Secretary: David Meikle, 172 Nacton Road, Ipswich IP3 9JN email:davidandrosie@dsl.pipex.com
Treasurer: Jonathan Parratt, 13 Tovells Road, Ipswich IP4 4DY email:jonoparratt@orange.net
NOVEMBER 2009
Dear supporters,
We would like to begin this newsletter with a story told by Katherine Sharples who visited Rwanda earlier this year. She kindly took out a Laptop for us for the Theological College. She spent her time in the Kigeme Diocese, one of the poorest in Rwanda. She was asked to visit parishes and teach on ‘Servanthood’. As part of her teaching she re-enacted the time when Jesus washed the disciples’ feet. All went well until she arrived at a small and remote village. She asked for water to be able to wash feet, and a lady from the village had to walk a 40 minute round trip to get some.
How we take things like water for granted, while our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world continue to struggle.
Which is why the theme of this Newsletter is fittingly, self sufficiency.
You will be pleased to know that the Container we sent out at the beginning of this year eventually arrived and was opened in July! At last Ceformi (a Technical College in Kigali which provides teenagers with a skill to enable them to follow a trade) and a similar College in Gahini, which is in the process of getting off the ground, now have some tools to help them with the task. Japhet Ndoriyabuya, the new Director of Ceformi, sent me some pictures of the students at work with the tools we sent.
We are so grateful to be linked up with ‘Tools with a Mission’ who provide the reconditioned tools free of charge. We pay for the Container space.
Another Container sets off to Rwanda in December. This time we have booked space for Scripture Union in Rwanda. We discovered that they support 6 groups of Widows and Orphans in some of the remote rural areas. We are sending 15 sewing machines, and 15 knitting machines to enable them to make a living for themselves, and hopefully lift themselves out of poverty. Please pray for the safe arrival of this Container, and for a successful outcome for these groups.
SU staff on Retreat at Karambo, paid by RD
In addition,
Jean Baptiste is concerned to make the library at SU Headquarters a good resource for Pastors and other Church leaders. Therefore we are also including 10 reconditioned desktop computers in the Container.
While on the subject of computers, thanks to Andy Isles’ sponsored walk, a gift from a CMS supporter, and a further anonymous gift, we were able to send 3 new laptops to the College for their IT course. As we said above, Kathryn took one out for us. The other 2 were taken by the young people from Martlesham, Kesgrave and Rushmere, who also took 3 reconditioned ones out for SU! We are so grateful to our
Couriers. If anyone reading this knows of anyone visiting Rwanda, we would always like to know in case we have more to send!
Again the reconditioned ones came through TWAM, and have been a Godsend to SU. Here is part of a letter received from Jean Baptiste: ‘The laptops have been very helpful. One of them was able to receive a flash disc is now used by our Accountant. She is a lady, and the laptop helped her to stay with her family in evening hours. She used to work until late in the night, but now for urgent work, she uses the laptop while staying with her family. Others are used by the volunteers who are now finishing the writing of the Bible reading notes.’
And finally, while on the subject of ‘self sufficiency’, the Theological College has a good bit of land, and their desire is to be self sufficient in food, to provide for their students. This year they had a particularly good harvest of sorghum, providing plenty of porridge for the students! They also now have a cow which is about to calve. However to provide sufficient milk for the students, they need more!
SO! We would like to be able to give them a Christmas present of another cow! A good cross breed cow costs in Rwanda £900 to buy, so that is our aim. Will you help us? When thinking of Christmas presents, will you remember Rwanda, and give a gift for the cow? Any amount, large or small would be welcome. It would be good if together we could raise the £900. Any gifts can be handed to Jonathan, or any other member of the RD team.
In addition we are planning to have a ‘cow’ walking through the Cornhill on December 19th, to raise awareness and hopefully add to our funds for the cow! For this to be successful we need volunteers to be the cow! We have got the costume! Also we need people walking with the cow, giving out leaflets and collecting money. CAN YOU HELP?
I was hoping to get a picture of Louis Muvunyi (College Principal) with the 1 cow they have before this newsletter, but sadly it hasn’t yet arrived. However hopefully it will arrive soon and we will have posters available to help advertising!
I think that is all for now.
Please continue to pray and do all you can to help our brothers and sisters in Rwanda help themselves.
Paul, Catherine, Jonathan, Andy I, Phil, Jane, AndyT, David
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