If you have not read My Story Part 1, I encourage you to start there. This portion of my story is amazing on its own merit as it continues to show the sovereignty and goodness of God, but to truly understand of the immensity of transformation of where I came from to where God has taken me to this point of the story makes the dynamic even more astounding.
A New Desire
At some point after my return to following Christ, a desire to help or sponsor a child arose in me from time to time. I am a servant-helper and compassionate person by nature, but I couldn't say for certain what sparked this specific desire - other than to say "God."
I had demands of any organization I would become affiliated with though. I wanted the organization to be biblically based, I wanted the large majority of my donation to actually go toward helping the child rather than an exhaustive overhead, I didn't want continuous hounding of heart-tugging pleadings for increased donations of donation renewals; I didn't want a stream of junk-mail or spam emails; and less importantly I wanted an option of giving anonymously. I simply wanted to bless a child without "recognition" and hassle.
I looked into organizations like St. Jude's and Compassion International as my best options. Even if they met my other "demands", I couldn't see a way of giving anonymously when I looked at their information. Even so, the desire stayed and began to grow. In the meantime, I would donate to the North American Missions Board (NAMB) or the International Missions Board (IMB) through the donation collection boxes at the registers at Lifeway Christian Store where I was employed part-time.
For a few years, Compassion International made arrangements with Lifeway to set up displays and provide personnel to speak with customers about sponsoring children. Each time they came to the store and set out the packets of children with the child's information and everything needed to get started with supporting them, I would listen to the presenters interact with the customers, and I would take time to look through the packets. During one Compassion International event, a coworker and I discussed sponsoring a child together but that plan fell through.
I never acted on the desire, and life marched on.
But 2017 was about to really ramp things into overdrive!
Small Group Introduction
As I mentioned in the previous My Story - Part 1 post, I had began learning about the church I was attending, Christ Community Church, and officially became a member/partner in May of 2017.
In September 2017, Christ Community Church held a small group relaunch to give an opportunity for people to change groups if they chose to, and to get people not in a group involved. The pastor would be presenting a sermon series on the book of Romans, and the plan was for every small group to meet for discussions on the message material.
Prior to the relaunch, I had been offered a group to join. Planning to join that group, I did not register to be assigned to one. However, that group did not materialize, and I showed up at the church on the night of the relaunch and confessed I had not not registered. The Small Groups pastor asked what night worked for me. As I was working at the hospital full time and at Lifeway part-time, Sunday nights was my best option for consistent attendance. After looking at the list of groups, I was assigned to a group co-led by two men I came to love and respect, Glen (a church elder) and Mark (an ordained pastor).
The initial count of the group that night was over 20 individuals with only a few of us being new inclusions. Talk of "multiplying" was already being discussed that very night. This group had been an established group for a couple of years already, and its focus was on international missions. It was made clear that once the study of Romans was concluded, it would return its focus to international missions. We were welcomed into the group, but it was recognized that it might not be a good fit for those of us being introduced into it that night. Glen requested that if anyone wanted to look for a new group immediately, or intended to after the study of Romans, to let him know.
I took several days to consider what to do regarding this small group. Between many comments made regarding the group being too large, and that it would return to being a missions-focused group, I asked the church office staff if there were other groups that I might check out. I also emailed Glen. In the email, I told him that while I understood the necessity and the calling/command (the Great Commission) for missions, missions wasn't for me, so I didn't feel like the group would be for me and I would leave after the study of Romans.
Recall from My Story - Part 1 that I had spent the majority of my life as a shy, introverted, recluse not going out and intentionally engaging people.
I never got a reply or an acknowledgement from either the small groups pastor or from Glen. It was just as well. I soon came to deeply love and appreciate each person in that group as family. This would expand to include two new couples that joined us in the following year.
David Alireki
In the early days of the small group, the numbers dwindled. It was still hefty at around eighteen members, but rarely were we all present so meeting nights were normally manageable.
In getting to know these people who would soon all become my dear friends, I learned that Lynda Weir had co-founded an organization called Acts4Rwanda. Glen was the chairman of the board, and another man in the group named Rusty was the treasurer. Almost everyone else in the group was involved through sponsorship or missions trips through Acts4Rwanda.
Although they had been together as a small group for a couple of years, it was determined that this would be the year that we would each share our personal testimonies. Glen graciously offered to let me skip it knowing my reclusive past, but the others were so honest and transparent I would not rob them of being the same in return.
We took a break one week when Lynda brought David Alireki, an African co-founder of Acts4Rwanda who was visiting the United States on behalf of the program, to visit our small group. Lynda had asked David to share his life story with us, and he graciously agreed.
Often Lynda had shared her experiences in Rwanda from her initial mission trip, the foundation of Acts4Rwanda, the stories of various children brought into the program, and the conditions they had come from and were still struggling under. It had started my foundational understanding of conditions many Rwandans face.
On Sunday evening, October 29, 2017, David intimately shared the reality and struggles of his life growing up as an example of the hardships common among many impoverished Rwandans. The depth and the details he shared that night of the level of poverty he grew up in, the struggles he faced, the hardships he endured, the abuse he suffered, and the love for God he held onto through it were gritty and heart-wrenching.
By the time he finished speaking, there was an absolute and unrelenting inferno burning in the pit of my soul screaming like nothing ever had before: Get involved!
I have heard David speak in front of churches several times since. Due to time constraint and the public setting vs the private setting, those instances were never delivered at such depth and detail as had been shared with us that night. Had I not heard him on that very specific night but only heard him speak to the church, I would not have been as affected as I was then.
In the face of that burning inside, nothing would pose a hinderance. I wasn't concerned about the number of vaccinations I'd need despite an aversion to needles. I wasn't concerned about the distance of air travel despite my having only flown domestically on two trips previously in my life. I wasn't concerned about the emersion into a foreign culture even though I'd never been outside the United States.
Scott Perkins
Scott became a good friend of mine as well as a regular weekly customer in Lifeway. I'm afraid I have lost contact with him when he moved away. I have tried several times over the years to contact him but so far without response.
On October 30, the night after David's story lit me on fire, Scott came into the store while I was working. Part of our conversation went something like this:
Scott: Do you like Casting Crowns?
Me: Who doesn't?
Scott: Did you know they are coming in concert this Friday night?
Me: I had heard that.
Scott: How many tickets could you use?
Me: What? Do you have some tickets to just give away?
Scott: Yes, how many could you use?
Me: Could you spare two?
Scott stepped out to his car and returned with an envelope full of tickets and pulled out two and handed them to me as a gift. I was blown away at his generosity and thanked him. I then called my niece, Amy, and arranged to for us to go to the concert together.
Casting Crowns
November 2, 2017 was the night of the concert. On the drive there, I was telling Amy about David's story and the fire it ignited inside me. I just kept talking and talking about it. We arrived at the arena, which is no small place, and walked up the steps to enter the building. I looked up as I walked in and stopped stunned. There in plain unobstructed view in a crowded lobby stood Lynda and David. She had brought him to the concert for him to experience it.
In short, it was not a concert; it was an absolute worship service. If you are familiar with Casting Crowns, then you know that many of their songs are about serving others and sharing the gospel of Christ. This is really captured in their song "If we Are the Body", of which the chorus is:
But if we are the body
Why aren't His arms reaching?
Why aren't His hands healing?
Why aren't His words teaching?
And if we are the body
Why aren't His feet going?
Why is His love not showing them there is a way?
There is a way; there is a way.
At their intermission, I was in for yet another "nudge" of the night. Representatives from Compassion International came out on stage to speak, show a video, and hand out packets of children to sponsor to willing audience members.
This is something so impactful I will never forget it. Amy looked at me and just dead-pan said, "You realize this is your burning bush, don't you?"
It was undoubtedly a burning bush moment. The list of events wasn't lost on me
+ the recent years of desiring to be involved with helping a child.
+ brought to a church with authentic believers that I connected with like never before.
+ being placed in a small group of people I loved and trusted and who had created, organized, and operated a child-sponsorship ministry.
+ an intense burning had been set inside me less than a week prior.
+ a nudge at a concert about a child-sponsorship program
I spent many evenings after the concert asking many questions of Lynda and studying the Acts4Rwanda website to learn everything I could.
On November 14, 2017 I made my first sponsorship payment to fully support a student named Damascene through Acts4Rwanda
Finances and Commitment
Over the course of the next few years, there were times of some financial strain. During this time Lifeway, my source of supplemental income, closed all of their stores. This caused me to start looking at various expenditures to cut back on or cut out entirely.
Obviously, one expenditure I was making monthly was the full sponsorship of Damascene. Dropping from full level sponsorship to a partial level sponsorship was an option, however, that thought lasted in my mind for only a brief moment.
I fully and completely believe God had orchestrated the string of events that led me to becoming Damascene's sponsor. If I truly believed that, as I did and still do, there was nothing that would make me relinquish that charge. I would cut spending from other places and leave Damascene's sponsorship exactly where it was as my commitment both to God and to Damascene.
Pod Squad Appreciation
Fast forward now to November 9, 2022. At this point, I have been sponsoring Damascene for five years.
Our Christ Community Church Missions and Executive pastor, Will, contacted me. He stated that the staff knew I wasn't serving on the Pod Squad for recognition or acknowledgement, but they knew my love for Acts4Rwanda, knew that I desired to one day go to Rwanda when I could afford it, and wanted to just show appreciation for my continued volunteered service with the Pod Squad (see My Story - Part 1). The church staff had discussed it and came to a conclusion. They generously and graciously offered to fully fund for me to be part of the 2023 mission trip to Rwanda in order to experience the ministry first-hand and to finally meet Damascene in person.
My level of shock was only outdone by my level of overwhelming and heartfelt gratitude.
Blessings of God
As I begin to share this story with family, friends, coworkers, and anyone else that will listen, two common questions were whether it was safe to go and if I was nervous about going.
Having seen God's hand in placing the successive stepping stones in my path...
+ using Steve to bring be back to walking with Christ
+ using my friends at Lifeway to help me grow personally and spiritually as iron sharpens iron
+ sparking a desire to help children in need
+ getting me to Christ Community Church
+ connecting me in a church like never before in my life
+ placing me in the one small group that had the Acts4Rwanda leadership in it
+ having me at that singularly intimate sharing of David's story that ignited a fire in me
+ providing free tickets to a concert where Compassion International drove the point home
+ committing to fully sponsor Damascene
+ taking me from "Missions aren't for me" in September 2017 to "Here I am Lord; Send me!" in November 2017
+ and then the mind-blowingly wonderful offer from the church to send me to Rwanda
...there was no fear, no nervousness, no concern, no uneasiness, and no hesitation. There was only absolute trust in God and His sovereignty. He orchestrated it, so He was in control.
Still Not the End
God wasn't finished in just sending me in 2023. Beginning just before I left for Rwanda and concluding upon my return, God provided a means for me to be able to make future trips so I can remain involved with Acts4Rwanda inside Rwanda for as long as He sends me or as long as He allows me to be.
So be sure to read this article which will introduce you to what Acts4Rwanda is, why it exists, and see for yourself why I go and urge you to involvement.
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