Rwanda Mission Partnership

December 25th, 2006

Many Thanks from CUF & Rwanda!

Posted by John in 2007 trip, about, partnership

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.


Solar Power Installation

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.

December 1st, 2006

Planning and Sponsorship

Posted by Andrew in 2007 trip, church, fundraising, partnership

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.

Pay with Paymate Express

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!