🌍🇷🇼 Stories from the Field: Rwanda — When They Started Coming Forward

🌍🇷🇼 Stories from the Field: Rwanda — When They Started Coming Forward

It was 2009, and I was serving in Rwanda when I was assigned to preach at a small church on Sunday morning. We had already spent days walking through communities and sharing the Gospel, but there was something about this little church that I have never forgotten.

The building was simple—mud walls, dirt floors, and a roof that wasn’t even completely finished. When we arrived, the pastors welcomed us and seated our team near the front. As I looked around, I noticed the musicians and their drums, and something in me just wanted to worship with them.

There was only one problem: I didn’t speak their language.

So I walked over, pointed at the bass drum, and somehow we figured each other out. One of the men showed me the rhythm, and before long I was keeping the beat alongside my Rwandan brothers as we worshiped the Lord together.

Different countries. Different languages. Different cultures.

One Savior.

Eventually it was time for me to preach. I stood before that congregation with my translator beside me and began sharing the Word of God. We had a team prepared to receive anyone who responded to the Gospel, but I wasn’t very far into the message when something happened that I hadn’t expected.

People began coming forward.

They wanted Jesus.

There wasn’t enough room inside the little church for everything that was happening, so I finally told our receiving team to move outside the doorway. As I continued preaching, people continued coming. Some wanted to receive Christ. Others asked us to lay hands on them and pray for healing. For nearly an hour, the Word was proclaimed while ministry was happening inside and outside that little mud-walled church.

I can still remember sensing the presence of the Holy Spirit in that place.

Rwanda’s history carries the terrible scars of genocide and unimaginable loss, but that morning I wasn’t watching hatred have the final word. I was watching redemption. I was watching people respond to Jesus Christ, brothers and sisters worship together, pastors labor faithfully for their people, and the Gospel continue doing what it has always done—calling people out of darkness and into His marvelous light.

The photograph below was taken with two of the pastors after the service. Looking at it all these years later reminds me that some of the most powerful moments of ministry I have experienced didn’t happen beneath bright lights or inside impressive buildings.

They happened on dirt floors, behind mud walls, under an unfinished roof, where people were hungry for Jesus.

And for a little while that Sunday morning, God allowed me to keep the beat with my Rwandan brothers, proclaim His Word, and watch people come to Christ.

That is a Sunday I will never forget.

“For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him.”
— Romans 10:12 NKJV

Have you ever worshiped with believers from another culture or country? What did God teach you through that experience? I would love to hear your story in the comments. 🌍🙏