Adventures in Rwanda, Africa...

...a little bit about Solace Ministries

2008-12-13T09:48:00.000-08:00

Rwanda History:
The 1994 genocide and war in the small nation of Rwanda resulted in over 1,000,000 people

brutally killed and left thousands of widows and orphans with virtually no means of support. Extreme poverty is the ordeal of the day for these 'survivors', who lost spouses, children, parents, siblings and their homes.

What is Solace ministries?

The main goal of Solace ministries is to restore "what the locusts have taken" by ministering to the spiritual needs of the widows and orphans through the preaching of God's Word, worship, and sharing testimonies of God's rescue and provision.

Solace has a fully operational clinic to provide HIV/AIDS treatment to women who contracted HIV through rape during the genocide.

Solace Ministries helps acquire land for groups of Genocide Widows. The widows are able to farm the land and support themselves and their families. Many of these women are infected with the HIV virus.

Solace Ministries has also been involved with putting on youth camps due to the need they have seen to minister to Rwanda's youth.

The objective of these camps is to bring trauma healing, reestablish moral standards using the Word of God, to fight against loneliness and despair, teaching on parenting, to create a network among the youth who are without family and to encourage and teach the value of an education.

Website: http://www.solacem.org/

~November Showers Bring December Flowers~

2008-12-08T07:46:00.000-08:00

November days brought many cooling showers, these moistened the ground to bring forth flowers of vibrant colors all over the hills.

Memories of my last week in Shyira:

-Making paper snowflakes for the children’s ward, and explaining how Christ washes us white as snow.

-Teaching English to the children at the Kindergarten (English is valuable to them, because Rwanda is switching their primary language from French to English over the next two years)

-Celebrating St. Nicholas day with the German missionary family, the Kohls (St. Nicholas visited us)

-Watching how many girls came to Bible study this past Sunday to learn more about God and His Word, it was endearing

-Watching Anne of Green Gables with our German roommate, Carina. We will miss her!

-Hiking to see "Mary's" waterfall

-Saying Goodbye to patient’s and staff at the hospital.

Carina and I on the hike to the waterfall

Shyira on one of it's many rainy evenings

Beautiful Shyira, Rwanda

2008-11-30T10:02:00.000-08:00

Mary leading the girls Bible study on a Sunday morning

The children at the Shyira Kindergarten

My friend's house in the hills

Random pictures

2008-11-30T08:55:00.000-08:00

Carina and Mary having a rest after the hike to Mary's waterfall

Mary and I playing with the King's puppies

Children at Solace

Discovering Grace...

2008-11-24T10:19:00.000-08:00

I was 12 years old when I experienced God’s grace. I publicly stated that Jesus Christ was the Son of God and that He died for the forgiveness of my sins. I didn’t understand grace, but I I did respond to God’s great love and kindness to me. I understood the extraordinary cost of God’s love for me. I wanted God to know that I believed in Him and that I loved Him for loving me so much.
Several years passed before I comprehended that Christ lived in me. I will never forget the day I realized I would never have to live life on my own. I was stressed and discouraged, mainly because I was living life on my own strength-and I was running out of strength. I was trying so hard to be perfect and to hold everything together. Essentially, this is what living under the law is – striving to do in our own strength and power what God asks.
As I cried out the Lord, He very gently spoke to my heart and asked Him if I would let Him be Lord. Would I relinquish control, and give up thinking I could live life apart from His life in me? That very day I recognized the truth of Paul’s testimony in Galatians, “For when I tried to keep the law, I realized I could never earn God’s approval. So I died to the law that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live my life trusting in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Galatians 2:19, 20 NLT)
For the first time, I knew that the living God, in His grace, had taken possession of His child. I was appropriating not only God’s saving grace, but His indwelling Holy Spirit, to enable me to live each not in my own strength, but in His.
-Cynthia Heald, Becoming a Woman of Grace
“For by grace you have been saved, through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast.” – Ephesians 2:8,9 NASB

Journey to Uganda

2008-11-19T01:43:00.000-08:00

Mary and I arrived in Kampala, Uganda last night for a chance to check out a thriving Hospice Center, and to renew Mary's Visa. Last night we took time to navigate around the city, it's a busteling metropolis. Today we were able to see around the hospice center. They treat patients, offer spiritual care, do home visits, as well as networking and teaching for other organizations. Tomorrow we will hopefully be able to go on a home visit.

For fun we like to look at people's shirts. We saw a UW-Oshkosh shirt and a milwaukee bucks hat. There are also several things I will not mention here. From what I've observed the desire of much of the culture is to become as western as possible.

We take th 10 hour bus ride back to Kigali on Friday.

What Fun :)

2008-11-15T09:41:00.001-08:00

Week 2 in Shiyra has flown by. Each day holds something different. Mondays and Wednesdays I teach a beginner English class for the staff of the hospital, it is fun to hear them practice their English when I see them throughout the day.
Tuesday we celebrated the German holiday, St. Martin’s day. It is to celebrate a man who led a life of serving others. The children sing songs as they walk down the street with lanterns.
Thursday I had the opportunity of visiting the school on the Shyira Hospital grounds, they would like me help with English lessons.
Today Carina and I went to Ruhengeri to go to the market and send letters. In the evening we’ll have fellowship night with the German missionary family that is on site at the Hospital. They are so sweet and have taken us under their wing. They have 3 sweet little girls that love to ask us “what’s your favorite….?”
As far as nursing opportunities I was able to shadow a grandfatherly Rwandan nurse named Antoinne, he showed me how they look up the patients’ medicine and have the attendant go to the pharmacy to get it. He also let me take vital signs in the women’s internal medicine ward.

Love Stories....

2008-11-15T09:39:00.000-08:00

Love Stories
One night a boy woke up to billows of smoke in his bedroom. He could see no way out through the door or through the window. Suddenly he was picked up by two strong arms swept out the window and carried down the drain pipe. When he was able to see and think clearly he looked around for who had saved him. He saw a man walking towards him with burnt hands. He ran to the man and embraced him, this man had saved his life.

A woman stood in the slave market being auctioned off to the highest bidder. She stood straight, looking worn, but beautiful. She knew what would happen once a man bought her. After many bids she was finally sold to a gentlemen in the back. As he came to get her she spit in his face. With a soft look he said, “I have bought you to set you free.” After realizing what this man had done her eyes welled up with tears. She spent the rest of her life serving him on her own free will.

“For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” – John 3:17
“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.” – John 3:16

Adventures in Shyira

2008-11-03T10:31:00.000-08:00

What an adventurous week this has been! Friday I met up with Mary in Ruhengeri and said goodbye to the Solace team, thus began the second phase of my journey.
Shyira is lovely, the hills are bigger and greener here (near where people pay hundreds of dollars to go see the gorillas). You can also see towering, inactive volcanoes off to the North.
On Saturday I followed Mary during her rounds to get a feel for the Hospital. Medicine is so different their because of limited diagnostic tools, there is so much guessing. Then we took a rigorous hike down the mountain to the market where we bought some fabric for skirts and played with the little children who would yell “mazungu” as we walked by. It means white person. Our days will be filled with working at the hospital, learning Kinya-Rwandan, teaching English, and leading a Bible study for about 20 women. I am already enjoying the simpler life here. We go to bed early because the lights go out at 8:30. Sunday morning we went to church that is in Kinya-Rwandan, we sat in the back, read our Bibles and journaled. I have already been able to pray with several of the patients, they appreciate it so much! I believe the most useful thing I can do while here at Shyira is help teach the staff English. Rwanda is switching their primary language from French to English in the next couple years, so English lessons are very popular (please pray that my overall role becomes even more clear). Tomorrow I will be on the maternity ward and may get to see a birth! Today our pet cat had kittens, it was beautiful (mwiza).

First Week at Solace Ministries

2008-10-28T08:21:00.000-07:00

It has been 4 days since we arrived in Kigali, Rwanda. Even now it seems like so much longer. The first night we arrived, we greeted by several of the Solace staff and their families. We spoke to them in the little Kinyarwandan we know. It went sort of like "muraho, amakuru? ni meza, amakuru? ni meza" pointing and sharing names, and then a smile, giggle and hug.

I have been so blessed to be apart of the ministry at Solace, I praise God for the peace He has brought to so many widows and orphans from the Genocide.

Our first morning we attended a worship meeting at the new conference center, there were about 200 in attendance. We enjoyed singing and dancing together as well as learning about God's promises from our leader Geri. We went to another such meeting in a village called Kinyinya where we met more widows. I was shocked to hear that 70/86 of the villagers were HIV+. Many of these are women who were raped during the genocide. The Lord has brought hope for them though, they know now have hope in Jesus Christ as their Savior and know they will send eternity with Him. They will then have glorified bodies that will be free from sickness and disease....what wonderful hope.

We were also able to visit the Compassion International headquarters of Rwanda, it was so special to see two of our team members meet with their sponsor children. Tonight we will go to the house of Solace staff member where we will enjoy traditional Rwandan food, it is very good!...we eat lots of fresh bread, fruits, fried potatoes, and rice. Tomorrow we will attend a widows meeting where we will hear testimonies from the genocide and their survival and will pray with them.

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God." - 2 Corinthians 1:3,4

Being Sent

2008-07-28T13:03:00.000-07:00

About 9 months ago my friend Mary told me about a medical missions trip she was taking to Rwanda, Africa. She asked me to go, I prayed about it and got plenty of confirmation from the Lord that I should go. One such instance was when my mom went in to talk to my pastor about my trip, and on his desk he happened to have two books written by a woman who survived the genocide in 94, he said I was meant to have one. This book was called "Left to Tell", it describes one woman's story of her life and what happened to her and her family during the genocide. Her book also describes how her faith has helped her deal with the pain, and how God truly saved her many times during the genocide. Hearing stories from many of my friends amazes me how God was at work during this time. One man describes how he lived with a poisonous snake in a bush for a week and when one of the killers dogs came to find him the snake came out of the bush, bit and killed the dog. Some people could say, "How could God let this happen?", my belief is that he allowed people to go through with it, but is now showing His great love and mercy by healing this land and bringing peace. Praise be to God for the peace He's brought to the country now, and for the emotional healing that's occuring. I look forward to being a part of what He's doing in this country.