Friends of Rwanda

Website: www.mustardseedproject.org

Ministry Overview:

The Sonrise School-A Ministry of the Mustard Seed Project
In 1994, after the country of Rwanda was torn by the genocide, there was nothing left to sustain its populace and certainly no infrastructure to serve the approximately 400,000 children left as orphans. In 1997, John Rucyahana was elected bishop of Shyira Diocese and returned home to these devastating conditions. As he observed the ruin around him, he envisioned a school that would demonstrate to the country how love and education could redeem the children of the genocide and give them the hope and tools necessary to become the future leaders of the country.

After raising $450,000 in private donations, The Sonrise Primary School opened its doors to 200 students in September of 2001. The school’s mission was to provide training in academic excellence, servant leadership, the teachings of Jesus and a loving home for these young people. The majority of the students are either genocide or AIDS orphans. It wasn’t long before Jesus’ redeeming work and Bishop John’s hope was brought to fruition. In 2006, Sonrise School was cited in the Kigali New Times as the top primary school in Rwanda. After only four years of operation their test scores ranked them number one!

Bishop John’s vision did not stop there. As soon as 2002 he realized that the success of the primary school would create the need for a secondary school or the students would have no place to go except back to the streets. Fundraising for the high school began in 2002 and enough money was raised to begin construction on the facility in 2003. The first Sonrise class of graduating P-6 (primary sixth grade) students entered the first class of S-1 (secondary one) in January of 2005. The plan is to add a class a year until all secondary classes are available. The school’s class structure is primary grades one thru six and secondary grades one thru six, hence P-1 or S-2.  Most of the children at Sonrise have lost one or both parents and need the close, caring attention of a loving staff member in addition to life’s most basic necessities – shelter, clothing, nutritious meals, and health care.

What is TFC’s connection to the Sonrise School?

Our first contact with Sonrise came through Martha Vetter, a former staff member of The Falls Church. She had accepted Bishop John’s invitation to move to Rwanda to work at the school and was in contact with members of the congregation, notably Virginia Watson. Virginia brought the plight of the orphans of Rwanda to the attention of the Women’s Ministry and began taking up a collection to support the school. So in 2004, when Lindsay Jordan started to plan a global engagement trip to Rwanda and the school she not only encouraged Kairos to go but offered the invitation to the women’s ministry as well. That was the beginning of our ongoing relationship with The Mustard Seed Project, Sonrise and Bishop John that continues today. Each year since the initial trip we have sent one or two teams that visit not only Sonrise but several other ministries with which the bishop is involved such as Inyakurama, Prison Fellowship Rwanda with Pastor Deo and Shyira Hospital where Drs. Caleb and Louise King serve. If you are interested in being part of one of these teams please contact The Falls Church Outreach office and visit with Shireen David.

A Deeper Involvement for The Falls Church
After returning from the first trip, Bob Dwyer Executive Director of The Mustard Seed Project contacted several of us and invited those of us with a heart for Sonrise and Rwanda to become more involved with their efforts in the country. After the second team went in 2005 there was enough interest for us to invite Bob and Joyce Wingett, Bishop John’s state side representative, to come to Virginia to share with us how they envisioned our involvement. That was also the year that the high school started up and they needed help with recruiting and tracking sponsors for the students. A small initial group of about ten people agreed to take on the task and to kick off our efforts we planned a dinner for Bishop John that was held at The Falls Church in the fall of that year. Needless to say, for most of us this was a big leap of faith since we had never been involved in raising this kind of money. Every step was covered in prayer and God proved to be faithful and blessed our efforts. We raised approximately $20,000 and many people who attended the dinner were moved to sponsor a student and continue to do so today. As we continue to send teams to Rwanda the involvement of our congregation grows.

Events:
ONE LIFE RWANDA GALA
Coming up on October 17th, 2009 we are planning a gala to be held at the Washington Post to benefit Sonrise School. Please go to our website at www.oneliferwanda.com to learn more about our plans or volunteer to help our efforts. We are sure you will be blessed. Lucy McGraw and Stacey Halota are co-chair persons for this event. We hope to see you there! For more information contact sjhalota at mindspring dot com.

Donation Information:

In addition to raising funds to build the schools, The Mustard Seed Project began a sponsorship program for the primary students at Sonrise. The money was needed to educate, house, feed, clothe and provide medical care for each of the students. In order to keep the costs low for individual sponsors they soon found that it would become necessary to have more than one sponsor per child. Unlike other sponsorship programs that only provide support for one aspect of a child’s life, the Sonrise sponsorship program supplies for all of the children’s basic living needs in addition to an education. As the high school became operational, a higher commitment level of sponsorship program became necessary, as well, to provide for these growing teens.

You can sponsor a child at Sonrise High School for as little as $40 per month for (primary school for $25 per month) or become an ambassador who helps get sponsors for children. If you would like to know more about sponsorship or are interested in becoming a sponsor please see the Mustard Seed Project web site, call 724-266-6688, or email mspsonrise1 at verizon dot net. There is also an option to donate online.

Have questions about Sonrise? sonriseinrwanda at aol dot com