Westmont women’s socer team played to a 1-1 tie today with the Rwandan National Team in Kigali. Senior midfielder Anna Gropp scored on a penalty kick for the Warriors after junior midfielder Brianna Russo was tripped in the box.

“When we arrived at the field, another game was already going on,” said Warrior head coach Rebecca Mouw. “The mayor of Kigali scheduled a different game without telling anyone, so we had to move to another field. Unfortunately the field we played on was mostly soft dirt which flew up every time you stepped. That was not a surface conducive to our style of play.”

The Westmont women’s soccer team was back on the road again as their tour through Africa continues. After breakfast and devotions in Mbarara, Uganda, the team hit the road for the 200 kilometer (129 mile) trip to Kigali, the capital of Rwanda.

“On the way to the Rwandan border we saw meerkats and Cobb’s antelope,” reported head coach Rebecca Mouw. “We reached the border at three in the afternoon, but we had to wait two hours before we were able to enter Rwanda. A new computer system had been installed and the officials were having trouble getting it to work.

“Today was a relaxed day,” said assistant coach Dan Ribbens, reporting on the Westmont women’s soccer team’s eighth day in Africa. The team has spent the last week in Uganda, playing two soccer games and ministering to people in Kampala and Gulu.

“We started early with a 6:30 a.m. training session,” continued Ribbens. “Barnabas (Mwesiga), former coach of the Ugandan national team, helped us with assessments.” Mwesiga, who works for the Sports Outreach Institute (SOI), has been traveling with the team. Former Westmont coach Russ Carr is the president and founder of SOI through which the Warriors trip was organized.

The last week has been filled with wonderful and life changing experiences for the Westmont women’s soccer team traveling in Uganda.

In Gulu, the Warriors found themselves surrounded by hundreds of children wherever they went. Their experiences included running in the morning with the ‘invisible children’ from Noah’s Ark Shelter to their homes some two miles away. The Warriors visited with women and children in their mud hut homes and conducted soccer clinics in refugee camps. They cared for children at the Kirombe School and played Hearts United, the East African women’s soccer champions in the first women’s soccer game ever played at Pece Stadium to the delight of three to four thousand fans.

Westmont women’s soccer team made their way from Gulu to Kampala on Saturday morning during a somewhat more restful day in Uganda. After eating lunch, the team divided into four groups and headed to four different churches in the Kampala slums where they participated in feeding programs.

“The pastor at one of the churches asked the Westmont players to scrimmage with a group of little boys and so they played a little six-on-six soccer,” said head coach Rebecca Mouw. “The other three groups visited with those coming to receive food.”

“It was another full day in Gulu,” said Westmont women’s soccer assistant coach Dan Ribbens who is traveling with the Warriors during their trip to Africa.

“The team split into two different groups and visited two refugee camps outside of Gulu,” continued Ribbens. The camps are a result of a 20-year-old civil war in Northern Uganda. “At both camps, we put on soccer clinics with the children. There were kids everywhere. After the clinic, our players were able to sit underneath some trees, talk with some of the refugees and share their faith.

“It has been quite an emotional day,” said Warrior head coach Rebecca Mouw of the Westmont women’s soccer team’s first full day in Gulu, Uganda. “We got up a 5:45 a.m. so that we could run with the invisible children.”

Due to fear of abduction, the children of the area around Gulu do not spend nights in their homes. Instead, they sleep in shelters overnight and then return to their homes during the day. Called ‘invisible children’ or ‘night travelers’, the practice is a result of 20 years of civil war in northern Uganda.

The Westmont women’s soccer team has made its way from Kampala to Gulu in northern Uganda.

“Everything happens at a different pace here and we got started later than we expected,” reported assistant coach Dan Ribbens, “but we made the trip without any problems. The local saying here is that Americans keep the time and Africans have the time.”

Two-thirds of the way into the five or six hour trip from Kampala to Gulu, the Westmont team crossed the Nile. “We crossed at an area where there was white water rafting and it was quite impressive,” said Ribbens. “We also found a profound culture change on the other side of the Nile. Kampala is a large city, but northern Uganda is much more tribal. Very few people from the outside come to Gulu. When we told people in Kampala that we were going to Gulu, they responded by saying they never go to Gulu.