Rwanda Mission Partnership

It was a privilege to be a part of the Day 4 team to visit Rwanda and The Christian Unity Fellowship in June 07. Rwanda is a country recovering from the terrible genocide of the mid nineties.

My first impression was of the humility of the Rwandan people. How welcome they made us feel. How grateful they were to know that we had come to show support for them, to provide some resources for them and to hopefully show them that we stand beside them and pray for them.

As we travelled around we saw what a beautiful country Rwanda is. It is very agricultural, essential to feed the densely populated country..

The people are seemingly at peace, a tribute to the government and the churches. God is at work in Rwanda. It shows on the faces of the Rwandan people. Christianity appears to be wide spread. We saw “ JESUS” written on taxi vans, and on the back of a large fuel tanker were the words in bold print “ONLY GOD”.

We saw children every where, a sure sign of a new generation emerging. Even so, the country is still needing sustainable help as they emerge from a period in time that will surely go down in history as a blight on mankind.

As our team flew out of beautiful Rwanda, we were left with much to think about having learnt only too well that the poverty of these lovely people is their strength, they depend every day on God, and that the materialism of the western world is our weakness.

Colin Rigg

I have categorized my reflections of Rwanda into two parts; 1) Physical and 2) Spiritual.

1) As I reflect back over our recent trip to Rwanda, I’m reminded of the shear poverty. Although I have seen poverty as a tourist in other African countries, in Rwanda I was able to get to know and share with these people myself. The people of C.U.F. are people of poverty . They don’t have many material things; they lack electricity, running water and proper sewage, but they possess a richness which is built into their lives and displayed though their character and personalities.

Ron with CUF leaders at business meeting

As we shared our lives for nearly two weeks I found them to be warm, friendly and humble people. Within this time of sharing we ate, laughed, cried, and had lots and lots hugs which all helped us to grow to love each other.

Although their culture is very different to ours we could not help but to bond with them and im sure we can say that we brough a part of them with us back home to Australia. This spiritual connection is one that has to be experienced first hand to be fully understood.

2 ) God is alive in Rwanda the people of the C.U.F. are full of the Holy Spirit, they worship God in word, music, singing and dancing which lasts up to 4 hours, its just absolutely fantastic. Time seem to fly by. They pray out loud and all together some clap, each praising God their own way (something we could learn). People show love and generosity, giving freely, even out of their poverty.

From start to finish we saw the good hand of God upon the trip to Rwanda.

In all the planning, as decisions were made on what to take and what to leave, as travel arrangements were changed resulting in less clothing for the children of Rwanda, and less personal clothing for the team. All the necessary “stuff” got there with the odd miracle or three on the way.

At Perth airport the generators were too heavy – they went through, we had excess excess, that went through without cost. In Kigali, import duty was required on the generators but that was waived. Every one and every thing arrived safe and well. Praise God.

The leaders of the Christian Unity Fellowship met us at the airport in Kigali and we experienced our first taste of the great love and warmth that only grew in intensity during our stay. They gave of all they possessed again and again that we might experience the great love of their Saviour that they revealed in every part of their lives.

They thought we were there to encourage and help them. We trust we did in some small way, but they taught us to reevaluate how we live our lives. To love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and be reminded that the material things of this world will fade into nothing. We need constantly to be renewing our minds that we may approve what God’s good and acceptable will is for us.

There is so much more to tell.

Every blessing,

John Korn

Over the next few weeks I am going to post reflections written by members of the 2007 team who visited Rwanda in May.

The first of these comes from Sue Knight.

Much planning and fundraising followed. Five of us joined Andrew each funding our own vaccinations, flights, accommodation, meals etc. The monies raised through fundraising all went to the continuing work at the CUF.

We were met at the Rwanda International Airport and warmly greeted by Pastor John Mihigo, his wife and several of his church leaders.

During our stay I found the Rwandans to be very hospitable, generous, polite, gracious, friendly, grateful. One observation that overwhelms me even now is how grateful the people were that we were interested in them and their country. They would often say ‘Thank you for coming to our country and being interested in us’. The only thing they ever asked of us was our prayers.Their land is beautifully mountainous with rich volcanic soil, producing delicious bananas, pineapples, potatoes, sugar cane, corn, beans, sweet potatoes, tea, tomatoes, sorghum and millet and more. Despite this there are still millions of poor.

A very impressive project we were introduced to was ‘The Self-Help Groups’. Pastor John has instigated this work, the aim to create sustainability amongst the poorest of the poor, to build their hope and self worth, and lessen a society of dependency. The groups must consist of at least 10 and no more than 20 members, majority of whom are women and they decide what their group project will be. First they give them selves a name. We met 3 groups – their names were “The Faithful Ones”, “The Circle of Love”, and “The Determined Ones”. As each group is formed it is initially overseen by a volunteer facilitator who educates a group leader in simple book keeping, how to conduct a meeting, teaches banking, technology, vision, leadership and how to encourage its members to better their potential. The facilitator from time to time does ongoing education with the groups.

Sue looking on at a Self Help group meeting

A Group can hire a small piece of land and grow some produce for sale eg egg-plant, peppers (capsicums), or purchase a young goat to on-sell (being the middle man was a foreign concept and took a little while to be accepted), grass weaving or grow grass for sale to cattle owners. The groups have access to Micro Finance if necessary to start their business. They meet each week and must repay a little of their debt and bank a little into their own bank account and into a group/corporate account. Where they had no money they now can see their savings grow. They carry a countenance of pride and self worth. They can borrow from the corporate to pay for their children to go to school, do repairs to their home, expand their business and still have the means to repay the loan. There are currently 52 of these groups!

I hope to have the privilege of visiting the beautiful Rwandans again.

Even before arriving in Kigali, two and half years after my first visit, I was hearing stories of change.

The in-flight magazine tucked in the seat pocket of my twin turbo-prop flight from Entebbe in Uganda talked about a recent visit by Rwanda’s President, Paul Kegami, to the US. He had met with the heads of F-500 companies including Google and Starbucks. He negotiated deals that will see Google become the major IT solutions provider for the Rwandese public service and Starbucks begin opening stores in downtown Kigali.

If people have money and time to spend on coffee and in cafes things must be changing in Rwanda.

Within minutes of landing at Kigali international airport some of these changes in the fabric of city life in Rwanda became apparent. On the 40 minute drive from the airport to the Kimisigara community on Mt Kigali I saw many late model cars on the road, including Mercedes Benzs and BMWs. A plethora of new apartment developments and construction projects also lined the clean, palm tree and grass lined streets.

Another noticeable change was the service (gas) stations. In 2004 all they sold was fuel. In just about every case their storefronts were completely empty shells, but now they were full. Fridges stocked with the big cola names and walls lined with shelves brimming with potato chips, chocolates and snacks and the kind of ordinary grocery items you would expect to see in any convenience store anywhere in the developed world.

John’s wife Gladys was driving us from the airport and I commented to her that things appeared to be improving economically for Rwanda. I couldn’t believe the changes I was seeing in the relatively short amount of time since I last visited. She replied that while on the surface this looked to be the case, in reality it was those who already had money that were making more of it, while the poor were still poor.

This was confirmed when we arrived at our destination - things on Mt Kigali hadn’t followed the path taken by downtown Kigali. In fact very little had changed in the time I had been away.

I was greeted by the same badly erroded dirt road, 3 room mudbrick houses and children clad in dirty, torn clothing. This was the same place I had said goodbye to the last time I left Rwanda.

Perhaps the rich do just keep getting richer. When Starbucks open the doors of their new Kigali cafe I don’t expect to find too many of the Mt Kigali locals sipping lattes or cappuccinos!

I arrived in Uganda on Saturday night after a pretty gruelling 28 hour journey from Perth.

I met up with John Mihigo, when he arrived at Entebbe airport about an hour after me. We then travelled with local representatives of the CUF in Kampala to a guest house to crash out for the night.

Sunday morning we attended a service at the CUF Uganda site, in a poor area of Kampala near the hospital.

For the past 4 days I have been in Mukono with John at the Amahoro Africa gathering - a conference exploring the emerging church as it pertains to the African context. A big focus of the gathering has been partnerships, with around 60 odd westerners in attendence.

Topics included: The gospel of reconciliation versus the evacuation gospel, the empowerment of women in the church, and ways of building and growing the church in a more ecumenical fashion as an expression of the kingdom of God.

You can read an overview of the conference at the Amahoro Africa blog site - http://www.amahoroafrica.blogspot.com/
Tonight John and I fly to Kigali in Rwanda and will meet the team from Australia at Kigali airport tomorrow night.

In coming days I will post updates from the individual team members on their experiences in Kigali.

Thanks to the fundraising efforts of the current Day 4 team and a generous donation from Bunbury City Church of Christ 2 new 12 volt Honda generators have been purchased for use by the CUF in Rwanda.

The generators have been supplied by Christie Engineering in NSW at cost price and will be air lifted, along with donated clothing and other aid supplies, in May. The air lifted freight will arrive in Kigali at the same time as the team and will be handed over to the CUF for distribution.

The generators operate on a 12 volt system and can be easily introduced to the solar power system installed in 2004 by Day 4. The generators mean a wider range of activities will be able to be undertaken by the CUF, providing power for lighting and battery charging among other things.

Many thanks to Christie Engineering’s Les Christie for his assistance and to Bunbury City Church of Christ for their fundraising efforts.

We are still looking for donations towards the cost of airfreight for our aid consignment. If you would like to donate please visit our “Sponsorship” page for more information on how you can contribute.

I would like to take this opportunity to pray for an awesome Christmas and New year’s Season for all who read this and support the work being undertaken by the CUF. Please tell all your family, fellow church members, colleagues, friends and indeed as many Australians as you can contact, of our love and gratitude from Rwanda.

Since we met Andrew in 2003, he has not stopped being a great encouragement to the people of CUF particularly, and for Rwanda in general. This mission partnership has made a difference in our situations.

I acknowledge the support with gratitude. We are so thankful for all those hundreds of Kinyarwanda bibles and hymn books given to all church members and the community on Mt. Kigali. That was in 2004. In addition to that, the team was such a blessing to my community because they supplied us with a big plastic water reservoir, where over twenty households in our community fetch water from, during the rainy season.

What a mighty blessing! During such times, these people do not have to walk down this steep mountain for a distance of over 4 Km (to and fro) to the water grid, near the tarmac to access badly needed water. Once again thank you so much, Andrew. While there is great need for more plastic water tanks, we can not fail to profusely thank you for what you accomplished for us. ‘A friend in need is a friend indeed’.

More to that, solar electricity was provided — the only available electricity in our neighbourhood. Neighbours charge their cellphones at our place. This is the only place with any lighting at all, at night, thanks to this solar power. It goes without saying that this solar panel is limited, but it makes such a difference. It can run a computer such that emails can be prepared and sent, albeit for a limited period, before the solar power is exhausted. During the rainy season the solar power is so limited due to limited sunshine, yet solar battery charging is a function of the amount of sunlight. Again, thanks for this solar power you provided for our church, Christian Unity Fellowship.

Click to view larger image

Thanks for the lots of Christian literature you brought us then. It is indispensable in our Christian discipleship. Many pastors, lay people, Christians and others have benefited from this literature. In fact, we distributed some of these to prisons, universities and secondary schools in our capital, Kigali, with substantial impact. Praise be to God. Thanks for being a channel of his love.

The telescope you gave us then was quite a phenomenon in our community. How exciting! No one here had ever seen Jupiter, Saturn (the beauty queen in the sky), Mars, the moon and others in their stark enormity at night, or early in the morning. This makes everybody appreciate God and his creation more. We even dream of starting a Sky watching/Telescope centre someday! Please pray about this with us. It will be the first of its kind in Rwanda and probably Central Africa, though I am not sure. They say there is nothing new under the sun, that is why I have my reservations about the statement, but there is none other that I know of.

Concerning the blessings you brought us in 2004, I cannot forget to add the leadership seminar you organised for the pastors of Kigali, mainly those who attend KIGALI PASTOR’S FELLOWSHIP, to which I am chairman. The seed you planted has grown and is still producing fruit, in the area of unity and Christian discipleship. WE are also on the look-out against foreign influences and religionists that would want to infiltrate our society and erode from its foundation. All the pastors still appreciate this. Your words were prophetic, since today we see a surge of deadly religions that want to rape our society. They will not stop at any crude ways and means to achieve their objective.

Well, these are only a few of the things we have seen achieved through our partnership. Our relationship continues today and it has been getting stronger. Next time I will add on what your team accomplished in 2004, and will continue on from there.

Things are progressing quickly and time is getting away from us! With the likelihood of the 2007 trip taking place in May rather than June/July, to coincide with the Amahoro Africa gathering in Uganda, the need to fundraise has taken on a new urgency.

We have set up a new credit card processing facility and so are now able to accept credit card donations.

To make a donation - just click on the “Donate Now” link. This will take you to the completely secure transaction site powered by Paymate.

Of course you can still donate by sending us a cheque, made out to Day 4 Ministries, by Western Union money order or by Australia Post postal orders. 100% of all donations recieved go to Rwanda. No management fees, wages or levy’s are drawn for our Australian ministry. A 2.2% transaction fee does apply to credit card payments. This fee is charged by the payment gateway and not by Day 4.

Fundraising Requests

• Sponsorship for the Amahoro Africa conference. Funds are required to help cover the cost of sending John and Andrew to this conference in May 2007.
• Solar Panels - Three solar panels and associated equipment is needed for the CUF church building on Mt Kigali making it possible to run electrical appliances (such as a TV and DVD, computer etc) for use in the CUF ministry.
• School Building fund - We are also raising funds to go towards the building of a separate school building for Unity Academy on Mt Kigali. The school currently meets in the church building but is under pressure from the government to move into its own buildings. The cost of building 2 classrooms and fitting out is approximately $13,000.00 US.
• Laptop computer for church use, record keeping, communications etc. - Approximately $1480.00 US.
• Kinyarwanda Bibles and Hymn books - Bibles in the local language of Kinyarwanda for church people.
• The Book Fund - a fund established to purchase educational books and materials as required for use by school children and church leadership.
• Vehicle fund - to fund the purchase of a mini-bus (approx. $5000.00 US) for the use of the church, school and as a sustainable fundraising project during the week.

If you have any questions about any of these projects or have ideas for a project that you think may be beneficial for the Mt Kigali community (particularly financially self-sustaining projects) please let us know!

Hi, my name is Dani and I was a part of the last Day 4 team that went to Rwanda. When I first heard about the 2004 trip I was keen but a little apprehensive as I’d never been out of Australia before (actually make that Western Australia…) And being a young gal of 18 I wasn’t quite sure what I would face or how I would be treated when I got there. But after arriving at Kigali airport and being greeted by a whole host of smiling faces, I just knew that we were going to be well looked after! And the hospitality of the Rwandan people is really what touched me the most during the time that I was there.

We went to the house of a child sponsored by one of the team members through Compassion, and little Solange’s family was so happy to see us! They brought out a huge tray of soft drink bottles which I know would have caused them much sacrifice to buy but they lavished their hospitality upon us and treated our visit like a huge celebration! I feel so privileged to be able to sponsor a child myself in Rwanda - his name is Crispe and I cannot wait to see him and give him an enormous hug when we’re back there next year!