Today, I journeyed to a chapel (or mission church) of Gakinjiro (the church where I preached on Sunday). There were 275-300 people gathered and more than half had been praying and fasting before the service. I have truly been humbled by the commitment of the Rwandans we’ve been with. How I wish for this kind of commitment to prayer, fasting, and desire for God among the American church.
The message focus was again on forgiveness. 18 stood to receive Christ as Savior and Lord during the invitation and an estimated 100 to 150 confessed their sin of returning evil for the evil done to them. Then they asked for prayer that God would heal the wounds that others’ sin had caused.
After the service on the way to lunch, we had a flat tire. As the Rwandans say, “no problem.” We fixed the flat and were on our way in a short time.
This afternoon we visited some of those orphaned and widowed after the genocide. One of the reasons for our partnership with Evangelical Revival Ministries (ERM) here in Rwanda is their unique ministry approach to the tragedy caused by the genocide. In addition to working with churches to share the gospel and train pastors, ERM pairs orphans with widows to create new family units. These individuals are sponsored by donors (mostly from the US). Many of these are older children or teenagers.
Our final ministry opportunity today was sharing resource information about The Hope Video with 102 students at a Bible training institute. The Hope Video is intended to provide a way for pastors to present an overview of God’s story from Genesis to the birth of the church in both evangelistic and discipleship settings. The resource will likely be used in conjunction with the chronological Bible story lessons created by New Tribes. A missionary from New Tribes is also partnering with ERM and is here introducing that material as well. I’m excited to see what God is going to do through these materials here in Rwanda.
Our day ended pushing a Land Rover. After sharing with the bible students, our Land Rover would not start. Fortunately, it has a standard transmission, so we pushed and “jump started” the vehicle. It was a typical missionary day, with a little bit of everything: Gospel preached, people saved, Christians renewed, leaders encouraged, flat tire changed and jump starting your Land Rover.
