Spring Newsletter from Rwanda
Mon, March 29, 2010 -
Martin & Margit Mittelstaedt Rwanda
We are so blessed to know that we are in the right place at the right time. Even though it feels like an endless treadmill, we can see definite forward progress to what God has called us to do.
Mission Number One ...
Imagine yourself starting a new job and from the first day trying to figure out the best way to quit. That's exactly what we have been doing from day one. We have been planning an exit strategy to allow ministry in music and multimedia to continue after we have finished our three year mandate. In a way, it seems strange to always have this playing in the back of our mind, but this is what God has called us to.
One of our first steps is to identify individuals who express an interest and are gifted in a particular area. During our Sunday services in February our theme was "It's Time To Move," a preaching series kicked off by a passionate sermon by Pastor Elmer Komant. If anyone left the auditorium that morning without knowing what our church's mission was, they must have been sleeping (not sure if that is possible with Elmer's preaching).
This series kicked off a month long ministry fair, where people could sign up to participate in various ministries around the church. The music and multimedia booth had four categories of involvement; singing, instruments, sound and video. By the end of the four weeks, we had over 90 people sign up for training in these areas. This was an overwhelming response, needless to say.
How does one train 90 people for ministry all at once? We are still working out the details, but have already had several orientation and training sessions with the video and sound teams. Singers have joined our small worship team which has doubled to about 25 since Christmas. We plan to start teaching how to play instruments in a few months, once we have a good head start on our video and sound training {insert deep breath here}.
We are praying for God's wisdom here - both to help us strategize and also to help us to pace ourselves and not feel like everything has to happen at once.
Visitors from Kelowna ...
Hosting missions teams can often be a two way street. On the one hand, the encouragement and skills they bring benefit the ministry, while on the other hand, organizing a good balance of work and exposure to Rwandan culture adds to the already busy pace of life.
As I write, we are in the middle of a visit from a three man team from Kelowna; Pastor Chad Johnson, Jeremy Simonson and Brett Forsberg. I am so pleased to have them here. Seeing the work they have accomplished in the past week on our sound system and the quality training they have provided our volunteers has far outweighed the challenge of shuffling of our schedules.
We're also thankful for the little things and the big things the packed in their suitcases. From candies and beef jerky for our 'kids' to pharmaceuticals for our clinic and video cameras for our church. Thank you to all those who helped assemble and even pay for some of these items. Mom, thanks for the Ham!
On top of all that, it is great to be with friends! We are so blessed to hang out with familiar faces. With visitors, one tends be forced to see things that we normally don't have time for. A great example was spending a day in one of our national parks looking at the wildlife. Akagera National Park is only an hour and a half from our home, but it took a team from Canada to help us enjoy it!
Desperate times call for desperate measures ...
Thanks to the IOC (International Olympic Committee),watching any Olympic event outside of North America and Europe took a considerable amount of creativity. Even streaming video from CTV or NBC was all but blocked due to strict regulations. Even with a satellite dish (which we don't have), the Winter Olympics seemed like something that was only to be read about on the internet. We only managed to download a few events a few days after they happened ... that is except for one!
It was a friend of ours, Mark Thiessen (program director for Wellspring Academy) who came up with a brilliant idea to watch the hockey games live. His brother in Williams Lake, BC would put his laptop on the coffee table in his living room and connect via Skype video. It was in this clever way, we were able to watch the final hockey game of the Olympics. Go Canada!
Our living room was filled with about 20 rambunctious Canadian fans in the middle of the night ... what a great time! Some of the goals were scored between short breaks in communication, so we all sort of looked at each other and wondered what just happened.
On the goal scored by USA in the final seconds, I didn't know whether I was more disappointed in the fact that they tied the game or the fact that I had to stay awake for another period of hockey.
Mark sent a letter to the editor of Hockey News and you can see the link by going to www.thehockeynews.com and typing ‘kigali‘ in the search engine. It will be published in the next issue of Hockey News magazine. Great memories!!
Be careful what you pray for ...
One of the first things that we made a matter of prayer from the day we left Canada was the safe and timely arrival of our container. Well, God answered both of our prayers well in advance of what we had anticipated. Two months, less a day, we were breaking the seal and peering into what seemed like an untouched time capsule. Nothing had shifted or been broken (except for one jar of apricot jam my mom sent along - sorry mom, I guess the newspaper wrap was not enough).
With the container arriving so early - in 2009, all the duties and shipping costs that were budgeted for in 2010 had to be paid in that year. Ultimately that and prepaying our lease for our new home put us in deficit to the tune of about $25,000. Needless to say, it has been a not so great way to start our first full year of our missions assignment.
Although we have budgeted for almost all of this in our current year, it is quite discomforting for us to look at our account in this position. We are hoping that our supporters (and churches) can perhaps help us by advancing the monthly support earlier, rather than spread throughout the year.
Second, as we are unable to physically be in Canada to raise support (although Margit returns home for a short stint in June), please help us connect with others who would wish to join our team to get our monthly support to 100% of our budget. We are still looking for just over 100 people who will commit to ten dollars a month.
If you can help us erase this deficit, please call Charlene Mitchell at PAOC at 905-542-7400 during office hours eastern time or go to paoc.org/donate/MartinMittelstaedt.
Thank you all for sticking with us in your prayers and financial support. It's quite challenging to be so busy and yet try to keep friends and family informed about our lives. The three month gap in our email newsletter is proof of that. Despite that, so many of you send us a quick note and let us know you are still thinking and praying for us. God bless you all.
Blessings,
Marty, Margit, Katelyn, Sydney and Allyson Mittelstaedt
Mission Rwanda - askmmrwanda.com