As I write this, Pastor Enock from Tanzania (one of the pastors we train) has traveled to Rwanda and is currently passing on our Bible Pathway training to a group of 16 pastors there. Pastor Seleman is the key initiator for this training, and he has an amazing story with you really must hear:

In 1994, seven of Pastor Seleman’s family members were slaughtered during genocide in his country of Rwanda. Seleman ran and hid, without any food, for four days, in a huge drainage pipe. At midnight on the fifth day he snuck out in search of food.  Not finding any, he laid down among the dead bodies and ate human flesh to regain his strength.  Then after two days he began a two month journey through the jungles and deserts and finally made it to Tanzania. Seleman was the only one from his family who escaped.

Pastor Enoch Charles went to the refugee camp to minister to the people there.  He met pastors from Rwanda and Burundi and passed on the first course of the Pathway training. After the training these pastors said, “Pathways is the answer for the hungry and thirsty hearts.  God’s Word is the message that people need.”  Seleman and the pastors said that the training had renewed them and given them “strength to walk without getting tired.” Seleman himself said that his “heart was broken in pieces” and that “he never thought he would once again find peace.”

God called him to preach peace back in his war-ravaged country of Rwanda.  All of the pastors said that they were greatly impacted by the message of Jonah.  They saw that for them their torturers and those who had killed their family members were like the Ninevites that Jonah preached to.  God gave them, through His Word, compassion for the victimizers in their homeland.  

What an amazing message of grace and hope through unimaginable suffering. Let’s pray for these trainings, for Pastor Seleman and other Rwandan pastors, and for solid Biblical teaching to spread across Rwanda and beyond.  God truly is doing amazing things globally.

Pressing on for His glory, Eric