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A Healing Hope

A prayer letter from the Musanze Team serving in Rwanda, Central Africa.

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Coming Together!

As a team literally spread all over the world we have enjoyed several opportunities to connect with each other these past few months as the Reeves and Millers were able to meet with the Robinsons in Tyler, Texas. Marty even got to spend a weekend with them this past spring.

We are also excited because this month all of the men on our team we will able to get together for the first time! The Robinsons are moving to Rwanda next week and Dave and Matt are coming for CPM Level II. While they are here, we are planning to spend a weekend in Musanze together in prayer.

We praise and thank the Lord for these opportunities to be together! Please continue to pray for us as families and as a team, that the Lord would use us in a powerful way to bless multitudes of Rwandans with life in Jesus!

All AHH issues are archived on our web site as a testimony to the Lord's Mighty Hand moving to bless Rwanda. Visit us @ our web site (rwandaharvest.com) to learn more...

CPM Workshop

This August Missions Resource Network along with ATN (Africa Transformation Network) will host a Church Planting Movements Workshop in Kigali, Rwanda. The past two months have been busy getting ready to host church planters from numerous countries for this workshop.

Our heart's desire is that God would make this a "game-changing" event for all who attend. May the Lord anoint this workshop with the power of His Spirit to encourage and inspire a multitude of church planters to usher in His Kingdom in Africa! Join us in prayer as we lift this vision before the Father.

Visit the CPM-Rwanda website for more information.

Robinson Family

There has just been way too many things happen to our family over the last 4 months since our last team newsletter that I just don't have the room to write them all down.  I can say without doubt that God has done amazing things in our lives and he has brought us so much joy this summer.

We have seen him do marvelous things.  I can say that Satan has attacked us in countless ways from Kristin being stranded alone on the Houston Beltway 8 (toll road) in a van with a blown engine to U-Haul losing the trailer we rented to haul the van back to Tyler.  I even left my computer bag containing a computer and an IPOD in an airport in Cleveland, OH.  The agent at Continental Airlines even said, “I can’t believe they found it!

Each one of these could have devastated me but I can honestly say that God completely resolved each one of these in his own amazing way and has left us more in awe of him and more mature, faithful servants as a result.

As I was thinking about a photo to add to our newsletter I just had so many to choose from but I wanted to sum up our summer in one picture.  In all my calculus classes in college the symbol Σ (sigma) means the sum of all things between two designated points and so that's what I wanted.  This picture represents the sum of all of our efforts and prayers over the last three months.  This is the final moments of our container packing.  It took all four guys to hold the stuff in while another tightened the straps and shut the door.  When those doors shut we were done.  We have nowhere to go now but Africa!

Please pray for our family as we say our good-byes and prepare our family for our new life in Africa.

Crowson Family

Bonjour from Rwanda! Our family is now settled into life in Rwanda and we continue to work hard to learn Kinyarwanda. This is by far the greatest challenge that we are facing right now as it's the hardest language we have ever set out to learn! Day by day though we make steady progress and hold on to the hope that we WILL be fluent in Kinyarwanda!

Last month we were greatly blessed to host some of our former teammates from Benin, West Africa (pictured above with our family). Greg and Faith Bailey came to Rwanda (on their way to Benin:) ) to spend a week seeing Rwanda and encouraging us. We had a great time and even got to see the Golden Monkeys! It was great to be with them. Greg was Christine's youth minister in high school! Our paths crossed again in 1993 in Kenya where we met on our Africa Internships and then we worked together in Benin. We praise God for our friendship with the Baileys!

Right now we are enjoying a visit from my parents, Marvin and Judith Crowson and looking forward to hosting Latay from Togo, David Reeves and Matt Miller when they come to attend the CPM conference this month. It's so fun to have Kingdom Vision oriented parents! My parents are in their 70's but are still going strong seeking to advance God's Kingdom on earth. I'm really looking forward to participating in the Church Planting Workshop with my dad in a few weeks. It's a honor to work by his side as his son and brother in Jesus!

We continue to hear good reports from our brothers and sisters in Togo. In fact, a new church has already begun since our departure and I have received several calls from leaders greeting us and telling us that they are doing well. One young man recently sent me an email saying that his grandmother was baptized in Jesus. I praise God for the continued growth in the Kingdom this year after our departure. This is a true sign of the Watchi's sincere faith in Jesus and desire to see His Kingdom grow!

The Togo agricultural ministry also continues to thrive. I just received a report from Latay saying that they harvested 10 tons of pineapples this year and quadrupled the size of the Watchi Christian's pineapple farms! They also were able to dig a new well in the village of Tofahoue. We praise God for continuing to bless our Watchi friends in their faith and walk with Jesus!

Koonce Family

The 4 T's had a good semester at K.I.C.S.  Louise enjoyed many of the aspects of teaching art there, especially because it reignited a passion within her to use her creative gifts.

A good outlet for those gifts continues to be the ATN ladies sewing project.  They continue learning machine quilting and now have a potential client for some cloth menu covers at a new restaurant in town named Shokola.

Marty is now working officially for ATN as the science coordinator.  We are still trying to figure out how to balance the work that we are required by the government to do and the spiritual work that God has given us the opportunity to do.  The great thing is that it does require us to investigate how to bless the people of Rwanda spiritually as well as physically.

These past two weeks we have been blessed to have the Mills family here (Marty's sister, husband, and nephews).  As part of the way we seek to bless the Rwandans, they came here to do a 'Let's Start Talking' program where they did English readings from the Bible to build relationships, hone English, and present the gospel to over twenty local residents.  We hope to be able to do this again in future months as the hunger to speak English is great here in Rwanda.

In light of his new role as 'science coordinator' for ATN, Marty has begun making rocket stoves again, this time from local bricks.  This could be yet another way God blesses us to both meet the requirements of the government to bless Rwanda as well as allowing us to build relationships of those we could one day be mentoring in church planting.

After Marty returned from a short trip to visit family in the states, we prepared to host a few interns from Harding that had spent several weeks in Uganda.  Murphy and Marty were able to lead them along with Mark Berryman on a survey trip to Musanze, Rwanda, where we are planning to settle one day soon.  Language lessons and God's gifts to speak other languages really paid off as we were able to interview many and visit various groups already there in Musanze.  The interns were excited to take in some of the beauty of the area with a golden monkey tour after a short hike onto the dormant volcanos there.

After the interns left, the Koonces were able to celebrate their eighteenth anniversary and then the next day Marty and some other missionaries headed off to climb Mt. Karisimbi, the highest point in Rwanda at 14,787 feet.  Blessedly, everyone on the trip made it to the top (and back down).

We are so thankful to all of you for sustaining us with your prayers and other support.

God bless you all, The Koonces

Miller Family

Hello from the Millers!  We are two months and 10,000 miles into our furlough!  We have driven from Alabama to Ohio to Indiana to Colorado to California to Montana to Minnesota to Arkansas and find ourselves now in Tyler, Texas!  We have greatly enjoyed reconnecting with family, friends, and churches and sharing with them the great things that God is doing in Togo and what he is preparing in Rwanda.  We have especially enjoyed meeting our teammates the Robinsons who will be moving to Rwanda in just a couple of weeks.  Our children have quickly connected, and are excited that they will be spending their lives together in Rwanda in just a couple of years.

In August, Matt will be traveling to Kigali for the Church Planting Movements conference, and this will allow our team to have our first face-to-face meeting with every family represented.  We are humbled and excited by the group that God has brought together and allowed us to become a part of.  We are anticipating our return to Togo at the beginning of September, and are planning to continue training leaders among the Kabiye and mentoring our new teammates until at least May of 2011.  We then are planning to spend the rest of 2011 re-bonding with supporting churches in the States before our move Rwanda in January 2012 (all of these plans are being continually submitted to God in prayer and are flexible according to his leading).  We appreciate so much all of your prayers for the Kabiye people of Togo and the people of Rwanda!   Grace and Peace,   The Millers

You can keep up with the details of our work among the Kabiye through our family website www.togoadventures.net or by signing up for our Kabyie Team News e-newsletter by visiting http://harvestfields.net/enews.php.

Reeves Family

We are continuing to enjoy our furlough in the states, seeing family, friends, and making new friends.  Our children are especially enjoying time with their cousins and taking swimming lessons 4 mornings a week.  We will leave for Togo on September 7th and we are looking forward to getting back!  

We want to let you know about a new development that has taken place as we continue to make plans for our transition to Rwanda around the end of 2011.  After much prayer on our part and the part of our sponsoring congregation we have felt God leading us to be sponsored by a different overseeing congregation as we begin our new work in Rwanda.

The Richland Church of Christ in Richland, WA has overseen our family and work in Togo for the past 10 years and we are so thankful and grateful for our relationship with them and the incredible way they have supported us.  None of us want this relationship to end and they will continue to support us substantially in the years to come, both through prayer and financial help.

It is by God’s grace and hand that we were all able to see His leading for us in being sent to Rwanda by a different overseeing congregation.  We don’t have any idea yet which congregation God will raise up to send us.  We ask you to be in prayer with us as we wait in faith for the Lord to bring us together with another different overseeing congregation as we dmove to Rwanda.

David is looking forward to being in Rwanda for about 10 days near the end of August for a special CPM meeting with many of our other teammates.  Becky is disappointed that she can’t attend also, but is content to stay with the children in the states and hear from David all he learned when he returns.

Thank you for your prayers for our family and team and Christians in both Togo and Rwanda who are dear to our hearts.  May God bless you.

The Reeves Family

Quick Links

Ministry Update

Crowsons

Koonces

Millers

Reeves

Robinsons

Team Prayer Needs

Revival

Continue to pray for a massive and far reaching revival that would heal this land and bring millions into the Kingdom!

Team Transitions

The Robinsons are scheduled to arrive in Rwanda Friday, August 14th! Pray for this monumental move in their lives!

Language Study

Please continue to ask the Lord to bless our language studies so that we can be fluent in the heart language of all Rwandans!

Container

Thank you for praying for the release of our container. We are happy to report that our household goods were released to us tax-free! The Koonces and Crowsons are now very settled and feel at home in Rwanda. Thank you for asking God to bless our transition.