Come Follow Me in Rwanda!

Hello and welcome to my blog! I am now preparing to travel to Kigali, Rwanda for a 6 - 12 month period to serve as Prison Fellowship International's 2010 - 2011 Kolbe Fellow. PFI is the world's largest criminal justice ministry, dedicated to serving prisoners, ex-prisoners, their families, and victims of crime all over the globe. PFI has worldwide affiliate offices in 118 countries.

In this post, I'll tell you about what I plan to do and about what you can do to participate in my journey.

With a population of about 9.7 million people and the size of Maryland, Rwanda is the most densely-populated country in Africa. During the genocide that occurred there in 1994, nearly 1 million people (some scholars debate even more) were brutally killed over the course of just 100 days. Every single individual living in Rwanda today was in some way affected by the atrocities of the genocide. The Rwandan people are now faced with the enormous - and seemingly impossible - task of rebuilding their country and continuing to live together peacefully, often perpetrators and victims in the same neighborhoods.

While serving with PF Rwanda, I will be documenting the stories of ex-prisoners, repentant perpetrators of the 1994 genocide, and victims of war crimes; researching the political, economic, and social turmoil surrounding the genocide; and helping to develop PF Rwanda’s programs in Kigali and in the surrounding villages.

These programs include:

>The Umuvumu Tree Project, an initiative to encourage both victims and offenders to consider responsibility, forgiveness, amends, reparation, and community in a post-genocidal land and era where sentiments still run high.

>Literacy, educational, skills and vocational training for victims of crime, prisoners, and families affected by crime.

>Social business initiatives (particularly in agriculture and the arts) to help improve productivity and self-sufficiency. These initiatives largely take place in the Women's Business Cooperative and the Reconciliation Villages in the rural outskirts of Kigali. The Women's Cooperative houses 35 women who were infected with HIV/AIDS as victims of rape during the genocide. PF Rwanda strives to train these women to produce and sell artistic items, to build community, and to lead productive lives. The Reconciliation Villages, clusters of homes built with the help of PFR, have served to restore broken communities and bring together Rwandans who were displaced as a result of the genocide.

>The Angel Tree Program, a ministry to children living on the streets of Kigali. PFR offers food, shelter, literacy and life skills programs weekly to children whose parents are incarcerated.
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My goals:

>To better understand what it means to be a woman of God.

>To take the plunge and become totally immersed in Rwanda's past and present.

>To live out the mission of Prison Fellowship International.

>To learn how best to communicate and connect with the Rwandan people, and how best I (and we) can serve them.

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What you can do:

>Pray for me and for the people of Rwanda.

>Follow my blog: http://graceinrwanda.blogspot.com.

>Suggest people to see, organizations to connect with, and places to visit both in Rwanda and beyond (I will likely travel to other parts of Africa). Any connections or insights would be helpful to me!

>Spread the word about the mission of PFI and about my journey to others.

>Help me raise the funds I need to make this journey possible. I would be humbled and blessed to receive your support. Any amount - $5, $20, $100, $200 - will be valuable to me. The more support I receive, the more time I can spend serving in Rwanda, and the more deeply I can dive into projects. You can donate:

(1) online through the PFI website, specifying "Kolbe Fellowship - Grace Lilienthal" in the Comments Box at the bottom of the page, or

(2) via mail, with cash or check. Checks can be made payable to Prison Fellowship International with "Kolbe Fellowship" written in the memo, and sent to:

Prison Fellowship International
PO Box 17434
Washington, DC 20041 USA

or to my home address (please message me if you would like this). All donations are tax-deductible.

(3) via PayPal.
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I look forward to keeping you updated, and I would love to hear from you. Stay tuned for happenings in Rwanda!


Seeking after Him,

Grace