How in the world can you take an economy in which over 50% of the population is under the poverty level, is landlocked, ranks somewhere around 160th out of 180 countries on the “Developmental Scale,” and even think about “making extreme poverty history?” as we in ONE like to say.
Bi-partisan group including two former U.S. Senators and the wife of Republican hopeful John McCain are in Rwanda to witness some of the successful development projects taking place there. Thomas Rippe reports from Kigali.

The first stop this morning was the Kigali Genocide Memorial Center. John Podesta and I laid a wreath at the mass grave site of the genocide victims. I had the opportunity to do this last year when I was in Rwanda with Samaritan’s Purse, Scott Hughett, and my wife, Karyn (who is at home now recuperating from back surgery). The site and the service in which we participated are a moving, memorial remembrance of the million people who died over those 100 days of genocide.
We were up at 6 am and off to the airport. Things took just a bit longer to clear customs for our flight to Kigali, Rwanda, so we were delayed us just a bit. We left Mozambique after a full four and a half days, with many great memories.
Today was our last day in Mozambique. The last time I was in this country I led a large bipartisan Senate delegation introducing my colleagues to five countries in Southern Africa. That was four years ago. We spent a couple of nights in Maputo then, but on this trip we have made a point to travel outside of the capital city to different parts of the country. This is possible because of the single-engine Caravan plane and the dedicated missionary pilots of AIM AIR who have flown us places that would have been impossible to visit.
16 July 2008 I woke up at 3:30am this morning, left my son Harrison in the hotel room, and headed for our 4:30am departure to Nampula, Mozambique. We flew in a Cessna Caravan of AIM AIR with Capt. Dan Spooner. Capt. Spooner had taken me in AIM AIR with Samaritan's Purse about a year and a half ago to Darfur from Nairobi, Kenya and then into northern Uganda into the area of the Lord's Resistance Army.

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