By Kurt Smith
Umutima wanjye Uruzuye. In Kinyarwanda that means “my heart is full”. In spanish, my most comfortable foreign dialect, it is “Mi Corazon estoy lleno”. Regardless of the tongue, God is doing immeasurably more than I could ask or imagine. First of all, or A: I’ve been tremendously blessed with an amazing wife and 7 fantastic children. Happy Birthday, Ethan. Secondly, (or 2) God asked me to go to Rwanda on very short notice and when I said “yes”, He exceeded my expectations in the support I received, both financially and in prayer support. The Lord proceeded to blow my mind by assembling a “dream team” of trip participants. The unity that our team has can only come from God and I’m honored to be able to travel and minister with such an outstanding group of people that I know will be lifelong friends and co-laborers in Christ.
In Ephesians 1:17-18, Paul says “…The God of our Lord Jesus Christ…may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened.” For the past several months I have entered a new paradigm of revelation and understanding of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Learning to abide in Him, saturated with His beauty and love- my identity and security are in Christ and Christ alone. A “reawakening” to His majesty, glory, mercy, and the power of the Holy Spirit. Well, enough about me, let’s get to the team.
We have been in Kigali, Rwanda for roughly six days now and have had a plethora of experiences ranging from visiting the Genocide Memorial, seeing the amazing countryside, laboring at Faith Village Association, Umuganda (Rwandan word for community service- not because we ended up in Jail or did anything wrongJ) and doing “hard labor”- hand excavating/preparing ground and carrying hundreds of 25lb bricks roughly 300 circuitous yards by hand for a new kitchen and toilet/wash room for a widow in a local village. We have been graciously accepted by the Rwandan people. Their generosity and hospitality have been amazing. Throughout these experiences, we have been saturating our days with praise and worship and the Lord has been moving in the power of His Holy Spirit. Every day we seem to go “deeper in Him” and we are more in tune with His heart and what He wants us to do. As a team, we have a heightened awareness and sensitivity to the moving of His Spirit- nothing like I’ve seen before. I have never experienced team unity like this in 25 + years of missionary service. We have experienced healings and miracles.
Today, for our first stop, we visited Gisimba orphanage and the power of the Spirit was very strong and many members of the team experienced overwhelming emotion as we were interacting with the children. And yes, grown men can get “teary” eyed as well. Back at the FVA ranch, we joined a late morning women’s group meeting. The presence of the Holy Spirit was so strong you could physically feel His wind rushing in. I personally felt like a sponge that was being replenished. One woman told us she had seen us in a dream 10 days ago, and our team leading worship and coming to support them/pray for them and bless them fulfilled a prophecy she had gotten recently. They proceeded to pray for us, thanking us for coming and asking God to come and bless us!! We came to bless them, and they proceeded to intercede and pray for us in an environment drenched in the Spirit. After many years of serving on short-term trips, I’ve experienced this many times. We think we are going somewhere to spread the Gospel and serve the local people, yet it’s very common that when we leave, we are the ones that come home feeling we are the ones that have been blessed.
God is granting us the experience, tangibly, of Ephesians 3:16-21. “That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Holy Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith: and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints the breadth and length and height and depth, and know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever! Amen”. I would ask you to ruminate on that verse a while. Umutima wanjye Uruzuye… my heart is full. Lord, I pray that you would increase our capacity to comprehend and receive your fullness so that we in turn will be able to share Your love with those we came to serve. Break our hearts with what breaks Yours and allow us the strength and perseverance to finish strong on the last leg of our journey here. To Him be the glory!!! Amen