Thursday, August 19, 2010
Simon Pierre Rwaramba, district superintendent of Rwanda Northwest has served in the church of the Nazarene for many years. From being a long time member of the church of the Nazarene, to secretary, pastor, and now district leader, he has learned many areas of the Church of the Nazarene, and how to make these areas serve to his community. Compassion for others is one area that he and his wife have always been free to give, and if you were to meet this great couple you would be able to tell from your first interaction with them that they LOVE people and would do anything to help ANYONE. So it is no surprise that he has had the heart and has worked to help orphans and street children for years. In 2004 he indentified 3 categories of orphans: primary school, secondary school and head of household (where the oldest sibling does all they can to take care of their younger siblings). After indentifying this type, he knew something had to be done to help the head of household children. Ndengera Foundation was formed in 2004, to work specifically with these children. While this foundation does many things for the community, I am going to write specifically on the classes that the foundation offers to teach the head of household children a life skill that they can use to work to make money for the rest of their family. They offer classes such as mechanics, construction, sewing, card making, and bead making. They then are able to sale their cards, beads, clothes, or use their skills to make money to feed their family, or to send their siblings to school. There is one girl that walks over an hour one way just to come to class! There have been many mission teams that have come in the last few years to help build the classrooms, and help develop this ministry further. In June, Blake and I had the distinct pleasure of joining up with a team coming from Liberty Bible Church of the Nazarene in Vancouver, Washington, who was on their summer mission trip to help Ndengera Foundation. While our primary focus was to help transport the team to and from the airport, to their housing, to and from job sites, and helping in any other way that we could, we had the privilege of joining with them, as we celebrated with Ndengera the FIRST graduating class of the foundation. Many students completed their training, and were presented with certificates or diplomas of completion. The mechanics gave us a demonstration, and made a broken engine run! From each group of classes, they gave awards to the top students, an award that would allow them to start their work. The top 2 sewers were given sewing machines, the top mechanics were given tools, etc. The mission team, including Blake and I were given the opportunity to shake hands and present the diploma to the students. It was a truly emotional time, especially seeing the young girl who walks over an hour home, carrying her new sewing machine to her house. She will benefit greatly because of the vision one man had, that grew into the vision of many to serve in a truly compassionate way. Blake and I came home from the trip, saying, wow what an incredible thing to be a part of! We said that 3 years ago, we could not have imagined the big things we get to be a part of, by opening our hearts and following God’s call for our lives!