Blood, Grace, and the Gift of a Cow

​If my first week in Rwanda was defined by the structured routine of the classroom, this week has been defined by the raw, unpredictable depths of the human soul. I have moved from the heaviest, darkest corners of human history to moments of such absurd, overwhelming grace that I am still struggling to process them.

Once again, the tears have come every single day. I am learning that in Rwanda, your heart doesn’t just break; it expands.

The Echoes of Nyamata

The heavy, historical shadow of this country caught up with me at the Nyamata Genocide Memorial, a Catholic church where 45,000 souls were systematically slaughtered over the course of just a few days in 1994.

Walking up to the building, you pass a series of plaques bearing the agonizing testimonies of survivors who were trapped inside during the attack. But nothing prepares you for the physical reality inside the sanctuary. The pews are piled high with mountains of clothes—the actual garments left behind by the victims. Looking at those stacks gives you an immediate, suffocating sense of the scale of the destruction.

Then you see the physical evidence of the violence. The walls and ceilings are still pockmarked by shrapnel and bullet holes. In the crypts below, I stood inches away from rows of skulls, many of them bearing the unmistakable, violent gashes of machetes and the clean punctures of bullet holes. Most chillingly, you can still see the dark blood splatter on the walls—preserved exactly as it was over thirty years ago. The sadness in that space is an absolute wall of emotion.

Making the experience even more profound was the fact that I walked through it side-by-side with a local Rwandan schoolteacher. As we moved through the horror, she was in tears the entire time, and I was fiercely fighting back my own. I gently asked her where she and her family were during those dark months in 1994. She told me they had managed to flee across the border into the Congo, where they were miraculously spared. Standing in the quiet of that desecrated church with someone whose entire life was shaped by that survival was a holy, heavy privilege.

A Raw Story in the Women’s Empowerment Initiative

The mood shifted from mourning to restoration when I visited the Women’s Empowerment Initiative, a ministry arm launched under Bishop Theophile’s organization, Africa Hope Initiative. This initiative equips young women trapped in extreme poverty with practical, marketable skills—training them to cut hair, do nails, and use sewing machines to create garments—so they can launch their own independent careers, support themselves, and build a stable, dignified future.

While I was there, they caught me completely off guard and asked if I would give a testimony. I was entirely unprepared, but I just decided to be completely raw and vulnerable with them. I told them the truth: I did not live a great life before I became a Christian.

I shared about how, thirty years ago, I spent a full year attending church and studying the Bible with a local pastor, but I still had one foot firmly in the world and one foot in the church. I was straddling the fence. Then, that summer, I was involved in a near-fatal motorcycle accident. Lying there, my entire life was violently put into perspective. When I finally walked back into that church, the pastor’s wife looked me dead in the eyes and said, "God has a special plan for you." A few days later, I surrendered it all, gave my life to Christ, and was baptized.

As the translator spoke my words, I watched the faces of these young women. They looked genuinely surprised—and deeply appreciative—that an American teacher was willing to expose his own broken past and messy road to faith. It broke down every barrier between us.

The Gift of a Cow

Right after I finished speaking, the room fell into a sudden, intense huddle. The girls started whispering excitedly to one another. Then, one of the young women stepped forward, looked at me, and spoke through the translator.

She was gifting me a cow.

I’ll be entirely honest: I thought she was joking. In my Western mindset, it felt so surreal and out-of-context that my immediate reaction was to crack a joke. I smiled and told her, "I’m not sure that's going to fit in my suitcase!"

The room erupted into laughter, and immediately the other women in the room shouted out to her, "You better ask your husband first!"

It wasn't until afterward that Bishop Theophile fully broke down the staggering weight of what had just happened. In Rwandan culture, gifting a cow is the single highest, most sacred gesture of ultimate respect and honor an individual can bestow. It is a massive economic and cultural sacrifice. Theophile told me that in all his years of bringing Western visitors to Rwanda, the local team had never seen a student offer a cow to a visitor.

I’ll admit, I felt a bit uncomfortable afterward, wishing I had handled the initial moment with more gravity instead of a suitcase joke. But the overwhelming humility of these women—who have nothing by worldly standards, yet wanted to give me the most valuable thing their culture possesses—completely brought me to my knees.

The Power of Faith-Based Micro-Loans

The rest of the week was spent witnessing the incredible, gritty resilience of the Rwandan women through a local micro-loan program.

Seeing their business models firsthand helped me realize how a seemingly tiny amount of money—just $100 USD for a four-month term—can radically alter the trajectory of a family. But what makes this program truly sustainable is its accountability structure. It runs on a social collateral framework known as a joint liability lending model. To qualify, a group of five women already enrolled in the program must explicitly vouch for and choose someone they trust—a neighbor, a friend, or a fellow vendor. If that chosen woman fails to repay, the group becomes collectively responsible for the loan. If they pay it back successfully, they qualify for larger micro-loans to expand further.

The results are staggering: over 400 women are currently thriving in the program, while 3,000 more are on a waiting list trying to get in.

Crucially, this entire framework is deeply faith-based. The women gather every single morning to do a devotional together, and they close out every working day by spending time in prayer. Many of them have done so well that they've established formal bank accounts and are now using their own business profits to expand and grow their businesses. Their resourcefulness and determination to support their families in this environment is nothing short of amazing.

Into the Hills of the Batwa

Later in the week, we traveled out to the southern district of Ruhango to visit a rural village where the Batwa Pygmies live. The Batwa are historically one of the most marginalized, vulnerable, and deeply impoverished demographics in the entire region. I have never experienced poverty like this before in my life.

The village itself was nestled among groves of banana trees, but the setting was a stark reflection of their daily struggle for survival. There were small patches of crops scattered here and there—simple, unmanicured gardens that were grown to provide food, though the yield is simply not enough to actually feed the community on a daily basis. Most of the people were wearing filthy clothes that were tattered and torn.

The people were incredibly gracious and overjoyed to see an American walking into their community. Because Rwandans are not traditionally hairy people, they were completely enamored by the hair on my arms and legs. They thought it was absolutely fascinating and actually started petting my arms like a dog. Honestly, I just smiled and let them do it! There was no awkwardness or out-of-place feeling; their warmth makes you feel like family instantly.

But the true reality hit when three separate families invited me inside their mud homes. Stepping through those doorways shattered any outside perspective. The living conditions were deplorable. In one house, a family of seven individuals all slept shoulder-to-shoulder on a single, filthy mat laid over the bare dirt floor. In some of these homes, livestock like a small calf or a pig lived right inside the cramped room with the family. They routinely go a day or two between meals because there is simply no food.

This is exactly where the Child Hope Center Ruhango—the Christian school established here by Bishop Theophile—comes in. Through the Africa Hope Initiative, the school feeds these children one solid meal a day—beans and rice, Monday through Friday. For almost all of these kids, this school lunch is the only meal they will receive for the entire day.

Furthermore, the program issues each child a school uniform. That uniform is the only piece of clothing those children own. They wear it to class, they play in it, they sleep in it, and they live in it. Helping feed these beautiful children lunch and handing out juice and biscuits (cookies, as we would call them) was an incredibly moving experience.

While visiting the village, I also got to watch a couple of the Batwa women practice their ancient cultural tradition of clay pottery. I watched in absolute astonishment as they shaped and completed beautiful clay pots by hand in under ten minutes. It was a stunning display of skill and heritage operating right in the middle of such intense lack.

Seeing this firsthand proved to me that this is a true, Christocentric ministry. This isn't just high-level theology; it is a living expression of pure faith. As James 1:27 tells us: "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." Watching that level of hands-on, scriptural love in action—actively clothing, educating, and feeding the poorest of the poor—was incredibly touching.

Looking Ahead: The Vision for a Nonprofit

Walking through these villages, witnessing the literal, life-changing power of a $100 micro-loan, and seeing the massive list of 3,000 women waiting for a chance has planted a permanent seed in my heart. You cannot witness this kind of resilience paired with this level of extreme need and just walk away unchanged.

Because of the severe lack of resources and long-term training for these grassroots church leaders, I have decided to start a nonprofit organization called Church Leaders Connection: Equipping Leaders, Strengthening Churches.

The vision is to create a direct, sustainable pipeline of relationship and support. I want to partner American pastors with Rwandan pastors, matching them up to meet once a week via Zoom calls for mutual encouragement, support, and mentoring. Ideally, the American pastors will also travel over once a year to visit their partners on the ground. Through the nonprofit website, we will provide critical resources and build a financial pathway to directly fund these micro-loan programs, provide pastoral resources, support local churches, and help plant new ones.

Seeing how these communities use a tiny bit of leverage to lift their families, build bank accounts, and feed their children proved to me that this model works. It's sustainable, it's dignified, and it changes generations. I want to give them that exact fighting chance.

I am writing this completely spent but deeply full. I came here to teach, but Rwanda is the one doing the schooling.

Please keep praying for me as I head into the final stretch.