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"I wish everybody could hop on a plane and go to Camp Kaziba [a refugee camp in Rwanda] and see how those people live. Then you'd appreciate everything you have. There's nothing there. It's awful," said retiree Peggy Fitch describing the impact a visit to an African refugee camp had on her.
Peggy and Bill Fitch have been involved with the RIDE for Refugees from the beginning. In 2004, they catered the RIDE dinner for 120 people.
In 2005, Peggy and Bill rode 25 km in Bracebridge, a few days before the official RIDE date, then drove to Waterloo to enjoy the RIDE dinner and concert.
The next year the Fitchs and another couple rode 25 km in Waterloo through a snowstorm.
"It took 2 hours to get to the halfway point and 20 minutes to get back," Peggy laughed.
In 2007, Bill was in Africa so Peggy led the "Over the Hills" team made up of five seniors. Some rode 25 km, some 50 km and one rode 100 km.
"It was wonderful weather. It was really lots of fun to do together," Peggy said.
Peggy is motivated to get involved with refugees because of verses she has read in the Bible, by the example set by others and because of the things she saw first-hand in Africa.
"We've been told in scripture to give," said Peggy, "not just money but everything we have. There are always people in need. That's where Christians show their love. You never know that you might become a refugee yourself. Getting involved with refugees shows that Christians care."
Peggy knows what it's like to experience the kindness of strangers. Once, while she was travelling in Europe, a stranger fed her young family and did their laundry expecting nothing in return.
"I'll never forget that," she said. "I was so impressed that this person would do that for me."
In February 2008, Peggy and Bill visited Camp Kaziba with a team of 13 seniors.
"It's thirteen kilometres uphill to Kaziba. The first thing you see are the UN tarps. Then you drive past lots of shanty houses outside the camp. Inside the camp everybody lives in a nine by nine foot mud hut with a tarp roof. 19,000 Congolese live in the camp and yet everyone was very warm and welcoming," Peggy said.
Some of the Congolese people have been living at Kaziba for nine years. Many of the children know no other home. While in the camp, Peggy and Bill met with AIDS victims. They bought 5 huge bundles of clothes, sorted it and handed it out to street kids. They met Pastor Maureen, the director of "Women in Action" a support program for former prostitutes and they heard the women's stories. They also attended a seminar for pastors of the 21 churches in the camp. Each pastor was allowed to invite only five guests because space was limited in the mud huts in which they gathered.
"The singing coming through the windows of those huts was absolutely beautiful," said Peggy. "When I go to heaven I hope the singing sounds like that."
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