So how was your trip? - Giving hope to Africa's AIDS orphans

11/7/2008

This young girl is an example of the thousands of Rwanda children taking the role of head of household. The Giving Hope ministry groups children with other orphan families, offering education and support.

Jean Damascene, right, and his sister help with his livestock.

Editor’s note: Greenland Hills UMC member Dawn McMullan reflects on a Sept. 5-15, 2008, mission trip to Rwanda, Africa, which included team members from her congregation and Arapaho UMC, Richardson.

BY DAWN MCMULLAN
Greenland Hills UMC, Dallas

Although I actually thought through the question above on the plane trip home from Rwanda, I’ve been baffled as I tried to answer the many times I’ve been asked since I got back in mid-September.

I can’t blame the jet lag (although it did take 37 hours from our hotel in Kigali to DFW Airport). But obviously it takes longer than I would’ve thought to digest the intensity of our nine days in Rwanda.

Simply put, it was overwhelming.

I traveled with four others from the North Texas Conference, all of us drawn to Africa, drawn to Rwanda, drawn to the ZOE Ministry as we learned more about what the organization — founded by Greg Jenks, a former Methodist pastor in North Carolina — was doing for orphans on this continent we hear so much about.

ZOE works with orphans in Rwanda, Kenya, Zimbabwe, and Zambia. The program varies from country to country (as each country has its unique needs and challenges). What we saw in Rwanda is ZOE’s Giving Hope program, designed and implemented by Epiphanie Mujawimana.

Here’s the problem in Rwanda and all over Africa: there are millions of orphans. And there will continue to be millions more for the foreseeable future. In Rwanda, orphans make up one-ninth of the Maryland-sized country’s population. Epiphanie realized early on in her work that relying on help from outside her country’s borders wasn’t the long-term solution. And giving handouts to these children only perpetuates their helplessness. Sure, they need our money.

Sure, they need us to come see what’s going on there. But Rwanda — and these children — must heal from within. And that’s exactly what Epiphanie is trying to do.

Taking the heads of households — the oldest sibling in a family of children orphaned most often from the 1994 genocide or AIDS — Giving Hope creates community. Orphan families are grouped with other orphan families. The head of household goes through a three-year training program that includes an education in agriculture, HIV/AIDS awareness, animal husbandry, health and hygiene, personal and family security, as well as spiritual development.

The first step is food security, meaning they have enough food for the near future, hopefully through the next growing season. From this humble goal, these child-headed families are completely self-sufficient in two to three years.

Another important step is income generation. Each head of household gets a $20 grant to start an income-generation project: farming, sewing, raising livestock, selling fabric. For the price of dinner at Taco Cabana, these children invest in something that will support them and their siblings for years to come, ensuring they have food, clothing, and an education.

Jean Damascene was only 12 years old when his mother died. While he and his sisters had land and a house, he had no idea what to do with it. Two years later, he left his sisters and lived on the street, feeding himself with garbage, drugs, and alcohol. He connected with ZOE in October of last year, found his sisters, repaired his home, and learned to cultivate his land.

Now 18, Jean proudly showed us his cow. He also has a calf and chickens, making him practically rich in the African orphan world. By Rwandan standards, Jean and his sisters are no longer in poverty.

There is so much hope, yet I am still overwhelmed by so many things I saw:

The sadness of a country still trying to recover from a genocide 14 years ago in which more than one million people were murdered. Although Rwandans seem to be moving on with an unimaginable grace, the genocide was never far from our minds, often as close as a head wound under the scarf of one of the orphans. Alphonsine was 6 when her parents were killed during the genocide. She was attacked by someone who beat her with a board full of nails. She later found an abandoned baby hidden under a bush, whom she took in even though she was homeless herself. Standing in her new home, with now 5-year-old Naomi never far from Alphonsine’s matching skirt, how could I not be overwhelmed by her grace?

The hopefulness of people who seem genuinely set on reconciliation, forgiving those who killed their children, parents, brothers, and sisters. As orphans celebrated moving into their new homes built by ZOE, genocidaires (those involved in the genocide) did community service time just a few feet away, finishing out a few of the adobehomes. The juxtaposition didn’t seem to bother anyone but us.

The helplessness we felt as we saw kids who had no shoes, few clothes, few regular meals. The smiles on each one of them, more genuine than any we’ve ever seen.
The amazement we felt as we saw children helped by ZOE Ministry who had been homeless a year ago and were now helping other children who weren’t food secure, didn’t have shoes, didn’t have hope.

Here are some statistics, gathered either from locals while on the ground or from the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda or SURF (the country’s genocide survivor’s fund) while comfortably back at home with my laptop:

ZOE’s Giving Hope program in Rwanda and Kenya is helping 1,350 families (4,400 orphans). In Rwanda alone, there are more than a million orphans.
1 million were killed in three months during the 1994 genocide, and more than 553,000 women were raped (63 percent of whom contracted the AIDS virus).
The country has 60,000 motor vehicles, including buses and motorcycle taxis.
The per capita household income in 2007 was $370.
18 percent of homes have at least one mosquito net (as did our hotel rooms).
70 percent of the population is 14 years old or younger.

Greg warned us that re-entry would be tough, that we would cry at seemingly unexpected times when we got back home. He knew we’d be overwhelmed.

The feeling isn’t completely new. Anyone who has gone to any third-world country knows how convenient and comfortable our lives look when we get back. But I’ve never been overwhelmed by the difference. In my many years of supporting the Heifer Project, I’ve never actually seen a child who can go to school and eat because of a pig. Or one who can’t. Last week, I held hands with both (and touched said pig). That’s the difference. That’s why it’s overwhelming. But, as difficult as it is, that’s why we went.

Dawn McMullan is the mission chair at Greenland Hills UMC in East Dallas. Other members of the mission team were Rev. Marti Soper, Judy Kline and Angie Kavas, Greenland Hills, and Rev. Jack Soper, Arapaho UMC, Richardson.

Greg Jenks, executive director of ZOE (zoeministry.org), and Epiphanie Mujawimana, founder of Giving Hope in Rwanda, will be in Dallas, Nov. 20 and 21. They are bringing with them Jean Damascene, an orphan since the age of 12 whose life has been transformed by ZOE’s Giving Hope program.

• Thursday, Nov. 20 (evening): ZOE representatives and members of a recent trip to Rwanda from the NTC are available to speak to small groups (mission committees, administrative councils, Sunday

School classes) at individual churches. Contact Marti Soper, 214-826-2060 or masoper@sbcglobal.net for more information.

• Friday, Nov. 21 (noon): Luncheon and presentation at the Ministry Center, 500 Maplelawn Dr., Plano, Texas. Please RSVP at 972-526-5000.

Donations:

$10: the equivalent of a face-to-face guidance from a social worker for an orphan family for one year (one social worker works with 600 families)
$20: grant for income-generating project that will support a family of orphans.
$28: one pig and
$40: one goat
$150: year three of a threeyear program of education, training and emotional support for a family of orphans through the Giving Hope program
$300: first and second year of a three-year program ofeducation, training, emotional support for a family of orphans through the Giving Hope program
$400: one cow
$2,500: an adobe house for a family of orphans

Make a contribution in a check made out to the “North Texas Conference,” enter “Fund #283 – ZOE” on the memo line. Mail to: Treasurer, North Texas Ministry Center, P.O. Box 866128, Plano, TX75086.