August 2012

Ntiganzwa News

Dear Friends and Family,

We hope this newsletter finds you and your family well and enjoying your summer!  Our family is doing very well here in Rwanda and we thought it was about time to give you another update.  Once again, our family has grown!  I am now a proud and busy mother of three!  Muhorakeye Sandrine, who is actually our niece, is now living with us as our daughter.  Her mother, Appolinaire’s sister, passed away unexpectedly a few months ago and God put it in our hearts to ask Muhorakeye if she wanted to stay with us.  God has really bound our hearts together and she seems like the perfect addition to our family.  She is thirteen years old and very sweet.  She fits right in and loves playing with Ivan and Benjamin.  We are thankful that God keeps on forming our family to be what He wants it to be and gives us the grace that we need as parents.  It is a challenge for me especially, now having two children who don’t speak English, but I know they will begin to pick up some English soon and it helps me in my continued language learning.

The building of our new house continues and is almost complete!  We are getting really excited to move in and though we don’t know exactly when that will happen, we hope within this month.  Even though the new house is not far from where we live now, we still have our work cut out for us in getting everything moved and organized…and clean for that matter!  We are coming to the end of dry season and everything is very dusty!  But as soon as the rains come, everything will be mud!  I am not sure which I prefer, either way, keeping things clean (including my children!) is a daily battle for Mommy!  We look forward to being settled into our new home and pray that it will be a blessing to all who enter! I am especially excited about having a sink in my kitchen and the kids are looking forward to their new rooms.  We have learned a lot in this process of building and God has been so faithful through it all.  We praise Him for the way He cares and provides for His people!

Things continue to go well at the church.  We are looking forward to our upcoming youth seminar and children’s seminar in this month.  The building of the nursery school continues and we are praying that we will be able to start school with the new year beginning in January.  There is still lots of things to finish up in the building not to mention finding teachers and helpers.  I plan to help in the administration aspects of running the school. 

Our Hands For Hope sewing school continues to be a blessing.  Our first students finished up their year of studying and had a beautiful graduation ceremony at the end of June.  I was so proud of them and all that they have learned!  Here is a picture of them at graduation where each of them is wearing something that they made themselves!

These women were all able to receive a brand new sewing machine because of the generousity of many of you!  In order to receive the machine, they were required to purchase a goat for another member of our congregation as a way for them to give back and multiply the blessing that they received.  They are now able to use their new skills and sewing machine to help themselves and their families earn income.

August first we began our second Hands For Hope sewing school class!  I am very excited to see what God will do this next year.  Many of our new students are young women who are not married with families yet but I know that this is a good way to help them to “get a good start” in their lives.  For various reasons they were not able to finish school but learning the skill of sewing can give them a good future to build upon.  We also have our first male student, which I did not expect but it seems that God had a plan for this young man to study as well!  Pray for these students as they study and for us as we give guidance and counsel to them.  On the right side you see pictures of three of our ten new students.                                                                      

We thank you all so much for your continued prayers and support.  We want you to know that God is using you to accomplish His work here in Rwanda.  If you would like to give monthly support or a one time special gift to help us continue our work, simply send your contribution with an attached note “Valerie and Appolinaire Ntiganzwa in Rwanda” to:

Commission To Every Nation                                                                                                                                                     

 PO Box 221307                                                                                                                                      Kerrville, TX 78029-1307  

To give online go to: www.cten.org/valeriepeters

Email us: valerientiganzwa@cten.org

Mailing Address:                                                                                                                                         PO Box 2954                                                                                                                                                     Kigali, Rwanda

Visit our blog: www.ntiganzwafamily.blogspot.com