Kwase-Afrika

Kwase-Afrika is the name of chapel on Friday mornings. The purpose of Kwase-Afrika Chapel is to teach us about the people of Africa and to hear their stories and listen to guest speakers who live here. Last week it was a mountaineer who was the first South African to climb Mount Everest and he has climbed the highest peak in every continent since then. His story was amazing and it made me feel so cold just thinking about frost bite and high altitude sickness. Today it was a refugee from the genocide in Rwanda.

Clementine was born in Rwanda to a family of 23 children! Her father had three wives and the whole family would gather for a party once a year so she could meet her brothers and sisters. When the conflict broke out in Rwanda, her whole family was killed. She escaped by going to Congo, the nearest country, where she was faced with nothing. The place were the refugees were placed literally had nothing. It was an open field with no toilets, no water, and no houses. They struggled to survive, but she trusted God in everything. A couple years late she married a Christian man who preached God's word, but the rebels in Congo targeted preachers and put her husband on their list of people to kill. Her husband was forced to run away and she was left with a 3 year old daughter and pregnant with a son. The plan was for her to follow after her husband and find him in a different country, but her journey was long.

She traveled a distance that's approximately as far as the width of the United States while pregnant and with the young girl. She went to 5 different countries and searched every refugee list and church she could find. On the way, many people were hospitable to her and took care of her kids. Finally, she reached South Africa and found her husband in Durban. Her message to us was that God makes something out of nothing, and you can lose everything in the world, but if you have God, then you have all you need.