"Rwanda in the past existed with no purpose which resulted to a shameful history. now the country has chosen to live with a purpose for prosperity and faith, President Paul Kagame has said. The President was speaking at a gathering that brought together thousands of Rwandan Christians during the launch of ‘40 Days of Purpose’ at Amahoro National Stadium last evening. The launch was blessed by among others, the influential evangelical preacher and author of the Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren who was accompanied by his wife."
He gets around does Rick Warren.
As anyone who has looked into Rwanda...thank God for His grace and word getting spoken into peoples lives in this troubled country.
As anyone who has looked into Rwanda...thank God for His grace and word getting spoken into peoples lives in this troubled country.
"He added that three years ago, the same congregation met at the Stadium to launch the Global PEACE Plan, which Warren officially unveiled.
The initiative tackles five of the largest problems facing the world today namely spiritual darkness, lack of servant leaders around the world, poverty, disease, and ignorance.“The Peace plan is a partnership between churches, public and private sectors under the driving force of Pastor Warren,” Kagame said.
President Kagame said that since the launch of the Peace Plan, there had been great success from the initiative especially in the Western province where peace partners have worked closely with the Ministry of Health"
The initiative tackles five of the largest problems facing the world today namely spiritual darkness, lack of servant leaders around the world, poverty, disease, and ignorance.“The Peace plan is a partnership between churches, public and private sectors under the driving force of Pastor Warren,” Kagame said.
President Kagame said that since the launch of the Peace Plan, there had been great success from the initiative especially in the Western province where peace partners have worked closely with the Ministry of Health"
and this...when Rick spoke....
"During his remarks, Warren touched on the key concepts in his book. Two Scriptures that he chose to support his message were "Faith without works is dead" () and "Overcome evil with good" (). Close to half the stadium stood up when he concluded by asking if they were ready to live for Christ and begin a life of new purpose."
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7 comments:
2:13 pm
Someone from "Relevant" magazine was invited to help provide press coverage of the Rick Warren trip to Africa. He reported a fact that staggers me.
The US spent $13.3 billion ($102 billion when adjusted to today's dollars) between 1948-1952 to help rebuild Europe after World War II. This rebuilding effort was a large success in getting Europe back on the track of economic stability.
In the last 20 years, the Western World has given $1.5 BILLION in aid for Africa. Yet the standard of living has decreased in Africa since the 1980s.
Surely this speaks to the fact that if we truly want to help people live life to the full, it takes much more than money. I believe and pray that this Global PEACE plan touches on many of the core problems of sin that bring about lack of justice and kindness.
"Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God -- through Jesus Christ our Lord!"
May God bless us as he has blessed many in the world through Rick Warren.
"Who will
2:51 pm
That was a brain cramp. The above comment should say,
In the last 20 years, the Western World has given $1.5 TRILLION in aid for Africa. Yet the standard of living has decreased in Africa since the 1980s.
Just not used to thinking in terms of trillions.
8:14 pm
Yeah not so much how much we give - but who we give it too, there's quite a few rich dictators living over there, the ripple effect does not ripple very far in some African economies.
7:43 am
I agree with your sentiments to a point Lance, but we must be careful not to unfairly aportion the blame to those living in the developing world for their situation, particularly when it comes to sin. On face value it's easy to look at how much money has been spent in Africa and think they should have done more with it, but it's not that straightforward. The $3 trillion dollars spent globally on aid in over 40 years sounds like a lot. But it works out to be around about 4 or 5 cents per capita for the 3 billion poor living on less than USD 2 per day. What sort of miracle do you expect to buy for that money? And this aid contribution, of course, pales in comparison to military expenditures over that period. In fact, $3 trillion happens to be what Joseph Stiglitz estimates to be the true economic cost of just the Iraq war so far.
Poverty is a very complex problem that requires long-term commitment for change to occur, not to mention the urgent need to address the fact that 20% of the world's population use 86% of its resources - to me an area of sin that requires some urgent redressing.
For more information on this subject Ben Thurley has an excellent post at
http://blogs.tear.org.au/ben/
cheers
Broady
11:49 am
Broady,
Does this mean that TEAR disagrees with the Global PEACE plan?
4:02 pm
Hey Lance
I wasn't actually commenting on the Global PEACE plan. For what it's worth I absolutely think that the Gospel and all of its ramifications, both personal and social, need to be at the forefront of all that we do. My post was a caution against over simplifying things in a way that unfairly aportions blame to certain groups and lets others "off the hook." My point is that the "core problems of sin that bring about a lack of justice and kindness" that you spoke of in your post reside as much with the developed world as with those in the developing world (if not more when it comes to the systems and structures that help create such oppression.) Yes, Rwandans need the Gospel (like all of us!), but sadly that alone will not lift them out of poverty - well targeted and sufficient aid, trade and debt relief will go along way towards doing that.
cheers
Broady
7:37 pm
G'day Lance
If I could just addd one more thing........I rarely post on blogs because comments can come across with a bit more of an edge on them than intended and I don't want that to be the case here! I'm not suggesting your's is a simplistic position (I wouldn't know having not spoken to you in any depth about it) my original intention was to point out that funding statistics can be misleading.
And, concerning the Global Peace Plan - as far as I am aware, TEAR does not have an official position on it, but from my point of view, if they lisen carefully and seek to work in genuine partnership with local Christians, all power to them and good on Rick Warren for having the courage of his convictions to act.
cheers
Broady
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