The Rwanda Story: creative non-fiction

Everyone I met in Rwanda for Africa New Life Ministries' 10th Anniversary celebration - Rwandan or American - has a story about how they ended up there. I'm no different.

For me, the story began when cancer ended my aunts life in 2003. She hadn't ever married and didn't have kids, and although this seemed unfortunate, I was secretly glad because it meant that she had lots of time and attention for me, as well as her other nieces and nephews. She really invested in each of us over the years.

But her impact on us didn't die along with her. After her death, we learned that she had left her estate to orphaned children in developing countries...and it was up to us nieces and nephews to find Christian organizations through which to distribute these funds.

To be honest, I didn't like this idea at the time. Not that I didn't care about orphaned kids, but...I didn't really. It just sounded like work. Uninteresting work.

But God changes people and over the next couple years, He chipped away at the idols in my heart until they lay shattered on the ground and then God constructed new passions and convictions in my heart. Suddenly the idea of having money that I HAD to give away seemed like a dream come true.

And that's how I encountered Africa New Life Ministries. We heard about the organization and then sent a small gift, along with a letter requesting more information. I was thinking newsletters. But then I got an email response asking, "we have a small musical group of Rwandan young men, could we come visit?" So these complete strangers came and stayed with us and did a small event at my church and when they left, I knew this was just the beginning.

And it was. Eventually, our church partnered with ANLM, through which 50 kids are sponsored, an orphan home was built, and two teams were sent.

At the end of the year in 2008, we learned that the trust fund should, for tax reasons, make a larger than usual donation that year. I contacted ANLM to see if there were any projects they were doing that fit the requirements of the trust fund. Turns out, a group of former street kids had been abruptly relocated from a home in Kigali to empty classrooms on the Kayonza campus. They were waiting on funds to purchase adjoining land and build a home for these boys. It wasn't a hard sell to the others in the trust fund, and the land was bought and home built.

The Umucyo Home (which means 'light', same meaning of my aunt's name, Elaine) now sits a short distance from the dining hall on the Kayonza campus. It currently houses 44 boys and a house "uncle", who gets them up early in the morning for prayer and devotional time before they go to school and work on their studies. They have dreams and a future because of what God has done for them.

This is a great story because it's one that you couldn't come up with if you wanted. God's work is so clearly seen from beginning to end.

But my favorite part about this story is that it is one of many. Being in Rwanda for the 10th Anniversary celebration meant hearing story after story after story of how God has worked in all kinds of people from all kinds of backgrounds to bring His transformational power to the people of Rwanda through Africa New Life Ministries.

The Umucyo Home has a story, but so does every other building, every other branch of ministry, every staff member, there at ANLM Rwanda. And you see them all together and it is just so undeniably God's work, that He would arrange and prepare and bring about.

What is happening there in Rwanda is beautiful. It is unexplainably beautiful. Not easy. Not quick. Not comfortable. But beautiful because it brings glory to the Only One who could write it.