D for D Kirambo -- Yeremiah & Beatha

Yeremiah & Beatha

Before D for D:
Yeremiah was an alcoholic who worked for beer. Beatha told us he would hide everything from her; he would get a job that would pay 1,000 francs (around $1.75) for the day and he would bring around 300 francs home for the family. The rest of the money he would spend on beer before he got home. He would often come home and beat his wife. They rented a cheap home and often struggled to pay the rent. Sometimes he would just beg people to help him financially. They have 4 kids and Yeremiah said they would "giving birth everyday" meaning, they had no plan for how many children they were going to have and that they were struggling to take care of the ones they already had. They knew that their life was hard and that that is the way it would always be!

Now after 1 & 1/2 years in the D for D process:
Pastor Tertullien and his wife Verena met them and began to share the Good News with them and the Lord has been at work in them!! Now their lives are dramatically different! Yeremiah says their lives have changed through praying and working! Yeremiah has stopped drinking and no longer wastes the family's money. Instead Yeremiah and Beatha work together to bring crops (corn, cassava, and sweet potatoes) from a far town to sell in their village. They make decisions together and instead of fighting and him beating her, they love each other! In the last year and a half they have joined the "Savings for Life" group and have saved money that helped them to buy a piece of land and then build their own house to live in! They have 4 goats, 1 chicken with several baby chicks, lots of fertilizer for crops, they have planted improved cooking banana trees that will help to bring in some extra money to buy yearly health insurance for their family that is available from the government. Yeremiah has become a leader in their church and they both seem to be growing in their faith as they see God at work in their daily lives! They have vision for the future to buy more land for farming and eventually a bigger home for their family. They have hope in God, that He will continue to bless the work of their hands.

Praise God for His work in each and every part of our lives! For how He has and is saving us in each part of our lives!

May His Kingdom come and His will be done on earth and in our lives as it is in heaven!

Yeremiah and Beatha

Their goats recently gave birth, now they have 4 goats!

This is the chicken coop. The net protects the chickens from hawks!

These are greens they planted right outside their house to help them have better nutrition.

The God who gives unspeakable joy!

This past weekend (Easter weekend) we visited the Kirambo Friends Church in southwest Rwanda. This is one of the 4 communities we are using Discipling for Development (D for D) in right now. The Lord is at work in the hearts and lives of our friends in this community! It was really fun to hear their testimonies and to see the joy of the Lord in their voices and shining brightly on their faces!

Chelsea and I spent time in October with these friends and heard their testimonies and were very encouraged by the joy that we saw in them at what the Lord was doing and how their lives were changing! This time they were even more joy-filled! Throughout Friday as we were visiting people in their homes I was impressed by the joy I was seeing in their lives.

The joy they are experiencing is coming directly from their relationships with the Living God! Often those of us from wealthy countries like the USA see poverty like our friends live in, our response is that we should give them some of the money/things we have. One time a group gave the Kirambo Friends Church quite a bit of money so that they could buy pigs to give to individuals in the church with the goal that the pigs would bring good income and help the church members come out of poverty. I am sure that the people of the church were very happy when they received pigs. But by the end of 6 months all of the pigs had been sold and there was absolutely no long-term good/results that came from the project. It even caused a lot of frustration and some conflicts.

Many Rwandans feel like they are very poor and cannot do anything! Some believe that they are worthless and therefore have no hope! Through the process of D for D our friends in Kirambo are experiencing worldview transformation. They beginning to understand that God created each of them wonderfully and has blessed them with a relationship with Him, with strength, arms & legs, wisdom, life experience, etc. They are recognizing how powerful they can be with the Lord! They are learning to think through their problems with the Lord and as a group and together they are finding some solutions to their problems! The result is joy and more joy! We visited 10 homes on this trip and each of the families accomplished quite a bit in the last 6 months since we were there last time, so they were filled with more of God's joy! They are not worthless, God in them is enough! They are capable, they are powerful and they are our heroes!

Here are a few things that God has helped our friends do in the last months. They have seen God present and active in their daily lives and are knowing Him better through these experiences!

Yeremiah, who used to beat his wife when he was drunk is becoming a loving and caring husband to Beatha.
Efrazia has finished building a house for her and her family! They no longer have to pay rent!


Marita's pig gave birth to 4 piglets! (I learned what the phrase "eating like a pig" means!)
For the first time in her life, Beatha and her family sleep on a mattress instead of sleeping on a grass mat on the floor.

Beatha Nyirandakunze has a lot of fertilizer from her goats to put on her own crops and is able to sell the rest to other farmers to make some extra money.


God is transforming our friends' lives spiritually, physically, relationally, emotionally, etc!!! May He receive glory and honor now and forever, Amen!