This month in Rwanda, we are partnering with Pastor Fred for our ministry. Each day we spend our mornings with half of us teaching English to members of our Pastor’s congregation and the other half doing door to door evangelism with our Pastor. Then in the evenings we come back to the church and take turns preaching.
Recently, someone asked me why am I going half way around the world to tell people about Jesus, in a predominantly Christian country, rather than tell people about Jesus in my own backyard in America? The question really got me thinking, what is my purpose here this month. I mean the obvious answer is to spread the good news to as many people as possible around the world, which I do think we are doing. But on the other hand, when I really start to think about it, I think we have a whole other purpose here that we sometimes forget is also our ministry.
I am learning that this month our main ministry is actually to our Pastor and his family. What we are doing could be compared to what Paul did in the Bible. Often Paul spent the majority of his time traveling around and encouraging fellow believers or writing them letters and sending them people on behalf of him to encourage the believers. So, when I think about it, that is exactly what we are doing this month. The fellow believers that I believe God has sent us here to encourage and strengthen are our Pastor and his family. For an entire month our Pastor gets to take a break from preaching, him and his family get to learn about our different cultures and perspectives, and we help him bring more people to his church by giving him extra hands in walking door to door each day.
This month has been a great reminder for me that our ministry will not always be clear, and yet it is very clear to the Lord and his plan.
Our Pastor says he always wanted 12 kids and well, with 5 of us here, plus our squad leader and 6 of his own at home, we have also given him exactly what he has wished for. By far one of the highlights this month for me has simply been doing life with my Rwandan family.
P.S. Here is a tour of our home given by Linda one of our hosts daughters! Sorry she forgot to show off our wonderful bathroom, I’ll try to add that later.
