poverty a two part harmony

confronting reality can baffle me... how does the most beautiful scenery in the world exist in the places where the material situations are the poorest... today's visit with the street kids we play with every tuesday and thursday really brought me new meaning to "blessed are the poor in spirit"...


Claude, 19, lost his sisters and parents in 1994 to -you guessed it- the genocide, and now he lives alone in this dirt home. he stated that his greatest joys in the week are when hes at the football pitch, it provides an escape from a difficult reality.

Gooooaaall

Rip MJ

"If you enter this world knowing you are loved and you leave this world knowing the same, then everything that happens in between can be dealt with." Michael Jackson

Some eerie silhouettes for an eerie day..I heard the news thats shocking the world while posting this pic..Michael Jackson died.

One of the best thoughts I heard recently regarding life's temporality was this quote by Steve Jobs "Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

Following our hearts, our faith and our passion for children here has been without fear. It is with the children that so many of us come alive!

Soccer Skills (another photo of the day)

So we're thinking of making some posters from these shots...Let me know if you would ever buy one to support p4h?

POTD June 20-B-ballin in gatenga

poster shot from gatenga maison de jeunes

POTD- June 20 Old woman and her brew

amidst shouts of muzungu i began walking through the town of Kabunga as we were putting on a football clinic in the field nearby. I bumped into this lady in town and she laughed when i asked her for a sip of what she was sippin on.. Whatever homemade concoction it was, it was definitely strong!

POTD June 19- Handball!

We walked to the national stadium after hearing that the Rwandan Nat'l football team would be playing Korea..turned out it there was no futbol to be found, but we did get a introduction to handball between Uganda and Tanzania.

It was exciting to watch, until the flagrant flopping just wouldnt stop..in the 2nd half we saw the stretcher brought out @ least 4 times...anyways, we still had a good time!

videos from Rwanda- 5dmk2

Here's the first preview of what vids I've been able to shoot here in Rwanda
heres some

Football Drills in Gatenga from Ryan Bowen on Vimeo.

Heres an impromptu worship session after putting on a soccer clinic...

Kids in Rwanda worship in Kinyarwandan from Ryan Bowen on Vimeo.

POTD June 17th- Jeune from Kimisagara

cross posted here:

Jeune, from Kimisagara, wrote Ryan an email after stealing his contact info from a luggage ticket on his backpack.

His email stated:

" MY NAME IS JEUNE IN KIMISAGARA YOUR BODY IS VERY BAD...american is very bad becouse we caused a woll (war)

good buy"

My response:

"Mwaramutse Jeune,

I agree with you that the wars america has caused are aweful. i hate that part of being from my country. We often have abused most of the world for our own benefit. Thats why i try to travel outside of it as much as possible, to exchange with people and show that not all of us americans agree with what our government has done.

I do not agree with you that my body is very bad. i am in great shape, you should see my abdominal muscles!

I hope you are well tonight, I hope we can play soccer together tomorrow!
Ryan

He responded the next day saying:

"THANKS RYAN FOR YOUR MEANING... SEE YOU"

Now, the story with Jeune didn't stop there. Not only did he cease giving the finger to my fellow teammates, but took such a care for me that on our final day when i went up into the hills nearby to get some good shots, he noticed my dissappearance, and concerned for my safety rounded up asearch party to make sure I made it back to the fields.

Just goes to show, a little bit of love can sure go a long ways.

POTD: June 18th

'nuff said:

POTD: Missionary Position

I knew i had a cliché shot from the moment I pressed the shutter. Met this nice young woman from Colorado USA nearby the fields where we train soccer with some street kids.

I think its funny, my tribute to white missionaries in africa :)

Crisis in IRAN..an interview with an iranian graffiti artist

i met an artist named a1one under this statue in Habana Cuba in May of 2007..since then we've maintained contact, he's put me in touch with various free speech artists throughout tehran.. you can check his work at http://irangraffiti.blogspot.com.

The following is an update on whats been happening to the people of Iran over the past couple of days. This brief update is directly from the words of M. Ghadri, a Tehran resident and participant in the mass protests:

"The election was real abuse of our trust and vote/they lied. We were sure we all voted for the other person but they made another person to be president. they are real liars and obama congrats them!!!!!!

We are f*d up. They stopped my online access and reduced internet speed to 12 kb, also filtered facebook and youtube all these days as well as filtered satellite and imprisoned the other candidates in their home with soldiers there.

We are all going to streets and fight Lebanese & Iranian police and guards who throw tear-gas on us all time.
i can not send good videos but check youtube and find some videos. maybe they are some.

they are wilder than Hitler ...they even hit mothers and children :( just we tear. and shouted.
uneducated people are with police and say ahmadinejad is wit poors. but we are poor too. but we are more educated and want democracy. ahamdinejad is not with poors. he is with liars

he says that "liars are those who fear"

we ask, "if you are not a liar. then why do you fear and block youtube? how you block facebook?

how you block satellite? how you imprison other candidates? how you change the votes?"

Hope of change and peace.

truth will win"

mwele fotagrafa

in kinyarwandan mwele fotografa means "I'm a photographer". This pic i took last week of a documentary production crew who just happened to meet us at the sports complex sums up how i feel every time i take out the camera. Candids take on a whole new meaning with the kids out here!

Playin with the kids

Just wrapped day 3 of sports camps with play for hope..so far we've had over 100 kids a day show up. Many of the kids we're workin with are street children who don't go to school, so theres plenty of energy for them to get out.

Day 1: without a kinyarwandan speaker to guide us, we pantomimed the soccer drills. Over 100 children showed up, ages ranging from 4-18-ish



Day 2: miraculously with Serious, our Rwandan sports ministry guide, the camps moved flawlessly. We americans just stood by watching the fruit of our labor.


coach esteban leading the children from the field to go hear a message and lead a prayer.



Pastor Will from the Luis Palau Association leads the kids in a prayer after playing



this boy was too cute to pass up. He played on the side while we lead the older children in soccer passing and handling skills



a group getting their trainin on!


kids are LOOOOvin the camera.. this is one of many to come.

genocide memorials

Yesterday, sunday June 7th, we visited two memorial sites from the genocide. In these two churches over 5,000 Tutsis were slaughtered mercilessly over the course of days in 1994. It was very moving, however the sheer magnitude of death seemed almost too surreal to effect me... in a weird place with humanity right now.. its just a very different world here with a crazy history.

across the atlantic and down into the dark continent

I made it to Kigali, Rwanda this afternoon. The internet @ the house I'm at is very slow, so uploading images is proving t be taking quite a while. Enjoy these, many more to come..slowly but surely!

was stuck in London for an extra 24 hours after missing my connection, but tried to make the most out of it.

here's the airport connection to kigali..

Play for Hope-Rwanda - Images by Ryan Bowen