Rwandan Widow Becomes Church Planter
(NOTE: The following is a testimonial on the success of the on-going “Firewall Project,” spearheaded by the Church of God. Reported by Francois, Firewall trainer from South Africa.)
My name is Fatima. I am a widow and live in rural Rwanda. My husband died some time ago while he was pastor of our small church in the village, leaving me with our four children. Due to our responsibility to the congregation, I had no choice but to take over the leadership and keep on caring for the widows, orphans and other members. They were like sheep without a shepherd.
Our problem was that we were surrounded by two mosques and a growing Muslim population. Many of our church members had to walk far and some were accosted by the Muslim leaders to rather visit their mosques, as they were closer.
The challenge was great, and I was about to give up when I heard that an evange¬lism and church-planting seminar was to be held close to Kigali, the capital city of Rwanda. I decided to make the trip and attend the training. There I soon learned that it was more than just possible to plant new churches by following the hub church model. My faith was stirred. We were not just taught how to plant the churches but were given the necessary tools for it. I started off by using the Heart of Man flip chart to explain the Gospel to outsiders. Immediately my church grew by twenty percent. Some of our members who lived further away also became interested, and so I trained them to become student pastors and to plant their own congregations, which I now oversee as a hub leader.
For a woman to plant churches in rural Rwanda is not familiar territory. But by using the Firewall hub-church model we now have planted seven successful congregations—all meeting near mosques! This is simply unheard off, but it is now very much part of what we do as the Church of Jesus Christ. The impact in our village was amazing. Our church was about to die, and I could never have imagined that our influence would reach so far beyond our little church. We praise God for it. He showed up at the right time, with a method to strengthen the Kingdom of God in our area of Rwanda. I just wonder how far we could have come, if we had this instruction 21 years ago, before the hor¬rible genocide started in our country.
