The Road to Mosovu...

The road that we drove on

Muraho Friends!

It was day three in Rwanda and there I was in the back of a jeep careening left and right, mobilizing every muscle in my body in order to stabilize myself and prevent all but certain head injury if I failed. All that surrounded me were corn stalks, banana trees, bean fields, the occasional cassava plant, and the muddy, dirt, and very eroded road that we are driving on.

Yes, I was finally on my way to a Rwandan village.

I was very excited for this visit. Fortunately, the days in Rwanda were not all as heavy as the first full day that I described to you yesterday.  In fact, if there is one adjective that can describe the Rwanda of today, the word is "hopeful."

The corn stalks and banana trees

Now there are many reasons for such hopefulness, however, let me explain just one specific reason for this hope. This reason is the work being done by an organization called Discipling for Development. According to its website, D4D “is discipleship in its broadest and fullest sense; physical, social, spiritual, and psychological…a God-empowered, relational process, in which experienced facilitators assist the people of a community to grow in their ability to solve problems and to reproduce this process in other communities. Ongoing transformation of individual and collective thought and behavior results in personal growth and improvement of community (health, agriculture, water, and relationships) for the glory of God.”

Wow. That is a huge and bold vision. Part of my project in Rwanda was to observe this type of developmental model in action and to compare it with other development models, which was why I was a ragdoll in a blender of sorts, on my way to a Rwandan village.

However, on our way there, we took a bit of a detour. Brad, the missionary who was graciously hosting me, was taking me to meet and pick-up Ugiriwabo Jean-de-Dieu, the village pastor, who unfortunately lived an hour and a half by foot from his village church. We met him in a small, cement, un-painted “restaurant.” While I drank my Fanta Citron, Jean-de-Dieu shared his story.

Jean-de-Dieu

He had been the poorest of the poor. “Life was just very, very difficult.” He farmed but never had enough to eat, never enough to live on. He would normally reap a 200-300 kilogram harvest of whatever crop he was growing. It was never enough to eat, never enough to provide for his family of five. He never even had 100,000 francs ($175) at any one time in the bank.

The reason for this suffering? “Ignorance,” he said. “I was in this darkness that was completely surrounding me called ignorance; completely in the darkness of ignorance.”

But now, how things have changed! “I now have 800,000 - 1 million francs in the bank at any one time, all from my crops.” He has been honored by the government as an “exemplary farmer”. This elite group consists of 500 farmers chosen to sell seed to the government to support its seed bank program.

This transformation happened with the same land, the same resources, he had before.

Why? “All of this has come from the lessons we have been studying for D4D,” he said. “I am full, I am growing spiritually and I am growing in the physical realm. At home, I feel like I am at peace, I am calm. I praise the Lord for D4D!”

…

The inside of the church at Mosovu

Finally, we arrived at the village of Mosovu. The church in which we met was an oversized mud hut, overlaid with some cement, topped off with a corrugated tin roof. Crooked wooden benches were placed in rows in the church, all facing the front where a big drum sat.

From there on, I just observed while Brad translated the meeting into English for my sake. It was absolutely fascinating! The meeting started off with an Africanized version of a hymn that sounded familiar, but I could not place it since it was sung in Kinyarwandan. Then, Danzila, a D4D Rwandan co-worker, led the group in a Bible study on the feeding of the 5000 and Jesus walking on water.

Afterwards, another missionary who had joined us, Dave, along with Brad, did a visual presentation to introduce the committee’s agenda for that day. He had a block of wood and a small plank. He laid the plank on the block so that it could act as a type of see-saw. On the one side of the plank, he placed a bunch of flowers; on the other side, he placed a piece of trash. Then he put several rocks on both sides.

The committee meeting

“This is your community,” Dave said, pointing to the see-saw contraption. “There are strengths in your community, as represented by the rocks close to these flowers, and challenges as represented by the rocks near this trash.” He continued to explain and demonstrate that by moving the rocks on the one side, the see-saw would lean differently. This happened also when moving the rocks on the other side of the see-saw. Then he moved the rocks on both side of the see-saw in one direction, and there was an even more dramatic effect. Simple physics, right? What does this have to do with community development and whole life discipleship? But then we said the following: “Like on the see-saw, if you address the challenges in the community, the community’s trajectory shifts positiviely. Also, like demonstrated by the see-saw, if you improve and work on the strengths of the community, the community’s trajectory leans positively. Now, if you work on both the challenges and the strengths in the community, then the community will move even more strongly toward growth, healing, and development.”

It was fairly simple and even crude demonstration. But it was so powerful.

After this brief reminder of the task at hand, the committee got to work. They already had a long list of strengths and challenges in their church, split up among six categories. They were on the category of relationships. What are the strengths of the relationships in our church? What are the challenges? After an hour and a half of debating, they had chosen two strengths and two challenges that they were going to focus on.

Now it might be difficult to realize, but I witnessed an absolutely amazing thing. Let me put this in perspective. Here is a village that is in the poorer region of an already poor country. In this village is a church that once was one of the poorest churches in its Rwandan church network.

A committee member showing me his banana trees

However, instead of going the traditional route of waiting for Western aid and intervention and remaining stuck in the vicious cycle of dependency, these church community leaders had come together and were taking ownership of the trajectory of their poor community. Through the D4D lessons, they had learned that God had given their community gifts, strengths, resources, and talents. They learned that God had blessed them! God wanted them to use these blessings to the best of their abilities so as to bring positive change in their community. For there was definitely no denying that they were poor in some respects, but, contrary to both Western and their own previous perceptions, they were not as wretchedly poor to the point of complete helplessness. In fact, in so many ways, they were rich. However, they had been blinded to that fact and could only see their seemingly obvious poverty.

There were so many things that I or some other Westerner could have done to have tried to “fix” the community. We could have built them better homes, better sanitation facilities, better wells. We could have even trained them in better farming techniques and other income generating skills. But, none of these efforts would have changed their self-perception and worldview. Instead, we would only have been reinforcing this worldview through our hurtful helping.

To say the least, this was a very exciting day for me. I was able to witness the process of God bringing hope and empowerment to a poor rural community in Africa.

Murakoze!

Eric