It is with some sadness that we bid farewell to Pastor Jean d'Amour who has been looking after Rutonde Parish for the Presbyterian Church. He has gone to seek pastures new. His replacement is the experienced Zacharie Mboyi who has come in with many good ideas.

While on a visit to Steven's farm we met the team building a new fenced enclosure. As will be found anywhere in the world, these workmen had a radio playing their favourite music. The radio they were using wasn't quite as basic as a cat's whisker (look it up) but still hung there on the fence begging to be photographed.

It is almost ten years since Mission Rwanda first landed in Kigali on our first exploratory visit. It is a couple of years less than that since we met Steven who ever since has been our guide, fixer and general dig-out-of-hole specialist.

We landed at Kigali in one piece which was a blessing, but still two pieces of luggage less than had been hoped for. A delay of an hour at Edinburgh airport meant that while a human could sprint for the connecting flight at Amsterdam with the assistance of moving walkways, the baggage took a more pedestrian route and missed the plane.

There is a family which Loanhead Parish Church has been supporting for a couple of years now. The original intention was to enable the child of a young mother to go to school. The little girl has been doing very well at school where she is fed each day, which helps her mother.

Marie-Therese originally comes from Tanzania but has settled in Kigali with her husband Jean-Pierre. She runs a Saturday church for local children and uses that as a way of helping struggling local families. We are more than happy to help her.

There is no such thing as free education in Rwanda. There are many families who cannot afford to send their children to primary school and children who are that fortunate find themselves competing with peers from families who have been able to afford the more expensive nursery education. Even so, in European terms, primary education is not expensive. £25 will send a child to school for a year.

Last week we visited our porridge project at Rimwe and met the latest intake of malnourished children and their mothers. This particular project is in its early days and we would not expect to see any substantial improvements to the local area for several months. This week we have come to Rutonde to take the pulse of the project we started there over three years ago.

This is the time of year when we face the chaos of kitting our group of Nyamirambo children out to go back to school at the start of a new year. The process is not as chaotic as in previous years. Because most of our children are in secondary school, the equipment is provided by the school. All we have to do is pay for it. We have seen the time when we have scoured the market with half a class of children in tow.

Those of us who remember beep-beep modems and bulletin boards will appreciate how long it has taken to get from there to fast broadband and Facebook. We thought it all happened too quickly.