I have recently returned from Rwanda, and am wondering how I am going to convey the experience which was one of very real highs and lows.
For the end of the trip , Don Egan had organized a Safari, which meant 6 hours in what was more like an off road rally! Part way through a Black Mamba snake crossed our path, and unable to stop, we drove over where it had crossed. I was about to leap out to get close and photograph it when both Don and our Rwandan guide prevented me from leaving the jeep.
I later learnt Black Mambas are just about the deadliest snake in the world and they have been known to get caught under the axles of four-wheel drives and bite the occupiers as soon as the door is opened. Hmmm.... I learnt a lot about Black Mamba snakes quite quickly!
Another snake is described by Jesus as "the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy"; I have never encountered anything so devilish as the events and consequences of the genocide in Rwanda.
Just over a week ago I went around the genocide memorial in Kigali city. In 1994 nearly 1,000,000 people were killed in 100 days. The picture of evil was far greater than I had ever imagined from afar. Here is a place where truly death and destruction have reigned.
yet in the midst of that I found this:
The RSVP programme that feeds 80 - 100 street children twice a week, every week. The worker is Patricia, whose Rwandan name means JOY....and she is full of just that! Building relationships, sharing life skills, and dealing with very disturbed children. One by one they are volunteering to come off the streets into a home and the promise of a new life.
In the next room, women are being trained in a skill to help lift them from the poverty trap as some have been left destitute when their husbands have died from AIDS, or were killed in the genocide or are in prison.
Despite being moved twice already from other premises, the ministry continues to grow. I discovered that the Rwandans who partner with RSVP really know how to overcome impossible odds!
Later we went to the school RSVP helped to build. What a miracle. In 2001 Don agreed to buy a piece of land. Just four years later, we were shown around a school with 505 children all in uniform.
300 of these children are sponsored through RSVP, without which they would have no chance of escaping the poverty trap. Many would otherwise be joining the kind of children I saw at 6:30am carrying sticks and water down the roads, with no shoes on and bellies inflated by ringworm. Day in, day out, with no hope of change.
Not surprisingly therefore, when interviewed, the sponsored children all said how they had prayed for a sponsor because they had seen a brother/ sister or friend and wanted what they had. I interviewed Alfred the head teacher who told me that the Rwanda television company, who covered the building of the school in a programme, referred to the school as a 'miracle'.
Charles Mugisha and Fred Katagwa, who head up the ministry talk about taking the "gun of education to kill poverty, ignorance, and disease". Here is a powerful partnership between outside organisations like RSVP and local Rwandan Christian ministry, truly transforming the society.
One of the hardest moments for me was visiting some of the very poor. Rebecca is employed as a Christian social worker and she took us on her rounds. The first lady we visited had nothing. She sat on small pile of sticks, in front of some recently peeled banana skins. It seems her husband and sons had all been killed in the genocide. We were led into her so-called bedroom. It was an empty room with an uneven earth floor that she lay down on each night. She was probably in her 70's. I have never seen such poverty. I found it deeply disturbing.
That night I could not sleep on my mattress and planned to give it to her the next day. In the morning we visited homes again and distrubuted matresses and food, paid for by RSVP's Gifts of Hope scheme. Rebecca was close to tears and immediately said this was indeed an answer to prayer. At about £10.00 a mattress it was not difficult to make a huge difference! Don left £1,000 for Gifts of Hope. These will be distributed by Rebecca and her team.
In the midst of seeing all the work of the partnership between RSVP with Africa New Life Ministries, we preached at a 3 day conference attended by about 500 people a day.
This brought together some 13 churches, at a level of unity that left one pastor in tears - at the end and he hugged us! ...only God can do this.
Something is happening that is the opposite of what I started with. In fact it looks and sounds something like the words of Jesus in John 10;10
Following on from : 'The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; Jesus said: I have come that you may have life, and have it to the full!'
We live in a global village and God commands us not to forget the poor. We know it in our bones that it is better to give than receive, and it was clear to me that the integrity of the work, which is a partnership with indigenous people in Rwanda, will be a blessing in both directions!
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