Rwanda Update 5...

Hello family and friends,

I hope that everything in your lives continues to be going well and that you have enjoyed your last couple weeks of the summer months. The ending of August has come about quickly and with it, my second month here in Rwanda is coming to a close as well. This month was kept busy with my work with the widow’s ministry.

The widow’s ministry is involved in 4 areas of the Kigali area. Some areas we concentrate more on small businesses or income generating things like goats, and in other areas, one area in particular, we are starting to concentrate more on working with their children. Many of these widows are raising their own children as well as opening their homes and lives to care for children who are orphans. Many of the widows cannot afford to send these children to school. We have recorded 300 children so far into our documents by taking their pictures and writing their information down. The prevalence of HIV among these children is also disturbing and heart breaking. These children are so precious and desperate to get an education, but the finances just aren’t there. We are presently looking into ways to raise support for these children’s school fees. If you have any ideas or have heard about things that have worked for others please feel free to contact me with that information.
In all of the areas we visit we share a time of preaching, discussion and worship with the women. In the upcoming weeks I will likely be taking on a larger role in this area, as the woman I am working with, Jackie, will hopefully (for her sake, not mine) be going to a school in Montana until next March, providing her visa and finances work out. We are hoping that 1 or 2 YWAM staff will step up in the next week or two to volunteer their time with the widow’s ministry, especially for the time while Jackie is away and ideally long term. Please be praying for that situation.

Living in community on the YWAM base is a good time. For work duties everyone on the team helps make a meal or two a week and helps with cleaning the dining hall and kitchen area. The kitchen here consists of three charcoal run fire pits and big silver pots for the food to cook in. The base doesn’t having running water except for 2 taps where we get all the water on the base.

Along with living in a community come wonderful friendships with the people you live amongst. We lost a member of our YWAM community 2 weekends ago. Since the beginning of this YWAM base there has been a man working here, who was both deaf and mute. He still managed to communicate using his own version of sign language and was very funny as well as a wonderful help around the base. He was here working on the Saturday morning and around lunchtime he was starting to complain that he had pain in his stomach. He was taken to the hospital in the afternoon and by the evening he had died. It was all very fast and shocking to all of us here on the base.

Thank you for your continued love, support and prayers for my time here in Rwanda and for reading this update even though it was a bit long. Continue sending those e-mails and calling me. I love hearing from you! Until next time…

Be blessed,
Trisha

Rwanda Update 4 ...

Today marks exactly my halfway point. It is exactly halfway from the day I left home and went to Switzerland to the day I will return home. The time is passing very fast and I am continuing to love it, as I learn so much and am challenged a lot as well.

This past week was my first week of my official placement here in Rwanda. I will spend the next 4 months working mainly in a widow’s ministry. The woman and the children I am working with are incredible. All have heartbreaking stories about all the things they have had to overcome in life. As the weeks continue I will share some of their stories with you. The person I am working with in this ministry is an incredible girl who is my age and has been running this ministry by herself for around 6 years now. She interacts with over 700 widows. The work I will be involved in includes group meetings of the widows as well as one-on-one visits. We will be continuing to pair five women together, giving them an opportunity to plan a small business together, apply for a loan from the ministry and then hopefully make the business work. There is also an opportunity to give some of these widows goats, which helps generate an income for them. The next big task we as a ministry have is that we will be compiling the woman’s individual profiles including pictures of themselves and their children in an effort to be able to raise awareness of their issues and hopefully raise support for these woman and especially their children since many of them are not in school because their mothers/caregivers can not afford the school fees. I will also be working one afternoon with a local prostitution ministry.

My heart has been softened for these woman and their children since the first moment I met them. I am looking forward to spending the next four months with them very much. Thank you for your continued love, support and prayers for my time here in Rwanda.