Uwimana

August 2, 2006

Is it really August already? It seems like yesterday that I was frantically packing for 3 months of living abroad and setting up house. Now, we are near the end and somehow it feels hard to think about leaving.

I haven’t cried here in a few weeks, which is kind of strange for me. I am moved by the plight in Rwanda regularly. But for some reason, I guess I have come to adjust to being the “fixer”. I get in “do” mode and sometimes I push feelings aside and direct the focus towards accomplishing goals. I guess that is my personality.

My heart has been considering pain and suffering. I have been praying about being able to understand God’s purpose for it. There was a time in my life almost 10 years ago that I didn’t think Ben and I would survive our marriage. Then after coming through that trial with God’s grace, I arrived 4 years later to God uncovering deep trauma in my mind… it totally disabled me and I turned into mush before the Lord. I was desperate for healing and He pulled me from that deep pit as well. Of course, there are also the regular life struggles of 4 children, layoffs, and financial struggles intermittently, which God has brought us through too.

The reason I mention this is that I believe that God brought Ben and I through those deep valleys to minister to people around us in Romeoville. Then through that tiny step of giving our testimony, God had us begin to open our home to our neighbors and welcoming them into authentic community. That turned into hosting refugees from Rwanda and Somalia in our home which ultimately then catapulted us into our ministry in Africa.

All of these things could not have occurred without the initial suffering and pain that God allowed into my life. It is not what I was thinking about when I was enduring the struggle. I certainly can not believe what a huge plan God had for us… but here we are bringing radical change to the people of Rwanda.

Tonight we had a wonderful opportunity to offer Uwimana, who is our faithful security guard, a job opportunity with GFR. Because of his job, he has been away from his family for 6 years. In 2000 his first wife was killed. At that time, he was working here in Kigali and the two small children he had were without a mother. His home is 6 hours away. Anyway, his second wife is now caring for the two older children and they have another child. She cultivates a small piece of land. But they still live far away and he sees them four times a year. When we offered him this new position, he sobbed. He said, “I have been thinking about you leaving and I thought I would never see you again.”

You see, Uwimana has been trying for years to think of a way to be with his family and still have a job, but it has not been possible. He has lost time with his children, his wife, faced death alone and did what he had to in order to survive. Suffering? Pain? Yes. But if you met Uwimana, you would know that his lifeblood is Christ. His Bible is a mess. He lives off of it like we live off of bread. And tonight it hit me that all of his suffering has prepared him to serve. I know that his pain has propelled him into the hands of our great God and now he will be able to serve widows and orphans with a grateful heart and a true ministry to those who have suffered because he knows their pain!

I am not happy that Uwimana has been suffering. But without it, I don’t believe he would be a man ready to move his whole family into a strange new village of suffering people and really care for them. Nothing is official yet because I want to know that his wife is ok with all of this! But I think it will be as much a miracle for her as it was for him. He wept with joy as we welcomed him into the family.

One of the biggest changes in GFR has been the housing projects. We went from 2 homes built last year to 15 in the first 7 months of this year with 6 more coming down the pipe. And we hope to have many more. Uwimana will be supervising the building and ensuring progress, as well as negotiation and purchasing of materials. This is a position that we never dreamed we would need, until now! God is so good to provide exactly what we need as we need it.

If you have any interest in supporting Uwimana and his reunited family, please send your donations to us at GFR, P.O. Box 529, Wheaton, IL 60189 or go to our website www.globalfamilyrescue.org and use Paypal.

Soon I will be home… First we go to England to start GFR UK!