As we are nearing the end of the year 2014, the Kigali International Church of Christ feels very grateful for God’s faithfulness during this year. In the sisters’ ministry, we have experienced both numerical and spiritual growth this year. We started the year 2014 with a membership of 15 sisters. Our goal and prayer was for God to add to our number by double our membership i.e. 30 baptisms. As the women’s leader, I thought about that goal and shared with the sisters. Even as I shared with them, my faith was little because I felt we were asking too much from God and setting a very high goal for ourselves. But I decided to not focus on the goal but start working and God would do the rest.
On 9th, March 2014, God added to our number one sister called Janette. She was one of the students in our cookery project that helps to provide skills to the community where the church is located. In the same month on 16th, seven sisters were baptized on that same day. We were so much grateful to God in the way He glorified Himself on that day. There was celebration in the Church and in Heaven for these many souls. At that time, our membership had soared to 23 sisters.
We had always combined our women’s day with Kampala International church of Christ because we were few to have our own women’s day in Kigali. Since we had increased in number, our leaders decided that we have our women’s day as Kigali sisters. We had mixed feelings about how it would go because; we felt we were still few to organize that big event. We prayed and fasted and worked so hard and God glorified Himself again. On 5th July 2014, we managed to have our women’s day with an attendance of 100 of which we had 78 visitors. We are so grateful to God for the successful women’s day He gave us and for the many lessons we learnt on this maiden women’s day. There were many visitors during our preparations for the women’s day. As we joyful shared with them about the great day many of them started studying the bible and some were even part of the singing and dancing group. They felt they were already part of us. These are women from our Gitarama village ministry. By the time we were having our women’s day; eight women who had been studying the Bible were ready to be baptized. They came to Kigali with the rest of the sisters on Saturday, 5th July 2014 for our women’s day and the following Sunday of 6th, the eight ladies were baptized into the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen! Our membership rose from 23 sisters to 31 sisters that day and to God be the glory for His faithfulness to us.
We had many visitors from Gitarama ministry who came for women’s day but still many of them could not come to Kigali for women’s day because of transport. We started studying the Bible with some who came as well as those who could not come because they failed to raise the transport. In total 17 women started studying the Bible and on 2nd November 2014, 14 of the ladies made a decision to become disciples of Jesus Christ and were baptized into the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are blown away by God’s faithfulness in answering prayers. Indeed we serve a very powerful God! Right now we are 45 sisters in Kigali International Church of Christ. We started the year 2014 with a membership of 15 sisters and God answered our prayer of baptizing double our number. We have so far baptized 30 sisters and this gives us a total of 45 sisters.
Studying the bible with all these women as a group was both interesting and overwhelming for me as the only sister on staff here. We only have one day in a week when we go to our Gitarama ministry and that is why we have to meet people studying the Bible as a group. But as we all know, not all classes can be done in a group. We do sin study as a group then when we finish, I have to create time for meeting them individually to talk through their sin. This takes quite a long period of time since each has unique experiences. Sometimes I could get overwhelmed by their many hurtful or traumatizing experiences that they needed to be helped to work through during their repentance. I had to record each one’s issues they have to work through, so that I can follow up on their repentance. Then once I am done with meeting them individually, we do cross together as a group. After cross, I again have to set up time for each of the ladies to follow up on how they are doing with their repentance process. This is very exciting because here I get to listen to some encouraging stories of those that have successfully completed their repentance; some have forgiven and reconciled with people, others have been forgiven; others are overcoming different types of sins and many other experiences. This could bring too much joy to my heart seeing them change their lives for Christ. Amen!!
Then when we finish talking through the repentance, I do with them Light and darkness and most of them at this point are eager to be baptized to get their sins forgiven. With this study, we also talk one on one as I draw each person’s Time Line of their spiritual journey. I do the time line separately because they can be influenced by each other’s answers to the questions of their personal time line. I make a list of all these time lines, making sure each time line has a name to help us go back to it after we finish the Light and darkness study.
We then meet as a group to do the study of Light and Darkness. Usually by the time we finish the study, everyone sees where they belong since they did not follow the order of salvation as seen in the Bible. So I ask one by one to compare their time line with the salvation order we have just seen in the bible. They each make a decision of what they want to do basing on how they see themselves. At this point, many see the need to be baptized to come into the light. For those who miss a class for different reasons, there is a sister who meets them and helps them catch up with the group by the next time we meet. When all this is done, then we finish up the rest of the studies together. In case one has a question, we always have time to talk about it on an individual basis. It is always a great experience seeing all of them ready to go into the waters of baptism and amazing children of God they are indeed.
