One more house visit, the last house visit of the month.
At this house, we were greeted with a smile and a firm handshake by a very friendly, yet somewhat sickly looking woman. As we entered the house, several younger children and a few teenagers entered with us.
The woman said she had had a special prayer request, but she first sent all the children out of the house first, because she didn’t want them to hear.
She told us that she has AIDS.
She had gotten it during the Rwandan genocide when AIDS infected men would intentionally rape women.
(Taken at the Kigali Genocide Museum)
This woman before my very eyes was one of these victims.
She also told us that the house she was living in was paid for by the government (It was not that great of a house and not in that great of a location. In fact, when we entered the house, we were confronted with the heavy smoke inside because the place she could cook at was a small fire in the corner of the room we were sitting in. This house had no good ventilation to bring in clean, fresh air and release the smoke-filled air from inside. This means that day and night, they are breathing in the soot from the fire that they cook on.) Because of the poor access to good jobs and food in her area, she and some of the other younger girls she lives with have no other alternatives to make money to eat but to become prostitutes. She wishes she could move into some place closer to the city for a better job and better access to food, but she cannot afford it, so she is stuck in the one place the government will pay for her.
One of our girls spoke to her, speaking from her own life experiences of being taken advantage of by guys back in the States.
As we left the house, we told that woman if we saw her at church that night, we would give her a Bible then. Sure enough, a couple hours later, when we arrived at church, that woman was already there, singing and dancing and smiling, praising God.
This woman–an AIDS infected, rape-victim survivor from the Rwandan genocide, who is now forced into a life of prostitution and is living on government support for her housing–this woman is joyfully singing and dancing before her Savior and her Lord. We danced with her in church, knowing that she was one of our sisters.
