June 23

Yesterday was Chelsea and Meg’s birthday so we decided to get dinner and go out dancing after.  We went to Republica Lounge, which is very Western and very pricy.  About halfway through dinner I look up and notice that one of the men sitting at the long table beside us looks oddly similar to Isaiah Washington (Dr. Burke from Grey’s Anatomy).  The longer I look at him and notice his (loud and obnoxious) mannerisms, the more I start to really think that it’s him.  After we found out it was indeed him, he started rambling about DNA and Africa and something about the Genome Sciences Lab at UNC.  But, Preston Burke is one of my favorite characters on Grey’s Anatomy and it was awesome meeting him.  Turns out he was in Kigali for a gorilla naming ceremony?

After dinner we went to Papyrus and ended up getting back to the guesthouse around 4:30 this morning.  I slept a few hours and got up to go to church since today is our last Sunday in Rwanda L.

I went to the Presbyterian Church that’s part of our guesthouse.  It was so much different than my church at home but I really enjoyed the service.  The congregation was a lot smaller than the one I went to last Sunday.  The pastor was a woman, which is not something you would ever see in my Southern Baptist church at home.  The service consisted of a lot of singing and worship and out of the 2 hour service the sermon only lasted about 20-25 minutes. 

I really liked that the service was focused more on singing and praying and actually worshipping than the preacher preaching at you, which is what most protestant churches in the states are like.  There was a visiting group from a church in Kenya who performed a song/somewhat of a dance for us at the beginning of the service which was really cool.  Some of the hymns were the same at the ones at my church at home the beat was more fast-paced, which was interesting. 

It’s actually staring to hit me that this is my last week in Rwanda.  I feel like I’ve been here for so long but at the same time I feel like there’s so much that I haven’t seen and experienced yet.  I’ve loved the time I’ve spent here and I am about 90% sure that I’ll be re-visiting this beautiful country again in the future.