field Staff and the Development Team that we work with.  We rented 2 buses and I think the total was 33 people!

We got up at 4, and were supposed to meet at the AEBR office after 5 to be able to leave at 5:30.  We arrived at quarter after and Pastor Sibomana and family arrived at 5:20....then things slowed down.  The Soucy's squeaked in at 5:29. :-)  We did manage to leave the office by 5:50, although we had to make a couple of pick-ups along the way.

I think we arrived at the park between 8:30 and 9:00--after a lot of driving!  Our bus had the Bustin's, Pastor Sibomana & his family (5 kids), Helene and her husband, and Berthe and her 2 kids.  The first 1 1/2 hours was on paved road, but after that is was on bumpy, mud roads.  Apparently the other bus did ok, but we had a lot of throwing up in ours!!  We had brought along 14 small paper bags and gave 4 to Kathleen for the other bus.  When we first brought up that Dad had paper bags if anyone started to feel sick, they kind of laughed at us/teased us/scoffed at us.

We used every single one of them.

Needless to say, Dad got REALLY good at his quick draw!  It's difficult with kids, because they don't give you any warning, but even they improved some!  Pastor Sibomana's wife was sick at least 8 times :-(  We now know that with that group, you can never have too many bags along!

At the very beginning of the drive at the park, we saw some baboons and warthogs, but after that it took about 3 hours to see more animals.  We stopped at 1 and had a picnic lunch.  Shortly after starting up again, we came to the savanna-type landscape and started to see lots of animals!  There were tons of impala and other types of antelope/deer.  By the end, we saw impala, cattle, warthogs, baboons, zebras, vervet monkeys, hippos, giraffes, maribou storks, buffalo, and helmeted guinea fowl.

Thankfully, seeing the animals seemed to distract the kids from feeling nauseous and we didn't have any more vomiting episodes, except for Pastor Sibomana's wife.  I had made up a check-list of some of the animals we might see and the kids had a fun time keeping track of the ones we saw.

We arrived back around 7 and were very dusty & dirty!  I even had some twigs in my hair!  But it was a really fun day--both seeing the animals and getting to know the team better & meet their families.

Now that you have the summary of our day, here's some pictures!  I've mostly divided them up into different animal sections.

Here's a couple of scenery pictures.  We drove through quite a variety of types of terrain.

Savannah:

Akagera National Park is located on Rwanda's border with
Tanzania.  The hills in the background of this picture are in
Tanzania.

We saw several "cactus trees"... the trunk looked like a tree, but
the branches were cactus-like.

On the bus:

Getting closer to the park!

13 km may not seem like that much in Canadian terms, but on
these roads (with multiple vomiting adventures along the way)
it's quite a significant distance!!

The entrance gate!

And now for the animals!  We'll start with the most common--impala!

 

And some other types of antelope.

 



 

Wouldn't want to be in front of this charge!

Their horns are a m a z i n g!!!

 

Near one of the lakes, we saw some maribou storks.

 

 

Warthogs!

 

 

We saw quite a few baboons--both on the road at the very beginning and in the woods some too.

 

The creatures weren't just outside the bus, we had a visitor inside too!

 

Some more horns, this time on cattle!

Picnic lunch!

Following a herd of buffalo across the lake.

 

Next up, the hippos!

 

 

 

These are the helmeted guinea fowl that we saw several times.

My highlight of the trip was seeing vervet monkeys.  They are so cute!

By mid-afternoon, little Bonita (Pastor Sibomana's youngest daughter) was wiped out!

When we reached the savanna, we started to see some classic African safari-type animals!

The zebras!

 

Why'd the zebras cross the road??  :-)

Up next:  the giraffes!

 

 

Further along this plain, we came across some buffalo.

 



 

At both the entrance & exit, there were these yellow weaver birds in some of the trees, building lots of nests.  Kathleen told us that they build tons of nests & then only lay the eggs in one of them to confuse predators.  They looked pretty cool & sang lots too!

 

Also at the exit, were some skulls...perfect for boys to pose by!

 

 

The perfect ending to my day was that for the last 45 minutes of our drive, Bonita decided to come sit with me!  She was sitting on her Dad's lap 2 rows ahead of me, and we started playing peek-a-boo...I guess that won her over! :-)