Lesson from Rwanda: Empowerment

Empowerment. I like how that word sounds. But I have little understanding about how to do it. My time in Rwanda is allowing me the opportunity to witness empowerment in action.

Maybe you've heard the saying: "Give a person a fish and they will eat for a day. Teach a person to fish and they will eat for a lifetime." This is empowerment.

It is a step (or two) further than most of us go in our service to God. I know that is true in my life. It is easier for me to give somebody who is hungry a fish (or money). I feel good about myself when I do that. And there is nothing wrong with that, by the way. However, God invites us to get a little more involved. God gave us the best example of this involvement when He became flesh and dwelt among us in Jesus Christ.

God entered into the messiness of our lives to show us how to live with self-giving love. He said as much to the disciples after having washed their feet - modeling a life of self-giving love. Jesus said, "I have set you an example, that you should do as I have done for you." Jesus empowered his disciples to serve like him.

Imagine if you can that you are orphaned because your parents died of AIDS or they were killed by genocide. You are stigmatized and isolated from your community and treated like garbage to be thrown away. You have no home and no one wants to take you in. You don't know how to prepare or cook food. So you either steal food from someone's garden or you work for someone who exploits you by paying you very little. This is the typical life of an orphan child in Rwanda before they get involved with Zoe Ministry (www.zoeministry.org).

Today we met Burnadette who is 15 years old. On top of experiencing all of those things above, she was born with a medical condition so her bowels were not working properly. She smelled really bad. Not even her family wanted to be around her and she wanted to die.

Was Burnadette hopeless? So it might seem.

But a working group of orphans was being put together by Zoe Ministry in Burnadette's villiage. She began to realize she was not the only one who felt like she did. Through help from Zoe Ministry she was able to get medical treatment to repair her bowels so that she wouldn't smell anymore. Through the help and support of other orphans in her working group, she was able to learn to farm and breed rabbits to provide food and income for her and her sisters and brother.

Today while we were meeting and talking with Burnadette a group of 30 members of her family group were busy at work putting up a fence around her home and building a small kitchen garden by her house. Next week Burnadette will go to the home of someone else in her working group to help them too.

Burnadette has been empowered. She has been given dignity. She has been given hope. She is becoming the person God has created her to be - passing on to others what had been given to her.

With this empowerment model of ministry with orphans, the ratio of paid Zoe Staff to orphans is about 1:900. This is because the orphans are caring for one another. And when they graduate from the 2 to 3 year program they are then sponsoring new working groups of orphans themselves - passing on to others what they have received.

I wonder who you are empowering?
Are you just a disciple? Or are you a disciple maker?
Are you just doing good things for other people or are you teaching others to do good things?

The children of Rwanda have challenged me with these things.