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Partnership Team Trip to Rwanda September 2008!

The Rwanda Partnership 2008 Travel Team has safely returned from their trip to Rwanda September 4 - September 17, 2008.

Read all their posts by clicking on the Rwanda Blog above.

Meet the Travel Team

Terri Semsick, Team Leader
Wayne Yost, Team Leader
Melanie Bearer-Mertens
Valerie Brewer
Ginger Gresh
Betty Grunstra
Rick Hurley
Bree Matson
Rachel Stockdale
Terry Stockdale
Not able to attend: Bob Moore
Rwanda Travel Team Read more about each team member by clicking on "Team Members" in the Nav Bar!

Purpose and Goals of the Kiski-Rwanda Partnership

To listen and learn from our sisters and brothers in Christ in Rwanda on how to worship, how to cope with oppression and how to care for one another more effectively.
To exchange representatives so as to establish a personal connection and sense of mutual support.
To provide support and assistance to one another's needs as quickly as possible.
To be the Body of Christ together, to demonstrate our unity (John 17), our inclusivity and our fulfillment of Christ's great commission (Matthew 28).

To this end we mutually pledge ourselves to this partnership.

Wayne and Eugene

Rev. Eugene Rubanda, Regional Director of the Gitarama Region
and Rev. Dr. Wayne Yost, General Presbyter of Kiskiminetas Presbytery during Eugene's visit to Kiski in the spring of 2008.

About the Kiski - Gitarama Presbytery Partnership

The Eglise presbytérienne au Rwanda (Presbyterian Church of Rwanda) is equivalent to the PC(U.S.A.). The EPR is called a “general synod.” What we would call a presbytery is called a “regional synod” in Rwanda. The Gitarama Region is our partner presbytery/regional synod. In each “regional synod” there are several parishes which will usually have a “primary congregation” and several congregations in the surrounding area. The “primary congregation” will usually be served by a pastor. The congregations in the surrounding area are served by an “evangelist.” We would call them an Authorized Lay Preacher or a Commissioned Lay Pastor.

Rwanda is home to one of the world’s largest proportions of child-headed households, with an estimated 101,000 children living in 42,000 households. These children are on-their-own either because their parents were killed in the genocide, have died from AIDS, or have been imprisoned for genocide-related crimes. Rwanda has about 6,000 street children, mostly in Kigali. The Rwanda Presbytery helps to serve these children through Centre Presbyterien d'Amour de Jeunes (Presbyterian Center for the Love of Youth) in Kigali.

Other challenges include the aftermath of violence against women and girls, another tragic component of the genocide in 1994. According to the Center for HIV Information, at least 130,000 women are HIV/Aids infected. Children with HIV/Aids are estimated at 22,000. Some of the key programs of the Rwanda Presbytery are with HIV/Aids, Medical, Women and Families.

It costs an average of $40 per year for a primary school student to attend, but many cannot afford that. The Rwanda Presbytery’s Educational Ministries supports 100 primary schools, 15 secondary schools. Many of our partner congregations here in Kiski Presbytery are helping to provide uniforms and supplies for school children.

The Rwanda Presbytery also has an active program of evangelism and church growth in their Regional Synods, and has proposed an increase in their evangelism budget by 350%.