Out of rocks - Pastor John Rutsindintwarane and hope in Rwanda

Hi - Last night I got together with a group of people I'd traveled to Rwanda with 3 yrs ago. We were there to hear Rwanda Pastor John Rutsindintwarane give updates on the Lutheran Church in Rwanda and their community organizing efforts.

This is a photo we took 3 yrs ago of the rocks that the community was just starting to crush to make a foundation for a health clinic. Now it is built.

It's impressive in any community with zero financial resources to have built a health clinic. But more impressive is that it took place in a village with no road, no prior access to governmental power, very little education, in a time when their nation was still reeling from a brutal genocide.

It would have been easy to look at that community and write them off as having nothing. Instead, Pastor John identified what they did have. Hope, courage, relationships, common good, and abiding faith in God. They also had an amazing organizer and pastor.

John Rutsindintwarane said he came to give them his mind and his heart. It's his generousity of spirit, faith in God, and belief that people are good more than bad that pulled this clinic together.

Hearing John speak last night, I felt some glimmer that this might have been what it felt like to hear the first disciples talk. They were ordinary people, much like the citizens of Mumeya, pulled into something greater than themselves. They were given hope and love and faith and a person to make them belive it. John shines with God's light and love. You can't help but feel hopeful and faithful in his presence.

The evening ended with us all holding hands. One by one, we praying our blessings on Pastor John, his wife Robin, and their amazing ministry in Rwanda.

I felt my own faith stir. This morning, I feel it rising up as I am deeply aware of a kind of love in the world that is unending.