It was raining ferociously, causing the women and orphans to move away from the open windows to avoid getting wet. The meeting had opened with singing as survivors of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda danced away their sorrows. A teenaged orphan beat time on a drum to the music. Women wore long flowery dresses and beautiful head scarfs. Babies sat on laps; toddlers wandered freely. After the singing, the Solace Ministries director of counseling, “Mama Lambert,” welcomed newcomers—many of whom walked miles to the ministry’s Kigali headquarters. They had come because someone told them it was a place of comfort.
From April through July 1994, an estimated 800,000 Tutsis were killed in the Rwandan Genocide, and many more were left with physical and emotional scars. Solace Ministries started in 1995, growing from intimate gatherings of widows into 56 communities of survivors around the country, serving over 6,000 families last year. Since it began, Solace Ministries has assisted approximately 20,000 people through counseling and spiritual care, education, employment, and health. Their medical clinic under the same name serves a client population of more than 50,000 patients a year.
Mama Lambert, whose Rwandan name is Mukarubuga Beata, lost four of her children in the genocide, along with her husband and their home, which was destroyed. The founder of Solace Ministries, Jean Gakwandi, lost his entire extended family, but his immediate family miraculously survived while sheltered in the home of his German teacher.
As my wife, Lorna, and I listened in on the meeting for the next four hours, various survivors rose spontaneously and testified—often tearfully—about their experience during the 100 days of the …
When I was feeling utterly frustrated eating the same meals over and over because my husband’s food preferences were so limited, Holy Spirit inspired me one day to make a list. It was simple – using a pen and a legal pad, I listed every single meal that we would both eat. At first, I listed the most common ones… tacos, roast chicken and sides, spaghetti,… and then I remembered a few other meals I had forgotten. In fact, I recalled 20 different meals! Add in a few nights of leftovers, OYO (On Your Own) nights and a weekly date night and to my delight the list supplied us with an entire month of different meals. 
Recently when I was reading Colossians 3:23, I thought about a heart rate monitor. What if I were to wear a heart rate monitor on a daily basis, but instead of it measuring my heart rate during a workout, it measured my “Heart” (with a capital H) – the effort I put forth as a representative of Jesus Christ in every activity?
Is your local assembly experiencing exponential church growth with new faces joining every week?
We are living in the last days, teammates. And as such, we are given signs in our playbook that mark this time of peril (2 Timothy 3). Unfortunately, the local church is not immune to these signs. As a matter of fact, whenever and wherever imperfect humans gather, you will have imperfections, drama, and trouble.
Let’s talk about what I meant when I said: “alone.” I’m talking about physically being by myself when I die. No one knows when or how he or she is going to die. The absence of family being there, or even a husband, was starting to be a concern me. If we’re honest with ourselves, most people desire to be loved by someone beyond the circle of family.
Some will say, “You need to find someone so you won’t end up like so and so who is alone.” But, God never promised us that life will follow the order of marriage, children, grandbabies, then death. He knew us before the foundation of the world and the beginning of our existence before entering the earth. God even knows the number of hairs on our head (Matthew 10:30), so surely He knows what is best.
Right now, I’m sure you’re ready for me to go ahead and make my point. Okay, there have been times in my life that I have tried walking through doors that would not open when and how I thought they should. And for good reason – I was going about it all wrong. I was trying to walk through those doors on my own.
