Dear church family,

As we prepare to leave Rwanda after ten unforgettable days, we are thankful for what the Lord is doing here and burdened for the many Rwandans who still suffer from the effects of the genocide.

On Thursday and Friday, we attended a workshop on forgiveness and reconciliation for church leaders, perpetrators, and survivors. The workshop was led by two amazing young men, Benjamin and Aimable (uh-MAH-blay), whom we’ve been blessed to know these past few days, and it culminated in a time of prayer for the healing of deep wounds and a special ceremony to offer some of the survivors a chance to receive a measure of closure. Please pray for Benjamin and Aimable as they continue their work with As We Forgive to bring the message of hope to every corner of this country.

Saturday, we had the privilege of spending time with Rosaria, Saveri, and Pastor Stephen, whose stories were featured in As We Forgive. We also saw the genocide memorial site at a church in Nyamata and heard the story of 24-year-old Charles, who was one of the few survivors out of thousands killed there. The whole experience was a jarring reminder of the unspeakable evil that was committed during the genocide, and it underscored the miraculous nature of the healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation that we’ve seen firsthand.

Our experiences here have reminded us that the Gospel is our only hope and that it is a powerful hope indeed. We pray that we would have eyes to see the Lord moving in the lives around us and that we would be encouraged to seek his kingdom as we return to Washington, D.C. We also ask you to continue praying with us for the reconciliation under way in Rwanda and our ongoing partnerships with believers here. The Lord is moving mightily in this country, and there are many faithful Rwandans who are laying down their lives to join in that work.

Please give thanks with us for the overall health and team unity that we’ve enjoyed, and please pray for safety as we travel home (we’ll arrive Monday morning in D.C.). We praise God for your faithful prayers and support and look forward to seeing y’all again soon!

The Rwanda Team

Muraho again! Yesterday, the Rwanda team departed from Nyagatare, visited Bishop Alexis in Gahini, and safely arrived at the As We Forgive house in Kigali. Our brothers and sisters in Nyagatare sent us off with monster hugs and greetings to everyone. It is going to be difficult to describe the intensity and impact of these newfound relationships with words, so we hope everyone will be able to see it on our faces and hear it in our voices when we return. We also had a great time with the amazingly adorable children of Nyagatare, as we were able to play football and dance with them, visit their schools,
and receive informal lessons in Kinyarwanda (the native language, although many speak very good English).

Many of you will also be happy to know that the Rwandan prayers for marriage and children in our church have been fervently renewed by Pastor Emmanuel and several members of their Development Committee (our Rwanda Group’s counterparts).

Bishop Alexis and, today, Archbishop Kolini were incredibly grateful to have us and shared wonderful advice and prayers in encouraging our ministry here in Rwanda and especially back home.

We got a real sense of the (material) poverty and desolation resulting from the genocide yesterday, yesterday visiting Jon’s friends Aisha and Gloria, whose entire families were killed, and today visiting Kininya, a reconciliation housing association in which victims and killers are living and working together. As Blake said, in the Bible people went up mountains to meet with God. And as we were there in Kininya, we met Him as well. Friends, He is here and moving mightily.

Today we also attended a screening of As We Forgive at a local prison housing 5,200 inmates, over half of whom are there for genocide crimes. The message of repentance and forgiveness was powerful and opened some wonderful doors for conversation.

We give thanks for the work that the Lord has done already, and for the favor and protection He has shown us. We miss everyone from home but are grateful for your prayers and the opportunity to be sent out on behalf of our churches. Please continue to pray for our health and safety, as well as the As We Forgive church leaders’ conference that we’ll be attending the next couple of days.

Grace and peace from our Almighty God,

The Rwanda Team

Muraho! The Rwanda team from Church of the Rez, Advent and Ascension made it safely to Rwanda on Friday, August 27 and has spent the past few days in Nyagatare (the location of our sister church), meeting the new pastor and his family. We also attended church services with the sister church and played football (soccer) with lots of children from the community. After church yesterday we had a screening of “As We Forgive,” followed by discussion. We also met with local university students and they are interested in connecting with university students in D.C.

Today we visited four schools where we sponsor 120 children from the church. The students at all the schools were very excited to see us.

We are thankful for all of your prayers. God has been very gracious to us. Please continue to pray as we leave for Kigali tomorrow where we will be for the remainder of the trip.

Grace & peace,

The Rwanda Team

A group for Church of the Resurrection will be traveling to Rwanda in late August to visit or sister church in Nyagatare and to work with the As We Forgive Rwanda Initiative.   We have two opportunities to support them as they make their final fund-raising push. If you’d like to make a general donation to the trip, you can do that by writing a check to ‘Church of the Resurrection’, including ‘Rwanda Trip’ in the memo line and dropping it in the offering basket on Sunday.

The group is holding a ‘Groovin’ For Rwanda’ fundraiser on Friday, August 20th – please mark your calendars and plan to attend!    You may buy tickets ahead of time by using the Paypal button below. See the embedded flyer for all the details.

The Rwanda trip team will be having a fundraising Yard Sale on Saturday July 10 at the Rudolphs’, 1800 Kearney St. NE.  Please dig out any yard sale items you may have and donate them.  If you would like to drop donations off at the Rudolphs’ during the week, contact Miriam, miriam.clement <AT> gmail [DOT] com.  And please bring friends, join us on the day, and spend lots of money!  See you there!

Last night (Sunday, November 22, 2009), the Rwanda Group shared several videos with us to celebrate Rwanda Night.  We learned more about our partnership with our sister church in Nygatare, Rwanda.  Please enjoy:

1.  Sarah’s photo slideshows of Nygatare, our family there and the surrounding region

Slideshow #1

Slideshow #2

2.  Video of our sister church worshiping, shot by Sarah

Worship Video

3. Greetings from our Sister Church in Nygatare, shot by Sarah

Greeting #1

Greeting #2

Greeting #3

4.  Amanda’s testimony of her visit in Nygatare and thoughts on our education project

Amanda #1

Amanda #2

5.  A video (shot by Kelsey during her visit) from our sister church discussing their English service

English Service Video

We were blessed to have Bishop Rucyahana with us this past Sunday at Rez to celebrate Aaron Damiani’s ordination as a deacon.  He preached the sermon also, and you can listen or download it here.

Pastor Deo from our sister church in Nyagatare, Rwanda has sent us photos.   He says: “The attached are photos of my family and my church choir.  I draw your attention to one special person: my wife, Beatrice commonly called Darling.  Her photo is the most beautiful surrounded by my four other children.  Thank you for viewing these beautiful, tremendous, phenomenal creatures.  Love all, Deo.”

Photos after the jump. Read More

Read “A Message of Hope From a Pile of Bones,” by Ellis Cose, here.

As Rwanda commemorates the 15^th anniversary of the Genocide beginning on April 7, we pray for our brothers and sisters there, especially in our sister congregation in Nyagatare. This first week of the 100 days of remembrance can be especially traumatic to many as it sets triggers of the memories of the sights, sounds and smells that filled their country with the death of 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutus.

 The first week will be a time when students are off from school, memorials services for those bodies still being recovered are held; visitation to the homes of the survivors in the communities; community meetings and speeches; movies such as “Sometime in April” and “Shake Hands with the Devil” will be broadcast on television; all to remember what happened so it “will never happen again”. 

Time does not heal all wounds. It takes the hard work of reconciliation and forgiveness. It takes the love of Jesus to forgive the sinner who repents and believes. It takes the prayers of intercession from God’s people to provide strength to continue the battle against evil.

We need forgiveness too, for being deaf to the calls for help from the people in Rwanda 15 years ago. Even now, it is so difficult to imagine the sense of fear, loss, pain and suffering that those in Rwanda experienced. Those Rwandans who were outside the country experienced the loss of complete families, survivor guilt, and the sense of helplessness, too. No one is untouched and all need the healing power of our Lord Jesus. Nothing else holds the keys to heal the anger and guilt, to restore a community and re-unite a victim with their adversary.

Pray for the reconciliation that is happening and needs to continue; for the widowed and orphans; for those who have loved ones in prison; for those in the prisons; for the leaders of Rwanda especially President Kagame.

Pray for the Church and her leaders to lead the way forward. For Archbishop Kolini and the entire House of Bishops. For Pastor Deo and Beatrice in our sister parish, and for the healing of the people there. For Laura Waters Hinson while she is in Rwanda this week, preparing to show “As We Forgive” there later this summer. Pray for the power of the Holy Spirit to fall afresh on their land. Let’s hold “hands” with our sister churches and commit to pray for them.