The HIV&AIDS Initiative, through Saddleback Church's unique missions model, The PEACE Plan, working alongside the Rwandan government, is working to transform healthcare for Rwandan communities by raising up and training volunteer healthcare workers based in churches. The history of the PEACE Plan in Rwanda is an amazing testament to the transformational work God can do through local churches:
In 2003, the sixth and current President of Rwanda, Paul
Kagame read a copy of the book, The Purpose Driven Life. Barely nine years had passed
since the horrendous Rwandan genocide that began on April 7,1994. Over the
course of 100 days, it took the lives of one million Rwandans and left one
million children orphaned before ending three months later. After reading the
book, Kagame had a vision to make Rwanda the first Purpose Driven nation.
At the same time, while Pastor Rick Warren was speaking in
South Africa in 2003, the PEACE Plan was born—Planting Churches that Promote
Reconciliation, Equip Servant Leaders, Assist the Poor, Care For the Sick, and
Educate the Next Generation.
The vision was to mobilize local churches and ordinary
people, empowered by God, to make a difference wherever they are. Together,
they would fight the five Global Giants of spiritual emptiness, self-serving
leadership, poverty, disease, and illiteracy.
A year after reading The Purpose Driven Life, President
Kagame invited Pastor Rick to implement his newly-announced PEACE Plan in
Rwanda. It quickly became a reality to form a partnership and have Rwanda serve
as a model to the world.
As Pastor Rick says, “It would be just like God to take a
small nation like Rwanda, on which the world turned its back in its greatest
need, and use it for God and for good.”
To implement this plan, Pastor Rick began commissioning
Saddleback members to go to Rwanda in small groups. Through the PEACE Plan in
Rwanda, the church began working together with the public, private, and faith
sectors of the nation, to help lower the poverty rate, empty orphanages,
provide health care, train pastors, and offer education. To date, over 2,000
Saddleback members have gone on mission to facilitate this national strategy to
mobilize local churches.
“I could take you to 10 million villages around the world
where the only thing there is the church,” Pastor Rick says. “The church is the
biggest organization on the planet and has the most potential to do good if
mobilized.”
Today, over 4,000 Rwandan churches have partnered with the
PEACE Plan and have mobilized thousands of volunteers to serve and invest in
their communities. Many have completed a three-year intensive training and are
offering everything from micro-savings clubs to training programs for farmers.
According to Kay Warren, co-founder of Saddleback Church, ”When
we first visited Rwanda, we had no idea what we were doing or what we had to
give. But we brought what we knew, which was the love of Christ.”
Saddleback leadership saw that the magnitude of churches in
Rwanda were located where healthcare facilities were lacking. They envisioned a
model of training church members to provide medical care. Today, over 9,000
trained health volunteers serve families in villages that would have otherwise
never received medical treatment.
Today, Rwanda is one of the cleanest countries in the world,
thanks to decrees from President Paul Kagame. Each month in the capital city of
Kigali, citizens—including the president and his cabinet—participate in picking
up litter on a public clean-up day. Additionally, PEACE has helped reduce the
poverty rate in Rwanda by 11 percent, and has worked toward emptying orphanages
so that every child has a home.
Over the past 20 years, Rwanda has experienced exponential
growth and is ranked among the fastest developing countries in the world.
Pastor Rick credits God for blessing Rwanda because they have chosen to
forgive, are willing to work together, have trusted the Lord, and have
persevered.
“The mission of Rwanda was not to create a dependency on
others,” says Pastor Rick, “which is why the PEACE Plan has thrived so well
there. The PEACE Plan is built on the Great Commandment that says, ‘Go and
teach them’. People need trade, not aid. They don’t need a hand out, they need
a hand up.”
In 2014, during a church service honoring the victims of the
Rwandan genocide, Saddleback members celebrated the partnership and efforts of
the PEACE Plan in Rwanda. Reflecting on those 10 years, President Kagame shared
about Rwanda’s efforts to move on from the past and educate a new generation to
impact the future.
“Our relationship with Saddleback has contributed to the
renewal of our country,” President Kagame said. “We continue to work together
with friends to ensure our future no longer holds fear, but opportunity.”
If you would like to go on an HIV/Healthcare PEACE trip to
work alongside local churches in Rwanda, email us at
HIV@saddleback.com or call 949-609-8555.