trinity's rwanda mission

2012

Trinity Rwanda Mission Trip - July 2012

The next Rwanda Mission trip will be in July 2012 with a focus on building and painting houses, training pastors, presenting the cows for which we raise money during the Running for Rwanda campaign to vulnerable families, and visiting sponsored children. There are different options of activities and travel dates from which to choose including an optional, personal excursion (not part of the mission trip) to climb Mt. Kenya following the mission work in Rwanda. The deadline to sign up is March 18th. To find out more details, email Rwanda_Missions@TrinityNY.org.

Run for "Cows & Colors" with Team Trinity!

Team Trinity is partnering with Team World Vision for our third annual Running for Rwanda campaign. We will be running/walking the 13.1 NY Half Marathon in Queens on Saturday, March 24th while raising support for "Cows & Colors" for our Rwandan villages. Invite family, friends, and co-workers and join the fun! Email Rwanda_Missions@TrinityNY.org if you're interested or have any questions.

2011

Update coming soon.    

2010

In 2010, Trinity’s Rwanda Mission expanded to include Global ALPHA Trainings (GATs). The ALPHA course is a practical introduction to the basics of Christianity centered around a talk and a small group discussion. Trinity has been hosting the ALPHA course for years, so it seemed a natural step to add training Rwanda leaders on how to run the course at their churches to our Mission. Our September 2010 trip was focused on the construction of a new home in Nyamagabe and hosting GATs in Kigali and Butare. Our team was split into two groups: one team was focused on building a house, while the other team was focused on the ALPHA trainings. Members of the village chose a family to receive the new home we helped construct: Beatrice, a grandmother who is crippled from disease, and her grandson Ernest. Working with locals on the new home for Beatrice and Ernest was a meaningful and powerful experience for the build team. The ALPHA team hosted a two-day GAT at Africa New Life's Dream Center in the capital of Rwanda, Kigali, and another two-day GAT at a church in the city of Butare. All together the team trained approximately 125 pastors and church leaders on how to run the ALPHA program at their churches. During the trip, we were also able to visit with our sponsored children, which was a highlight for many team members who have been sponsoring their children, through World Vision, for years.

2009

Trinity had the opportunity to make the goal of a medically focused trip a reality. During our February trip, seventeen team members spent two weeks in Rwanda focusing efforts on meeting basic medical needs and educating Rwandans on healthcare issues while being a physical representation of the Love of Christ.   

Trinity Baptist Church’s Rwanda mission program is about building relationships, houses, trust, partnerships, and love.  It is about playing games, singing, praying, providing children’s ministries, learning, teaching, and addressing medical needs, all within the context of the house building sites.  When we come to build houses with the Rwandese, everyone is transformed, saints step forward, and we see true honesty and love abound. At its essence, it is all LOVING as Jesus Loved, and RECEIVING love as Jesus loved.

2008

This year we sent a building team in February and in May our Pastor will return to take part in leading a pastor’s training conference for several hundred Rwandan pastors who are in desperate need of being equipped for the ministry that God has called them to.

We are also endeavoring to generate an additional 1000 child sponsorships through an initiative we are calling “Run for Rwanda”.  We have a team of at least 15 runners who have committed to train for and run the Chicago Marathon.  Supporting these runners will be “advocates”.  The role of the advocate is to reach out to their sphere of influence in efforts to secure child sponsorships for each runner. 

2007

In 2007 we sent two teams to Rwanda—one for building purposes (similar to the previous teams) and one for exploring new opportunities to more deeply invest in the people we have grown to love.  This exploratory team discovered ministry opportunities in the areas of health care, gender-based violence, micro-finance, vocational training and agricultural development, just to name a few.  These opportunities have sparked expanded vision for involvement in Rwanda. 

2006

This team not only built two houses, but portions of the team spent several mornings leading learning experiences in local schools.  Cindy Palicka, Trinity's Children's Ministry Director, worked to create a culturally adapted program.  Local World Vision staff helped with the translation needs. 

As was the case with the previous trip, this team had a special day to spend quality time with our sponsored children.  As we were kicking around soccer balls, we couldn't help but notice we were being watched. There were hundreds of kids lined up along a fence close by, obviously desiring to be on the inside of the fence.  These children were not sponsored children.  God laid it on our hearts to get as many of those kids “over the fence” as we possibly could.

Upon our return, we launched an “Over the Fence” campaign through which we generated over 400 new child sponsorships, to add to the 350+ we had previously generated.