Pastor Peter told us to get ready for ministry. We were going to an "orphanage" in a house where women had been taking children in off the street, or something like that, as far as I understood. Easy ministry day – I wrapped a sarong around my waist, threw on a t-shirt and my chacos, and walked out the door with my Bible in my backpack ready to hug on some kids for an hour or two…
But we didn't go to a house.
We went to the most incredible orphanage. Truly.
Walking in the gate I saw what look like fairly new brick buildings with bright blue bars on the windows, pretty incredible landscaping for Kigali, a soccer field, and that was all I had time to take in before I saw them RUNNING at me…
What seemed like a hundred kids ran at us, arms open, hitting us with the kind of hugs that knock the wind out of you.
As things settled down, it was really about 20 kids and a few members of the leadership counsel.
We were directed to a classroom where we, prayed, praised, danced, laughed, introduced ourselves, and then we learned about the organization:
After the third genocide in Rwanda, 4 young men came together and realized none of them had parents anymore…and neither did most of the children in their neighborhood, so they came together to survive. They started sharing all that they had with each other, looking out for one another, clinging to hope (sounds a little like Acts, no?).
In 2001, they officially opened Best Family Rwanda, an orphanage that now houses 45 children where they provide food, shelter, clothing, education, and health insurance to every child…which is great and sounds like a lot of other orphanages around the world, so what's so different about this one?
It's actually a family.
As children grow up and move into the workforce, they come back and support the family. They're knit together in love…real love…the love of Christ. They're dedicated to one another and to every single child that walks in their door in a way I haven't seen anywhere else in the world. They push each other to succeed as they point one another repeatedly to the Cross.
We heard all this from one of the leaders, Jean Claude Rwagasore, who told us while we were dancing that dancing in worship is how they maintain their joy – when bad memories come, they just dance, and then they are joyful again (my kind of family!)
…eventually he told us he was one of the 4 founders.
*Jean Claude in the middle dancing with Pastor Peter on the right*
Maybe it's rude in America, but we couldn't help it, we asked him how old he is…
28.
He's 28 years old, and this orphanage is his life's work.
He's 28 years old, and this orphanage was his and 3 of his friends' response to losing their parents in the genocide.
They didn't just survive.
They fought to thrive and to provide for others who had also lost everything.
We told him we thought the place, mission, and vision were incredible; that we were amazed by it.
His answer was simply this: "I can only say one thing; I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength."
Please keep Best Family Rwanda in your prayers.
To learn more about the organization, visit their Facebok page here.
