This is Hope.
Hope is the amazing, incredible, quotable woman who opened
her home to us and treated us like family during our month spent in Rwanda.
She, her husband Bonaventure, their son Iranze, Pastor Etienne, and Iris, all
practice community living here. But what is so noteworthy about their house is
at any given time you can find a member of Pastor Etienne’s church, or Bones’
church, or a friend from work, or a wedding party, or a soldier from across the
street, or a distant family member, or a student from a school nearby, or one
of the prostitutes from down the street, chilling on the couch. A lot of times
they are sitting with Hope, Bones, Pastor, or us, but more often than not, they’re
just hanging out alone. Maybe they’re watching the worship videos that run 24
hours on the television, or enjoying a cup of tea prepared by Iris, or waiting
for someone to come home whenever.
We talked with Hope about this on numerous occasions and her
response was always, “What else is a house for?” She comes home from work in
the evening visibly exhausted, yet she still manages to entertain, counsel, or
pray with the guest(s) on her sofa and provide them with a warm meal before the
doors finally shut for the evening.
Hope once opened her home to a man in his thirties who had
been living in a bush. He had bugs flying around his feet because they were
rotting, and he was severely malnutritioned. She provided him with warm
showers, a place to rest his head, and regular meals. I know all of this, because I got to meet him. He now resides at the
church, and receives education from a nearby Bible school.
I think it’s a beautiful picture of community and of using
the blessings God has given us to bless other people. These beautiful people
have allowed God’s command in Acts 20:35, “In all things I have
shown you that by working hard in this way we must help
the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself
said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive,'” to penetrate
their hearts and influence the way they do life.
