Rwanda (MNN) — It took 100 days to see one-million die in Rwanda’s genocide in 1994. This year, it’s going to take 100 days to share eternal life with two million school aged young people in a partnership ministries are calling, ‘100 Days of Hope.’
Book of Hope is one of the partners. Book of Hope is a magazine-like harmony of the Gospel, designed especially for young people. The government asked Book of Hope to distribute these books in all the schools in Rwanda on the 12th anniversary of the genocide. Book of Hope’s Randy Young says their Response Teams, together with their interns they call Nomads, were responsible for training nationals to do the work. “They trained, in a period of four weeks, over 500 nationals, province by province through the 12 provinces to do the work. So, we actually print, develop the books and then resource the national church to reach their own kids.”
Jeremy and Ashley West were spearheading the training. Jeremy tells MNN that they spent a lot of time with children between age 7 and 18. The response was phenomenal, evidenced by their work in one village. “Our team was in one of the provinces called Butare. And, we did a week’s worth of distribution there, where we distributed over 15,000 books and during that week period they showed the Godman. We showed that to about 3,000 students and we know that we had 1,000 solid, who made commitments to serve Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.” ‘Godman’ is a powerful 3D animated film on the life of Christ.
Since national believers are trained, they take over the work, says West. He says they do the follow up and help get these young people involved in the local church.
While Book of Hope’s Rwanda ministry will be wrapping up in July, they need more young volunteers says Young. “For five weeks out of the summer we’ve got nomad groups going out in the Spring, Nomad teams going out in the fall. If anybody’s looking to give two years of their life in an incredible way to see the nations impact cultures and serve God, we’re here and we’d like to talk to people about that.”
