Youth Conference in Kamembe

On Wednesday, July 23, Philip and I got on a bus with six other youth from our area to attend a youth conference in the Eastern Province of Rwanda. Each day a different leader spoke. The afternoon we arrived Nicodem, the pastor of the local church, spoke about the history of the Friends Church. He started with the early church and gave a brief overview of general church history also. It was a lot to cover, but he did it in less than 3 hours. Here's a picture of Philip next to some of Nicodems notes for the lesson.

On Thursday, Chrisostom spoke about trauma and how it impacts people emotionally, spiritually and physically. Then we broke out into small groups to discuss how trauma affects the church and what the church should be doing to help it's members heal from trauma. Here's a picture of Nicodem (on the left) and Chrisostom (on the right).

In the afternoon groups of four or five people went out to invite people in the neighborhood to the youth rally on Saturday and Sunday, and some groups who had people trained in EE (Evangelism Explosion) went to Evangelize in various homes. Philip went with one of the EE groups and they were able to share the gospel with three women, two of whom were Muslims. All three accepted Christ and committed to coming to the rally on Saturday and Sunday.

On Friday we heard from the leader of the Friends Peace House in Kigali. He spoke about the Quaker testimony of peace and how that is lived out in the church here in Rwanda. He also had a question and answer time for the youth, both about peace issues and the church in general.

Philip and I had hoped to stay until Saturday; however, because of a community work day Saturday morning no buses would be traveling. This meant that we had to leave Friday night in order to get to Kumbya where a missionary conference would begin Saturday.