First year Giving Hope Orphans, Butare, Rwanda

This is Donetta with her 10 year old sister and her invalid aunt.  Her mother died three years ago and she has been caring for the family since. She lives in a small hut on a very small plot of ground, barely surviving.  She grows a garden next to her hut about ten by ten and has a goat that Zoe ministry gave her.  Soon she will move into a new home that the orphans are building with the help of ZOE, a triplex made out of mud bricks, steel roof, concrete stucco, bathroom and kitchen, just a short way from here.  She is a first year Giving Hope Companion, in a previous blog I talked about the third year groups who have made amazing strides in self sufficiency.  We met many other first years, one whose father was killed in the genocide, another family of 9 children who parents had died of aids.  After the larger groups told their story, sang, and gave us some gifts, they had to leave, for these older orphans had to get home to care for the younger children who were getting out of school soon.  The last song they sang ended with these words, “This is good, but heaven is better”.  We hope to go back in three years to see how Giving Hope has impacted Donetta and the other 50 or so like her who we pray gain independence, self sufficiency, and a growing faith and trust in God. Our hope as a Church is to adopt an entire community of orphans and walk with them through the three years.  A community is a thousand Donettas.  God help us do so.