Ten Talents International Blog

It is such a relief and we praise God that the shipping container has finally been released to us from customs. Yeah! It has been delivered to the Africa New Life Ministries property (sitting on a nice level piece of ground next to one of their containers). This property is not very far from the Acres of Hope & we are thankful for that. Now we are in the process of unloading, organizing, sorting, etc. We have the tractor out & ANLM will be using that for some septic system projects they have going on. We also have the ATV out that we will be using to get around the 7 acres of the Acres of Hope. Nate was super excited about that!

To get the tractor & the ATV from the customs lot to the ANLM property, Simon Peter Ngoga drove the tractor and Mike drove the ATV behind him. It was a slow process (slow tractor) and boy did they get lots of attention as they went! (I don’t think there are 4 wheel ATV’s here- so it is a big novelty.) At one point, as they were getting ready to leave the customs lot, it started to rain, but thank God that passed quickly and they were soon on their way.

We have some much needed items in that container and we are thankful to finally be able to get in there & have access to them. Thank you for your prayers for the container throughout this long process!

Thank you to Heritage Church for hosting a house warming party for the Home of Innocence. Through the generous donations given last Sunday we will be able to buy some much needed furnishings for the home. Praise God! Another boy has joined the home also. His name is Emmanuel. He is an orphan that is about 10 years old. Please continue to keep the Home of Innocence in your prayers. For God to surround these children with his love, to pour out his goodness on them, & to bless this home. The children living in the home are: Yvie, Celestin, Emmanuel, Theogene, Yvie (another one), and Karace.

I look forward to sharing more good news with you soon!
God Bless You,
Lisa

We have had a wonderful personal praise in this last week that I would like to share with you. On April 1st we moved into a rental home here in Rwanda, and at this home there is a young man who lives there & works to take care of the yard, house, etc. His name is Domasin and is a good guy. We have our Rwandan children staying with us and through them we were able to invite Domasin to attend church with us on Easter Sunday. We were so excited when, at the end of the service, he went forward to accept Christ! You can see the genuine joy in his face & when we were able to ask him about it later he shared how he felt “fresh” (clean). We know the angels in heaven all rejoice every time someone accepts the forgiveness of Christ, and we join in the celebration with them! I am thankful that God led us to this house because he had a plan and a call on Domasin. Pray with us that the seed that has been planted in his heart will continue to grow strong, that the enemy will not be able to snatch it away, and also that the next people to rent the house (we leave May 1st) will also be Christians and allow him to leave to attend church on Sundays.

On the business side of things here we have not had very good news this week. We thought we were very close to having the tax exemption granted for our container, when we went to a different office to get the approval we were told that they want more paperwork, and the things they are asking for make us feel like we are starting all over again. It has been a long and difficult process. Please pray for God, who is our provider and our champion, to be at work on behalf of Ten Talents International. The devil does not want us to get this work started here & is trying to do everything he can to discourage us. Let’s together pray through this resistance- I know in the end, it is all going to be so worth it.

We stand in Christ’s strength- together with you- and we know we will share in Christ’s victory in all things.

God Bless You,
Lisa

Today my heart has felt the grief of this nation. This day is called The Day of Mourning. April 7th,2009 is the 15th anniversary of the beginning of the genocide here in Rwanda. It was on that day that 100 days of killing began- taking the lives of an estimated 1 million people, and leaving countless others broken- both mentally and physically.

It has been some time since I have been able to update the blog- we have moved to a new place that does not have good internet access. One of the nice things about our new place is our view- we look out over the hillside of the city. Today as I looked out on that view I was reminded of when Jesus looked from the hillside down onto Jerusalem and was grieved for the lost contained within there. As people are grieving for the pain of the past, we continue to pray for this country’s future & for them to find the hope & joy that can only come from Jesus. With Jesus is healing & restoration!

We had some of our newly sponsored children meet at our office last Saturday. They just finished their second term of school & many of them brought their report cards with them. We had good news that one of them – Patrick was 1st in his class (grade) already! We are so proud of him! Many of our other kids are doing well & are very proud of their new ability to be in school. Also, our kids who are in the Faith Home have performed very well. One of our boys, Cyprian, was 1st in his class (6th grade), and Michael was 3rd (in that same class). We are very proud of our kids & how hard they are working to make the most of the opportunities before them.

Our family is doing well- we are enjoying spending extra time with the kids from the Faith Home who are in 5th grade – same as we did last year. We have had them with us for the last week & they are such sweet kids. We always pray for God to bless and prosper them.

Our container is very close to being released- some steps have been made forward, but business has been put on hold for a few days because of mourning. We look forward to giving you a good report on that soon. Jeanmarie, the boy I wrote about in the last post, was brought back to his mom’s house & we left it in their hands to come back & meet with us if they wanted him to be sponsored. We have not heard back from them yet. We pray that God will lead us to those children that he wants us to help right now, and maybe the bit of time we had with Jeanmarie will be a seed that bears fruit at some later time.

Thank you for faithfulness to pray with us- for the ministry & for God to continue to provide so that his work will be accomplished.

God Bless You,
Lisa