GFA World Missionaries: Transforming Rwanda with Dedication and Passion

Dedicated and passionate – that’s a good way to describe Fr. Stevin and Sr. Shura. They are a GFA World missionary family who moved from Nepal to Rwanda to help with the expansion of our ministry in Africa. Like many couples around the world, they begin their day together with coffee, worship, Bible study and prayer. Then they join the rest of the staff in the church for a short chapel service. Several times during the week, some of the staff will go out into the surrounding communities doing outreach. On this day, Sister Shura and the Sisters of Compassion, plus a couple of her African brothers were visiting the people in a nearby community. A few times a week, Father Stevin conducts home meetings in one of the believers’ homes. This enables him to develop relationships with their neighbors. The home meetings follow a simple pattern of worship, prayer, Bible study, and then more prayer.

Father Stevins’ official title is Community Transformation Project in Charge. He’s responsible for the installation and maintenance of the Jesus Wells in Rwanda. These wells are meeting a very real need for clean, healthy water for the people in the communities where we’ve installed them. Another area he’s responsible for is overseeing our child sponsorship program. We currently have three centers operating in Rwanda and there are plans for three more to start up very soon. He visits each of the centers on a regular basis. Once a month he’ll conduct a meeting for the parents of the children to teach, encourage, and pray for them. He does this for each of the centers and he covers topics such as health and hygiene practices, family life and godly parenting. And just like all of our national missionaries, Father Stevin takes advantage of every opportunity to share the love of God with the people that he encounters.

Sister Shura oversees the women’s ministry in our church. The women meet every week and start with a very energetic time of singing and praising the Lord. She teaches on various topics that focus on the needs that women have to encourage them in their spiritual growth to become godly women, wives and mothers. Once a week, Sister Sura will go grocery shopping at a very large market with several other staff. It’s a huge market with a wide variety of products sold there. Father Stevin is very involved in helping lead the children during Sunday school. The kids arrive very early every Sunday morning eagerly awaiting for the doors to open. They start with singing Bible action songs and then he’ll have them all break up into their different classes for the lessons. He teaches a small group of the older students. He is also very involved in assisting our bishop during the Sunday worship service, along with a couple of our other missionaries. Sometimes he’ll lead the worship singing, other times he’s assisting the bishop performing the liturgy and sacraments, such as the Eucharist.

One Sunday evening, he invited all the Sunday school kids and their friends to watch a movie about the life of Jesus. Hundreds of kids packed the church to see the the movie, it was very moving watching these children as they responded to all the events depicting the life of Christ. At the end of each day, Father Stevin and his family have a time of devotion together in their home. This is a great way for them to end their day in worship, in prayer, and praise to our Father together as a family. Their dedication and passion for sharing the love of God in their community has greatly contributed to the growth of their local church. Over 300 new believers have given their lives to the Lord in just over a year. This is the story of just one of our missionary families who are pioneering our work in Rwanda. You can help missionaries like them through sponsoring one or more of our national missionaries today.