Day 12.

Olivier.

Yesterday we thought that we might just be done recording.  It was sort of a day of lingering…we didn’t have any more songs nor did we feel God was finished.  Just as we were about to end, Olivier stopped by Almond Tree.  Here is a little of Olivier’s story…

When Olivier was born in Rwanda, but moved to the Congo with his family when he was very young.  His mother died and his father relocated their family with one of his previous wives (he had 3 wives) in Rwanda.  There Olivier’s new mother abused Him physically and emotionally.  In 94 he was the sole survivor from his family whom were all Tutsis.  Olivier was around 10 years old.  As he was fleeing the killing around him he rescued a girl who was buried in an outhouse. The two found shelter with a family, but soon, the family ran out of enough resources to support two children and asked one of them to leave.  Olivier left.  As he sought another shelter, a Hutu farmer recognised him and with his fellow workers began to torture Olivier.  At one point they attempted to cut off his hands, but as the hoe fell Olivier involuntarily moved his hands out of the way.  When they had their fill, they asked their servant to take him to a Hutu camp, but when the boy bought him next to a ditch Olivier was able to push the boy in and make an escape.  A Hutu mother found Olivier and had compassion and bought him into her home.  When her husband found out, he attempted to kill Olivier, but for some reason, I don’t quite remember, all I know is that it’s miraculous, instead of killing Olivier the father  gave him directions for an orphanage where he would be safe.  Between him and the orphanage was a Hutu camp.  There was no other way to the orphanage and Olivier thought that he would probably die, but decided that it was his only hope–so he walked towards the camp.  As he approached, the guards saw him, but before they could respond, a large group of Hutus approached the camp from the other side.  The original camp, thinking that the approaching mass were RPF diverted their attention to the oncoming crowd.  Olivier doesn’t remember how he got to the other side, but when he visited the location this past week God reminded him that He sent an angel to guide him through the chaos.  He made it safely to the orphanage.

Several years later Praise, one of our team leaders, met him.  In fact, Olivier was the first person Praise met 8 years ago and she remembers the hopelessness that he had.  Today, Olivier is one of the most famous worship leaders in all of Rwanda and we tried to contact him when we first arrived into town, but couldn’t get his number.  Praise randomly ran into him on the street and told him to go to Almond tree.  He stopped by at the end of the day and promised he’d come back the following day to worship.

God wanted to fit this last song into the cd.  It’s a song of remembrance.  A song of hope.  A song of God’s power and a song of God’s grace.  The lyrics are all in Kenyarwandan and are translated:

Look at where I’ve been

Look at what God’s done

Look at where I am

Thank you Jesus

Click a link below to preview of what we recorded.  This is edited by me so it’s kind of an awful editing…but it’s a little taste

Ushime Yesu

Rwanda. Day 8, 9, 10.

CATCH-UP
Many apologies for not sending updates the past few days.  We want to
let you know what’s happening, so that you can see that your prayers
are not in vain.  Here’s what God has done the past few days!

SUNDAY
Our team split and went to two different churches.  The adults went to
a church in Busanza, the area where we had our outreach on Saturday
night.  The church is a new plant by a former staff of YWAM, our
friend Sylvan.  Many of the new believers from the night before showed
up to church and worshipped together!  The rest of us went to Rafiki’s
church.  Louise King shared her testimony and Oliver Ip shared the
Word.  Gary Cheng also shared from the Word to close the service.  The
three-hour service seemed to fly by.  God was speaking the whole time.
It was so funny because we would share something in English and
Rafiki would tell us that they just said that in one way or another in
Kinyarwanda.  It was so great to be dancing and praising God together
with our Rwandan brothers and sisters.  In the afternoon we spent time
with some street kids and ministered to them with testimony, music,
dance and prayer.  In the evening we went back to Busanza, the area
where the adults were for the morning and where we had the outreach
the night before, sharing testimony, music, and prayer.  That night at
devo time, I felt that those who were sick needed to be prayed for.
Those of us who were sick gathered in the middle and were prayed over
by the whole team.  In almost every case, by the next morning everyone
was healed with only residual symptoms remaining.  Praise God.

MONDAY
We decided the night prior that because of our sickness we could use a
little down time. We didn’t schedule much with the idea that more rest
could be a good thing. In the morning, a small group went to visit an
AIDS support group and made necklaces with them, while another group
went to Almond Tree to do some recording.  In the afternoon, a group
visited homes in the neighbourhood with APRECOM, a ministry that
supports HIV/AIDS patients.  Another group began preparations for an
iTouch project in partnership with Apple.  By using storyboarding and
the video-capturing and editing capabilities of the iPod Touch, the
team hopes to help street kids with little access to education and
technology to tell stories and to motivate them to learn.  Our hope is
that through this project Apple will discover how their technology can
not only change the lives of those receiving formal education, but also the
lives of those who have no access to school.  That night at devos,
Jonathan and Aidan led our group in an exercise of inner healing.  We
broke into small groups and prayed for one another as the Spirit led.

TUESDAY
In the morning, most of the team went to visit House of Hope, a
ministry that serves orphans and street kids.  Much of the time was
spent dancing, as that seems to be an activity they particularly
enjoy.  In the afternoon, some members of the team returned to House
of Hope for the iTouch project.  Others went to Gahanga to minister to
an APRECOM support group, while some stayed on the base to prepare for
the upcoming Youth Alpha training conference we are hosting.  In the
evening, the team met at Almond Tree Films to record another worship
song and it was heavenly.  What a beautiful and simple thing it is to
worship God together!

HOW YOU CAN PRAY
Please pray for the Youth Alpha training conference taking place
Wednesday and Thursday.  50+ youth pastors from around Rwanda will be
in attendance learning how they can use the Alpha program to draw
people to Christ.  Our prayer is that this conference will help unite
the body of Christ in Rwanda.  Please pray for those in attendance, in
addition to the presenters: Gary, Garland, Jonathan (Global Youth
Alpha), Aidan, Vincent and myself.  Pray also for our continued
efforts Almond Tree, as we hope to wrap up our recording project today
or tomorrow.

Thank you!  Bless you!

Rwanda. Day 6 & 7

Covering.

A couple days ago, one of our prayer warriors shared a vision about an
umbrella, how each section of the umbrella represented a different
portion of our trip; youth alpha is one section, worship is another,
prayer is another…  Yesterday we visited our good friend, Rafiki, a
youth pastor at the church we are visiting this morning, who started
and continues to run a children’s ministry.  Rafiki grew up being a
child soldier and his heart is for those kids.  While visiting them,
God impressed upon us that we needed to create a ‘prayer tunnel’ where
our team would make a tunnel and the children would walk through as we
prayed for them.  In translating this idea to the children, we
thought, how can you describe a tunnel to someone who has never seen
one?  Tunnel was translated umbrella.

Before we left, the message that God gave us was: Peace, be still.
But that peace is in the midst of a storm…an umbrella in the midst
of rain.  When we pray we’re spiritually covering the person we are
praying for.  When we worship we are covering Rwanda.  Pray that we
would remember that Jesus covers us.  And we’re not creating our own
umbrella but rather gathering people under one umbrella: Jesus Christ.

Last night, we traveled to Busanza, a small village on the outskirts
of town, and ministered with a word, testimony, dance, worship.  At
the end of the night, probably 50-80 children and adults accepted
Christ.  Pray for follow up with these people and that the Holy Spirit
would continue the work that He started tonight.

Since my last update, Gary and Garland and their children, Zita, Flo,
and Helen all joined us and immediately stepped in.  For almost 24
hours we were a huge team of 35, but the Ho’s and the Lee’s left us on
Saturday afternoon.  But we know that even though they are not
physically with us they are still on the team.  We thank God that they
will continue to wage battle wherever they are.  We also want to thank
you for your prayers.  You are covering us.  We love you.

How you can pray…

Continue to pray against sickness.  Almost all the leaders are feeling
a little sick.  Pray for strength from the Holy Spirit.  Pray for
healing.

A lot of our prayers have been for healing.  We’ve been praying for
healing for the nation-that God would heal their wounds.  As we travel
to different villages we often are called to pray for healing for
individual people.  We’ve prayed for healing for those who are blind,
leg injuries, skin conditions, headaches, stomachaches…  Pray for us
as we pray for healing–God give us faith in Him.

This morning we are traveling to a couple churches in the morning and
plan to show ‘Lion of Judah’ (Chronicles of Narnia) tonight to the
area we visited yesterday.  Pray for more conversions and soft hearts.

Pray for Jonathan, the international youth alpha representative, who
is flying down to Rwanda on Monday.  Pray for the logistics of the
training.  Pray for relevance that God would show us how to use alpha
in a youth context in Rwanda to show people Jesus Christ.  I don’t
know how to do this…

We are recording this next week with several worship leaders from
Rwanda.  Pray for unity.  Pray for an anointing of worship.  Pray
against performance and pray for our hearts.  We want to worship!

Blessings!
Marcus

Rwanda. Day 5.

Beauty.

Today we began recording…This album is unlike any other I’ve worked on.  Often, when recording the purpose is the final product: to produce a cd, make money, become famous, to create something, BUT what’s happening here is not about that at all.  We’re more concerned with the process.  God purify our motives.  The heart behind this project is to capture God’s beauty.  To ask Him for His songs instead of making up our own.  Asking Him what He would have us say in words, melodies, harmonies, and chords.  Before the trip we had a few lines of lyrics and a few melodies, but now God has blessed us with more than enough songs.  This morning we recorded one of those songs.   We’ve translated a portion of it into Kinyarwanda which our good friend Fils from Almond Tree Films sang.  We learned the song with the team this morning after breakfast then walked to Almond Tree and met Fils.  We simply began to worship and pressed record.  God beautifully lead us in His song and by the time we had finished we realized that our first take was 40 minutes (only one song) including new, spontaneous lyrics.  It was just so good to declare God’s words for His people in Rwanda and to worship in Sprit and Truth, waging supernatural war in Rwanda.

After lunch at the base, we travelled to the Kimisgara street kids, who are more young adults who we’ve known for several years (they were kids when the ministry started).  The ministry is based around sports and for kids who grow up on the streets, without parents, and education using football to lead them to Jesus.  At the soccer/football pitch and were able to play with them (they generously pass us the ball even though we are far less skilled).  After the match, Nancy and Mel Ho shared their testimonies and we shared a skit and taught them a hip-hop dance we’ve been learning.  Three years ago when Mel first came to Rwanda they played football together and the boys were asking if they could draft her for their team.  After our time together, we went back out to the football pitch (dirt pitch) and performed the dance we learned together as a flash mob in the middle of everyone.  It was great to see them all and see how God continues to move in them and change them from year to year.  How some of the kids are newly employed and others are going to school.  God is good.

Prayers

Pray for the rest of our team who are travelling as I type this email.  They will be joining us tomorrow afternoon.

Pray for our outreach in Gahanga (we were there on Wednesday) tomorrow as we visit widows and orphans, helping build a home, showing Narnia (translated Lion of Judah), praying for and blessing those we meet.

Pray for the leaders as we continue to depend on God’s prompting.

Pray against sickness.  As I type this, I feel my throat becoming sore and I know Praise is also coughing.

Interestingly, it is raining tonight.  It is highly unusually for Rwanda to get rain this time of year.  Pray for spiritual rain.  Pray for a downpour, a flooding of God’s Spirit upon Rwanda leading people to Jesus Christ!  God has consistently been impressing water/rain imagery upon us since the beginning of the trip.  Pray for it to be true!  As it’s physically raining ask for the release of spiritual rain.

Thank you so much for your prayers!

Rwanda. Day 4.

Healing

Amanda wrote the following update…I stayed back and helped set up Almond Tree Studios to record…enjoy!

Today, we had an amazing day where God showed us about His power to heal. We headed to a village named Busanza to spend time at APRECOM, a ministry that supports HIV/AIDS patients. After some worship, a skit, a dance, and a powerful testimony, we spent some time praying over the men and women in attendance. The Holy Spirit moved powerfully, ministering to their hearts and teaching us more about God’s will to bring about healing and how He wants to use us in the process. Having witnessed our team praying so fervently for their Rwandan brothers and sisters, we are confident that God is bestowing and developing gifts in our team members.

We are also excited to announce that our worship album is well on its way! A number of youth met in the morning to share new songs, worship, and pray together. God has actually inspired so many new songs in the last few weeks that we’re having trouble narrowing down our list! A small group went to Almond Tree Films this morning to prepare a room with the fittings and equipment required for the album recording. Many rolls of duct tape later, most of the soundproofing foam was installed and the team managed to do a test recording of “Peace, Be Still”, a song composed by one of our youth based on our theme passage from Mark 4:35-41. With the help of Almond Tree, the song has even been translated into Kinyarwanda! We have enjoyed truly heavenly moments of worship with our friends at Almond Tree and we are excited to see where God takes us with this worship collaboration.

Prayers:

Pray for unity, within our team as well as with our local partners.

Pray for courage and confidence, as the team uses the gifts God has given them to bless others.

Pray for us as we start our album recording and spend time with the Kimisgara street kids tomorrow.

Rwanda. Day 3.

Unity.

This morning we were able to worship with our hole team! What a blessing it is to be together and what a blessing it is to be able to begin the day with worship. Originally, we intended to leave first thing after breakfast for Gonhanga, a small village in Rwanda, but Praise and I where scheduled to meet with one of the heads of the ywam base and another pastor in Rwanda. This pastor had met Gary and Garland in the UK for an international Alpha Conference. Gary and Garland will be joining us in Rwanda at the end of this week and they head up Alpha for Asia. While at this conference they met this pastor from Rwanda who’s heart is to begin Youth Alpha in his home country. I have a very special place for youth alpha as I’ve just seen so much fruit come from it’s dependence on the Holy Spirit. And many of our students on this trip have been through it’s program and have been touched by God through the opportunities provided there. We meet to begin planning for a Youth Alpha training session where we want to equip youth leaders from this Nation. While praying I just began to see God stirring this huge mixing pot as ingredients kept falling in and being made one. And I feel that God is going to use Alpha to unite His church in Rwanda.

After the meeting, we joined our team as they finished worship and God’s presence was so strong and beautiful. We left the base, stepping out as His army and His sons and daughters. We made it to Gonhanga. A familiar place for our team as we spent the majority of our time there during our last trip to Rwanda. It was in this village that we showed the Narnia film, with our translator translating the movie (Aslan was translated into Lion of Judah) and it is also the place where we installed solar lights for the widows there. We were only able to visit 3 homes during our time there, due to time constraints, but just to give you an idea what happened let me describe a bit about Teresa’s home. Teresa is 65 years old, but God has blessed her with such joy for God. Her husband was killed in the genocide leaving her to raise her 4 children. Her life is an amazing testimony to God. When we arrived she began to raise her hands and just shout Hallelujah. She explained that last night she had a dream that international travellers were going to visit her and paint her house. She sang for us and we prayed for her. She expressed her desire to have a more beautiful home, but even though her house is made of mud, spiritually her home is beautiful. When she worships she is painting her house in the blood of Christ. Protecting it and bringing His Kingdom!  Here is a short video of it.  Theresa is the older woman with the baby on her back.

After lunch we split into groups to prepare for future ministry. One group planned skits/dance. Another planned visually. Another planned audibly. Another prayed. More to come about those different plans and what God revealed to come in another post.

Prayer Requests.

Pray for the alpha training conference. There are many logistical things that need to be covered for this event to happen.

Tomorrow we are ministering to Aprecom (aids victims from the genocide).

Pray for unity within the team.

Bless you!

Rwanda. Day 2.

A short update on what God’s doing:

Praise God!  He has brought us all together to Rwanda.  The Canadians (as we have affectionately been calling them) arrived in Rwanda this afternoon, step by step trusting God.  After applying for the Visa and not hearing back from the embassy, in faith, booked their tickets not fully knowing if the airline would allow them to fly, but upon showing enough documentation the airline allowed them to travel.  They flew, in faith, as they didn’t know what would happen at immigration, because their visas were not yet issued.  Upon arrival and speaking with immigration our Canadians came through the gates.

For those of us in Rwanda we spent the morning visiting the school on the base (Arise and Shine School) and ministering to the students and teachers here, playing games and singing songs, leading assemblies, and visiting individual classrooms.  In the afternoon we visited the Genocide Memorial asking God to reveal to us his heart for this nation and in doing so his desire for our hearts.  God we ask that you would heal the scars left from the genocide.  That peace wouldn’t artificially cover the pain experienced but that Your peace would dwell deeply in the heart of the nation.  We pray for that same peace in our lives.  We trust your plan for Rwanda, come redeem it.  We trust you with our hearts, come redeem them.

Upon returning from the memorial we met up with the rest of our team and rejoiced!  Praise God for He alone is good!  Thank you for your intercession!  May God bless you and protect you as our intercessors–We are so grateful for you!

Prayer items: 

Pray for supernatural senses.  To see, hear, feel where God is going.  There seems to be lots of opportunities for ministry on this trip, but we desire to do what God calls us to do.  In order to know we need to hear from our daddy.

Along with the above, give us patience to wait for God’s timing.  To trust Him and to be still when needed and to move when called.

Pray for our team.  For unity from God.  For all of us to be drawn into the place of intimacy.  Into His holy place.  Into His throne room.

Continue to pray for physical protection, but know as well that the individual who was sick (fever and the runs) shows no signs of the sickness today–God is good–and He heals–The meds we gave him were designed to alleviate the symptoms, but God is the one who healed Him.

Thanks for your prayers–Bless you!

Rwanda. Day 1.

Mark 4

35 On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” 36And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. 37And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. 38But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” 39And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. 40He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” 41And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

Peace, Be Still.

The words God gave us for this trip, the words we thought we would say to the people in Rwanda, God has been saying to us: Peace, Be Still.  Our adventure began at the airport when upon check-in we realised that Rwanda has changed their relationship status since last year with the Canadians requiring a visa to enter the country.  Finding ourselves with 5 Canadians, two of which are leaders on the trip, with out visas the storms of this world seemed to build around us.  But God is lord over the storm.  As parents/students/intercessors began to pray at the check in counter God took control and one of the students was able to contact his dad to bring his HK passport while the remaining 4 were able board the flight on the condition of getting their own visas upon revival in Africa.  While this was going on, independently and from my knowledge unprovoked, the assistants checking in our luggage became increasingly impatient.  I tried smiling my big white smile, but she seemed impenetrable to my charms.  There were two remaining group members to check in when she blew up, asking for the leader and telling me if there as another bag that was overweight she was going to charge us.  We arranged earlier with the airline to have baggage allowance for our donated items totalling 40 KGs per person,  The next person inline weighed their bag…18.9 KG.  We weighed the donated items bag…21.1 KG.  Totalling the exact amount of 40KGs.  God is so funny!  The rest of the trip went so smoothly.  I have a sense though that God will continue to give us opportunities to trust His lordship.  That we will continually have to choose between Him being King or something/someone else.  God we want to be obedient to You and You alone!  Tonight as we worshipped, God continued to speak words of peace to us.  God gave us these verses: Through Joshua God gave us-don’t be afraid, be courageous.  Don’t move to the left or the right. wait. ne still. wait for me.  Through Peter walking on water we want to hear Jesus call us.  And when He beckons us ‘Come’ we’re going to follow…even if the path seems dangerous or impossible.  God enable us to walk in the supernatural.  God we pray for a deeper trust in you for this trip and with our hearts.  

Partner with us in Prayer:

URGENT: Pray for Amanda, Praise, Mel, and Nancy that God would speak peace into their hearts as they await a visa and for God to supernaturally provide one so that they may join us physically in Rwanda.  Could you all pray within the next two hours as 4 of our team is stuck in Kenya due to visa issues. In order for them to join us today they need to have approval for their visas in the next two hours. We trust God with this-please pray!  Pray for God to open those doors!

Pray for peace that comes from God alone, peace that passes all understanding, ushered in by His Spirit, paid for on the Cross.  Pray that we would be changed by this peace and operate only from it.  

Pray that we would hear His voice and move only when He tells us!

Pray for physical protection.  We have a history of sickness in Rwanda, but God is a God of healing.  Immediately when we got off the base one of our members became sick with a fever and the runs, but we gave him some medicine and prayed for Him and God heals and He is acting like his normal self and the fever has passed.

Thank you for your prayers!