Hard Pressed on Every Side, but not Crushed

Written by: Donna Stansell

This morning, we met with 2 women's cooperatives (a total of 21 women) - Rusozi and Kiyanzi.  We had to meet these women in a local government building because the church buildings have been closed by the government.  One of these cooperatives walks one hour each way to come to use the other group's church building because their church is so old and in such disrepair, they have been asked not to use the building.  These 2 cooperatives have individual meetings, but on Sunday they can meet together for fellowship and prayer.  As usual, when we arrived today, the women were adorned with big smiles and their colorful  "Sunday best".

This was our team's first time to ever meet these 2 groups.  With the help of our translators, we fellowshipped, I shared a message from God's word, and we prayed together.  At each cooperative visit, Bishop Theophile explains the microloan program and tells them about the upcoming training.  He also ensures they understand this money is not a gift and the money is not theirs.  They must pay it back over a 16 week period. If they are faithful to do that, they will get another loan and so forth until they are self-sustaining.  He said they will need to create smaller solidarity / accountability groups of 4-5 women.  Within those sub groups, each has a leader, whom they choose, whose job it is to ensure the loans are prepaid and they help each other to ensure a higher chance of success.  The women are so excited when he shares this news!

We cannot take time to hear each of their stories, especially on our first visit. Not only are we pressed for time, to reach more women, but we are also taking up precious work time and their hours are often limited to the hours when the market is open. We tell them that our group is relational, we will be praying for them and we will return to see them again.

We did have 1 woman from each group give a brief introduction and report on her current status.  Both women have small businesses and are working hard, but need more capital to grow their business.  

We ended our time by giving them a custom made jigsaw puzzle with the verse Ps 46:5 which says, "God is within her.  She will not fall."  On the back of each puzzle piece, we have written a scripture address.  We let each woman come up, one by one and choose a verse.  Then, we read it aloud in English, then in Kinyarwanda.  The women's reactions are priceless, as they feel this verse was meant for them.  Afterwards, we teach them the basics of how to complete the puzzle and invite them up to hone their puzzle-making skills.

We then departed and moved to the Nyamata region of Rwanda.  We took a new road which was mostly paved, Praise the Lord!  The scenery was dotted with rice fields, farming, mountains and some large bodies of water. I learned that the Akagera river flows all the way to the Nile River in Egypt.  As we near our destination, businesses line the streets, as do pedestrians, motorbikes and cars.  Another day draws to a close as we arrive at our new location.