Photos and Videos

Here are links you may be interested in:

• Rwanda photos and videos
• Serengeti photos and videos
• Qatar photos and videos

and the videogram Greenville Oaks sent to Caleb & Jenny.

Cast of Characters

If you're like me, it is hard to tell who is who here in Rwanda. Here is a partial cast of characters:

Missionaries

Kigali

• Caleb & Jenny Beck - Caleb works in many circles of ATN.  Jenny works at Kics in the business and HR office as well as working in the Peace House for girls.
• Heath & Rebecca Amos - Heath works at ATN teaching English the Bible & leads DBSs. Rebecca is a stay at home mom for their 3 kids. They live next door to the Becks in the same compound.
• Marty and Lousie Koonce - Marty uses taekwondo as a way of leading people to Christ. The sport has been very successful in competition locally and internationally.  Lousie is a stay at home mom.

Musanze

A separate team works independently from the one in Kigali:

• Crowson Murphy Christine
• Millers Matt and Andrea

Unfortunately, we didn't meet or talk about them on this trip.

Rwandan Teammates

ATN

These are the locals who lead and work in ATN as described in previous posts:

• Charles Kabeza - Spokesperson, fundraiser, founder of XtraMile
• Charles Mapendo
• Bunani Emmanuel
• Charlotte - Peace House
• Deborah - Peace House
• Nzamutashya - Agriculture & wells
• Gaston - Media
• Jules

Center Peace

These are the leaders of the church next door to the Becks:

• Emile
• Maureen

Behind the Scenes

In many countries like Rwanda, having people who help around the house is expected and normal.  These are the people that work for the Beck household allowing them to focus on Kingdom building activities:

• Vadese - nighttime security
• Olivie - cleaning and laundry
• Mama Rainie - cooking

Short Term Missionaries

I've learned a lot from my fellow short term missionaries:

• Gerry Taylor - Leadership, vision, confession, and passion
• Donna Taylor - Generosity & amiability
• David Bruce - Humor and saying the right things
• Valinda Bruce - Affirmation and love for children

Peace House

Charlotte and Debra run the Peace House for at risk woman and prostitutes. They've found success through love, trade skills, and obedience in Discovery Bible Studies (DBS). Their story epitomizes why Rwanda is the most vibrant mission I have ever seen - foreign or domestic.

Charlotte had a young woman named Josey come to here door after dark one night asking for help to get back home.  Josey had been abused at home and became a prostitute at the age of 12.  She eventually met a man who offered her a job in Barundi.  Once she arrived, the man made her his "wife" and prevented her from leaving. After a few years, she didn't get pregnant so the man kicked her out and took her back to Rwanda. Josey couldn't go back home because her family and community wouldn't accept her.

 Prostitutes in Rwanda are taboo and outcast. Many are sent to the streets by their family. They don't openly advertise themselves because the stigma, but instead "disguise" themselves by selling fruit or other merchandise. A typical prostitur costs around $1 to $3 dollars.

This is about the time Charlotte met Josey. Charlotte grew up as a Christian and her heart was pricked but she wasn't sure what to do. She knew there were others with similar horror stories, so it occurred to her to try to form a support group of some kind. Getting girls to come to such a group was initial very hard because of the stigma and shame.

Peace House offers girls a place to transition away from their desperate circumstances. Girls come and stay for a year. Sometimes there kids stay at the Peace House for kids. During their stay, girls learn a trade. At first it was making jewelry out of tightly round paper. They now make several other things they can sell to make a living without having to abuse themselves in the process. Girls that have been there longer teach the girls that have not been there as long.

This is also true spitiually.  The girls engage everyday in a DBS. They are hungry for the word of God. DBSs call people to obedience based on what they have personally discovered about God by studying the Bible. This is the engine of transformation. The girls form a community around shares struggles.

At one point they learned of a woman in the hospital that was doing very badly. In Rwanda, there is no food service or people taking care of you like you would expect.  Rwanda has a very poor idea of customer service. They don't take care of their sick very well. So, when the girls heard of this woman, even though they didn't know her, they took shifts around the clock nursing her and just sitting with her.

The woman eventually died. Afterward, her family (who wasn't taking care of her) ask what church they went to and how they could join.  To their surprise, they were told this isn't a church, it is just a Kingdom community. This is an interesting twist: they intentionally don't start a "church" because it brings too much baggage with it. Instead, they form Kingdom communities modeling God's Kingdom on earth and send the participants back into their home churches to model the Kingdom. They become the leaven and the change agents in their community.

What happened to Josey? She eventually left the Peace House with new job skills, moved out of Kigali, and became a leader in her community. A girl who could barely lift her head and speak aloud has now formed a second Peace House in her community. The mayor of that town brags on her as shining bright and standing out above all othersmin her community.  There is also a new third group that has started.

This is how you can recognize success: the disciples that Charlotte disciples have now independently begun to disciple others. If we don't see this, we haven't fulfilled the full mission of God.

Sunday Worship

PeaceLodge

After purchasing land, the Becks were the first in the area granted a permit to build. Soon afterwards, a church called PeaceLoadge was allowed to build next door up a little hill. Originally founded by a Canadian,  it is now led by a group of 10 including Caleb.

We were privileged to go to that church this morning. I can't post the videos because of the WiFi, but you should definitely watch them once I post them next week once I get back. It is a traditional Rwandan church. It provides a middle ground between the Catholic and Pentecostal churches that are more common.

The service mostly consisted do performances by children and adult choirs as well as a dance team.  Everything was authentic African.  Wow! It was really awesome.

The sermon was given by a Canadian married to a Rwandan who are trying to move back here. Caleb has been asked to teach on Thursday nights. He is hoping to use this as an opportunity to introduce discipline concepts through DBS. The new building is already used as a community center.  There is a soccer field next door.  Caleb views the church as being a portal into his local community.

ATN

We worshipped at the Koonce house tonight. It was a large crowd because we welcomed a large group from  Pepperdine studying abroad. All the locals introduced themselves and described their ministry. Because Rwanda requires everyone to have a vocational job, we heard from teachers, principles, accountants, and taekwondo coaches who one by one named their job and how they use it to bring people to Christ. How awesome it would be if everyone in the U.S. saw themselves as being a missionary first and their profession  as the vehicle to serve.

Going Native

Day in the Life

We spent most of the day simulating a day in the life of a Rwandan.   African Transformation Network (ATN) just recently started doing these simulations behind the welding shop.  They have a small house and demonstration fields.  The house is a traditional one you'd find in rural areas with walls made of clay and are painted white inside using flour.  If you touch the wall, you'll get some powder on you.  A small house to the side had a kitchen which amounted to an indoor fire with a pot of boiling water on it.  This is where they (Denise  with her baby on her back) cooked our lunch of boiled bananas, sweet potatoes, and beans accompanied by avocados, Japanese plums, and passion fruit.

Prepreparing for the Day

The woman started the day by putting on traditional wraps and head scarfs.  The men chopped wood for the cooking fire.  We all took turns peeling green plantains for boiling.  The juice under the skin was very sticky and hard to get off our hands.

There are three types of bananas grown in Rwanda: table bananas for that look like the little "manzanita" bananas you find in Latin America, plantains that are typically boiled, and bananas they make beer out of.  We were shown an earthen oven where the unpeeled green beer bananas are baked, fermented, and added to sorghum to become beer.

Farming God's Way

ATN teaches agriculture to the locals.  Anyone with land grows bananas, beans, & vegetables that form a major portion of their diet. ATN teaches them how to farm God's way without tilling yielding up to four times the yield of traditional Rwandan farms and gardens in a way that is sustainable. Tilling produces hard land and let's moisture escape. ATN teaches how to use ground cover instead of tilling. The ground cover serves as both mulch and soil for the seedlings.

Then group got to practice this form of farming in ATN's demonstration fields. The men weeded and pruned banana trees. The flowers of the tree need to be cut, dead bark cut, and flayed bark tied back to the tree.

We were taught to grow three generations of trees together at the same base: the oldest generation to yield fruit, a younger less mature generation with no fruit (yet), and a sampling.  This way, you have bananas year round.

The women made hats out of the banana leaves. These aren't ornamental, they are functional.  Woman carry large heavy things on their head and the hats provide a cushion, support, and balance.

Clean Water

Rwandans struggle to find clean drinking water. Many walk miles to fill a 50 lb "Gerry Can" of water from mud puddles and marshes with hippos in them. This water has all sorts of nasty stuff I it causing large parts of the population to have intestinal problems.

ATN combats this by drilling wells. The western approach brings in heavy machinery and gets the job done fast.  The problem is that it cost $10,000 and the well falls into disrepair because the locals don't feel like they own it nor do they have the ability to fix it when it breaks.

ATN finds communities who are willing to partner in the creation and maintenance of the well. Drilling is a manual and very long process.  A big tripod is erected and drilling begins with two people turning a drill bit.  The first few feet go fast.  When they hit rock, they may only a few inches in a day.  It can take 3 months to drill down to the 45 feet it takes to make a well.  Even then, there is no promise that the well will make.  One  out of the five wells they've drilled so far was too salty to be used. They'd  like to find a motor to use  that can turn the crank on the drill bit.  The current manual process takes several people and is slow.

Once the well is drilled, the welding shop creates the pump for the well. It is made simply with local parts that the locals can fix if/when it breaks. The pump is locked at night to prevent abuse.  During the day, a man stays at the pump to protect it and help pump the water. Locals pay the guard $0.03 per haul for clean water closer than the bad water before.

We were then privileged to haul water for the family that lives in the house where we ate lunch. We carried Gerry Cans down hill 2 kilometers to a well drilled behind ATN. We then carried the cans back up hill to the house. It is hard for me to imagine how people do this every day.  We were all huffing and puffing at the top of the hill!

Irene's Well

We drove out into the rural countryside to see a new well being dug.  This well is partially funded by donations made in memory of Donna's mother Irene who passed away not too long ago. We took the opportunity to bless the well and dedicate it to Irene's memory.

Street Boys

ATN started a ministry back in 2011 with boys who live on the street. These are children of prostitutes and families without fathers who are malnourished and illiterate. They are around 14 years old and in the first or second grade.  All of them are very small for their age due to malnutrition.

These at risk kids leave their families and move into a peace house run by ATN.  The house has a few rooms with bunk beds. It is a place where kids can escape the cycle of bad choices, live in a safe environment with peers, study the Bible, and learn about Jesus.

Kids rotate through the peace house annually in January.  Twelve kids spend a year transitioning from a live of despair into one of hope. After a year is up, they go back to their families, stay in school, and go onto a better life than they would have had before. For some, finishing sixth grade is a success because they will be literate enough to get a job.  Many go on to secondary school.

Playground

The workers did great work on the playground.  You can see from the photos how it is coming along nicely. They made then painted the merry-go-round and slide fort.  The rock wall is half done.  We took the big sand pile and spread it over a third of the ground after picking up rocks and smoothing out the dirt. More loads of dirt will come next week to finish out the playground.

The street boys helped spread the sand around.  There aren't many playgrounds in Rwanda.  Since this one is visible from the street, they are hoping to attract more kids. There aren't primary schools in that area, so one of the dreams is to open a primary school on the ATN campus.  This would be a Christian school that could impact lives of the area kids and street kids.  It could also be a needed revenue source because people will pay for their kids to go to a quality school close by.

Dorms

Another dream is to build dorms. They are going to start raising funds for that next summer.  The dorms would house the iron working students.  They would receive room and board and ATN would get paying students that would make the ministry self sustaining.  They could also triple the number of students with this.

Giving people skills is part of the secret sauce at ATN.  People come for help and education, they get involved in Bible studies, and stay for the Kingdom community.

Rwandan Weddings

There are some men that won't marry a woman until she is pregnant.  Children are a very important part of Rwandan culture and the men don't want to commit to anything before they know the woman can deliver the goods.

Rwandan weddings have three ceremonies: the dowry, the civil, and the religious.  Weddings last all day (and night).  Brides hide in with the crowd while old men pretend to argue for an hour over whether or not the bride should be allowed to marry the groom. Finally, they relent at which point the bride pretends to not want to go because she will miss her family.  When the bride has no family, others step into that role To fill the gap.

Prepaid

Everything in Rwanda is prepaid.  You buy minutes for your phone and use it until they run out and then you buy more.  You by electricity and use it until you run out and then you buy more.  Being able to send and receive money over low end phones is a critical aspect of how this works. It would be interesting to see how this impacts the debt people live with.

Josian

We went to visit one of the former ATN folk whose college education was funded by generous members of Greenville Oaks.  Josian lived in a remote area close to the Burundi border. Her college degree helped double her expected income and allowed her to meet a husband with a similar education. Together, they bought 200 square meters of land on a hillside near upscale new homes where Kilgali is expanding into.  Once the infrastructure is in place, they'll be able to sell the land beside their house for a nice profit. None of this would be possible without the help of generous donors.

ATN People

The Kingdom is flourishing in Rwanda because their are so many Rwandans who lead the disciple making movement.  The colonial approach to Christianity hasn't worked. What does work is partnering with the locals on their vision and letting them lead the way.

Charles Mapendo

Charles is a major figure in ATN.  Officially he manages the business side of the NGO, dealing with visas and such.  His real value is in leading multiple Discovery Bible Studies (DBSs) and introducing spiritual concepts to everything done at ATN. Charles sees DBSs as critical to letting people discover God or learn about who God is strictly  Bible. He doesn't believe the traditional church model works because it reinforces bad practices: delegation of faith to a priest or pastor, passivity, compartmentalization, etc. Charles sees DBS as a call to obedience to what you recognize in scripture.

Jean Paul (Mzamutashya)

Mzamutashya leads the farming God's way and drilling wells. He describes his mission as a way to connect people with God through something they think they know: growing food and collecting water. He shows them how God created an ecosystem that works a certain way. Man is a part of that ecosystem as both good stewards and consumers, if we do it God's way, it will flourish.  The same is true with our spiritual lives.  When people want to grow more food or get clean water, they also are brought into a Kingdom community.

Gil and Pauli

Gil and Pauli run the peace house for street kids. Gil says his strategy from the moment they arrive is to them Jesus.

Serge

Serge isn't a part of ATN.  He just graduated from ACU and has returned to Rwanda to work with a day school for kids. Parents drop off kids before work and pick them up after work. In between, the kids are taught academics and Jesus.

Bunani

Bunani manages the ATN finances.

Many Others
There are so many others I am unintentionally leaving out.  Sorry!

We Remember

There's Gold in Them There Turtles!

Rwandans overwhelmingly call themselves Christians, yet struggle to grasp the fundamentals of Christ.  Many abdicate their faith to priests and pastors.  Animism, witch doctors, curses,  etc. still govern people's actions.

One woman asked to see one of the Beck's teammates in private.  She opened a bag, showed him a turtle, and asked how one gets the gold out of the turtle.  She didn't want any others around to find out the secret.  I guess she thought he would know because he was seen as a religious leader.

Caleb has been combating this by talking and walking with people.  It is hard because many have difficulty processing concepts that conflict with what they've been taught and brought up with.  We could all do a better job altering or actions to reflect our professed belief in Christ.

Memorials

We had a powerful day seeing all the memorials.  We went to two churches that have been turned into memorials.  In the Tutsi killings between '59 and '94, people fleeing could seek refuge in churches.  During the genocide, this changed when priests and pastors were complicit or helped the killers.  In one case, after people found shelter his church, the priest locked the doors & called the Hutus to bulldoze the church.

The churches we visited were mass graves where tens of thousands of people are buried. The pews have the original victim's clothes inside.  Crypts have coffins and shelves of skulls and bones of the dead.  Walls had holes created by grenades thrown to stun victims so make it easier for people with machetes to kill.  Ceilings, floors, and walls had bullet holes.

The main memorial in Kigali was something closer to what we westerners would expect.  It was mostly displays with photos and history starting with the Germans, Belgians, and Hutus winning liberation from Tutsi rule but then immediately killing Tutsis and laying the foundation for the genocide.  We saw the "10 commandments for Hutus" seemingly straight out of Nazi Germany.  Everyone cried.

Mary was the First to be Shot

One Rwandan said that the first victim shot was Mary the mother of Jesus. I don't think he means that literally, although her statue does have pockmarks from bullets.  He meant that Rwandans saw the failure of churches to protect them as being abandoned by God.  They grew up thinking churches were holy ground Satan couldn't penetrate.  Now they see church as just a building.

The Rwandan killed not only families but their idea of God. If the church is just a building, then what is God?  This is what Caleb and Jenny are trying to rebuild out of the ashes of broken lives and broken trust in religious institutions.

Restore the Image of God in People

Caleb emphasized several times today that they view there purpose as to convince people they have God's image.  When you listen to a prostitute trying to better herself, you are giving her back the dignity God gave her she thinks she has lost. Survivors overcome despair by grasping at the hope that comes with being a child of God.


Big Sin, Big Forgiveness
It is frightening what happens when we let Satan have a free reign. I can't explain how the genocide could be explained any other way than Satan in control.

Then we hear stories of survivors seeking out the people who killed their families and friends - not for retribution but rather to forgive. They believe you can't forgive somebody whose name you don't know.  You have to find the person then forgive them.  You have to put yourself in their shoes and learn their story for the healing on both sides to begin. I can't explain how this could happen any other way than God is in control.

Kics

We stopped by to see the school where Caris is in Kindergarten and Aiden is in 2nd grade. Jenny volunteers there 2 or 3 times a week and the kids get free tuition.  Jenny was asked to do HR work, but quickly assumed a role of business officer bringing with it more work and more stress than she wanted for a volunteer position.  Next year, she be transitioning into a role where she can work with people, not numbers.

The school has 238 kids and will be over 300 next year.  It is a Christ centered school founded by Brian Dollinger when he and Christy were here. The school is American accredited and highly sought after by missionaries, NGOs, diplomats, etc.  Aiden took the STAAR test today. It is definitely the nicest school I've seen in a 3rd world country.  They are looking to build a larger campus that will allow the school to grow to meet the demand.

Teachers here were originally required to be self supporting. They move receive a small monthly stipend, insurance, and airfare.

ATN

We took a quick tour of the African Transformation Network. We'll see more tomorrow. This is where classes in business, entrepreneurship, ethics, welding, and sustainable farming are taught.  They are building a playground hoping to do more with street kids in the future.  We saw bananas grown larger and more abundantly using sustainable techniques.  We saw ironwork, desks, and tables made by people given their dignity back by learning a job skill.


There is so much more to say!  Look at the videos and photos.

Until tomorrow ...

Soldiers of Christ

Join with me in suffering, like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving as a soldier gets entangled in civilian affairs, but rather tries to please his commanding officer. Similarly, anyone who competes as an athlete does not receive the victor’s crown except by competing according to the rules. The hardworking farmer should be the first to receive a share of the crops. Reflect on what I am saying, for the Lord will give you insight into all this.

2 Timothy 2:3-8


Imagine a nation at war staffed by an all volunteer army. Soldiers volunteer but have to find their own support from one of many groups.  These groups operate mostly autonomously with no coordinated plan on how to fight. Soldiers bounce between these groups until one or more agree to fund the campaign using a minority percentage of the group's overall budget.  Groups fund soldiers because no one in the group wants to fight in the war themselves even though they know it is their duty and knowing they won't exist if the war is lost.

Many soldiers are immediately deployed into the field.  Some receive academic training on theory of campaigns 2000 years ago.  A few are lucky enough to be given training preparing them for what lies ahead. Almost no one goes through boot camps simulating battle conditions stretching them in controlled situations so they know their own limits and won't be broken when the real fighting breaks out.

Most soldiers are deployed with their families but without any fellow soldiers or support staff. They are mostly on their own.  The sending groups get monthly newsletters giving a rosy picture of the campaign.  Soldiers are reluctant to openly talk about real problems for fear of loosing their funding knowing how quickly groups lose interest and move onto something else.  So, they lock their old problems before deployment along with their new cultural and familial problems in a pressure cooker hoping it won't explode.

When soldiers choose to come back home, it is usually because they've reached the limit of their endurance, not because replacements have arrived, the battle is won, or the war is over.  They and their families both bring back the scars of war.  Unfortunately, soldiers are largely unemployable because they don't have any "valuable" skill sets.  Thus, the problems they had before & during deployment follow them home and are compounded by reverse culture shock and an empty bank account.

What people don't understand is that there is a war going on at home.  Because we only send soldiers abroad to fight foreign wars, we have no concept or model on how to fight the same war on our own turf.  Even if the war is being won abroad, we are clearly losing at home.


Does any of this sound familiar?  Is this the way we really want the Kingdom to grow?

When I see success like I see in Rwanda and Cuernavaca, I see nothing less than a miracle knowing how imperfect the system we've created is.  Only God can turn something so broken into something so beautiful.

Let's give our foreign and local missionaries the double honor due them.  While we're at it, let's have a real discussion about fixing this broken man made system.

Foreigners & Exiles

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles ...

1 Peter 2:9-11

I can think of nowhere this is more true than in Rwanda. The genocide destroyed lives by turning communities into isolated survivors.  The gospel binds individuals in Kingdom communities defined by redemption, hope, and support.

Foreign missionaries are constantly bombarded with the message that they are different.  Life is never as easy as it is at "home".  It is ironic that their goal is to make others feel like foreigners in their home country.

Local missionaries struggle with this as well.  We call ourselves and our peers out to form of self exile from the societal norm of compartmentalization.  Instead, we intionally isolate ourselves in comfortable places on a slippery slope to complacency.

What is the secret sauce in Rwanda?  That's what I'm here to find out.

The Gospel of Rwanda

Luke was a guy who was curious about Jesus.  He didn't know Him first hand, but he knew the apostles, witnessed the power of gospel and wanted to tell others about it.  Thanks to Luke, we have the gospel of Luke and its sequel Acts.

2000 years later, I'm going to write another sequel - this time set in Rwanda.   While I'm no Luke, I'm going to do my best to investigate and report on what God is doing in Rwanda.  Maybe there is something we can learn together, Theophilus, that we can apply here at home ...


Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.

Luke 1:1-4

Links to GO Blogs

Here's a link to the blogs for Greenville Oaks mission trips I went on.

For those who want to hear about our daughter Emma, here's a link to her story.