ADVENTIST SERVICE

Responding to a Need 

 

 

 

The East-Central Africa Division (ECD) of the Seventh-day Adventist Church comprises nine countries: Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Tanzania, and Uganda. This division includes nearly two and a half million Seventh-day Adventist members, and it is growing rapidly.

 

Every Thirteenth Sabbath, a special offering is received in churches around the world. This quarter the Thirteenth Sabbath Offering will help fund three special projects in Rwanda and Burundi. 

 

Medical Ministry 

EDUCATION: The Adventist University of Central Africa will soon have a multipurpose building in which school assemblies and Sabbath worship services can be held for its student body of more than 2,200 students. In Bujumbura, the capital city of Burundi, the Seventh-day Adventist Church operates a small urban health center. Seven more health care centers are scattered across the country. In Bujumbura the needs are great as this facility struggles to keep up with the high demand for its services. In addition to serving the general population, the center also works with nearby businesses.

 

“We currently have a partnership with nine private companies that ask us to provide care to their employees,” says Evariste Sindayigaya, director of Health and Temperance for the Burundi Association.

 

The Seventh-day Adventist Church has a rich history of medical work. Medical missionaries have long met the immediate medical needs of people, just as Jesus did. Often this interaction is the first time a person comes into contact with a Seventh-day Adventist.

 

On a typical day more than 40 people visit the clinic for a variety of procedures. The small staff is forced to refer many of the patients to different care centers around the city. The lost revenue caused by turning away patients could have a serious impact on all eight Adventist medical centers in Burundi because income generated from this clinic helps fund the others, which are located in rural areas.

 

To meet the need for better facilities, the church plans to replace the health center with a fully staffed hospital—complete with a maternity ward and full dental service. In the past patients requiring dental work have had to travel great distances, even to neighboring countries, for care. This new hospital will bring quality comprehensive medical care to the people of Bujumbura. It will also fund the continued growth of smaller, rural health care centers across Burundi. 

 

Education Ministry 

Directly north of Burundi lies the country of Rwanda, known as the land of a thousand hills. The Adventist University of Central Africa was originally located in an idyllic setting among lush hills and away from the busy city. But during the violent genocide of the early 1990s, much of the university was destroyed and many lives were lost as people took refuge in university buildings.

 

After peace was restored, the university was given financial grants as part of the country’s rebuilding effort to restore what was lost. Though the original location of the university was beautiful, memories of the genocide made rebuilding there difficult. University leaders decided to relocate the university to the top of a hill in the capital city of Kigali. By 2006, after much hard work, classes were being held in the newly finished central academic building. This new building covers more than 4,000 square meters and provides quality, Christ-centered, higher education to more than 2,200 students.

 

HEALTH: This small, urban health center will soon be replaced with a full-service hospital—complete with maternity and dental services—in Bujumbura, Burundi’s capital city.The university is quickly gaining a reputation for excellence. “This semester the minister of defense decided to send about 100 military officers to be trained in our institution,” says Jozsef Szilvasi, former rector of the Adventist University of Central Africa. “The minister of labor uses our institution to train those who have lost their jobs; they finance the students. The minister of education has given about 20 scholarships to students who study in our institution. We are not marginalized as a Seventh-day Adventist institution in the country. We make a real contribution to society, and it is appreciated.”

 

In addition to courses that focus on the teachings of Jesus, biblical history, and Adventist beliefs, the university holds two well-received Week of Prayer programs every school year. Almost half of the students who attend the university are not currently Seventh-day Adventists, so the school provides a perfect opportunity to share the Adventist faith.

 

The university lacks a facility for the student body to meet for assemblies, special programs—such as Week of Prayer—and most important, church services. Work has already begun on a multipurpose hall to meet this need.

 

“It will contain seats for at least 2,500 students,” says architect Dominic Padarigan, “[including also] a balcony that will seat 300 students.”

 

A facility, constructed with a portion of this quarter’s Thirteenth Sabbath Offering, will be a much-needed place where students can meet and worship together. 

 

Dress Standards 

The third project this quarter is centered in Rwanda, but will help the entire East-Central Africa Division.

 

Civil war and genocide devastated Rwanda in many ways. One of the major challenges the country now faces is rebuilding its primary and secondary education systems.

 

The Seventh-day Adventist Church operates many primary schools across the country. These schools provide literacy training for the country’s vast young population. Forty percent of the people in Rwanda are younger than 14 years old. This puts an incredible strain on the teachers who have taken on the challenge of educating a new generation.

 

Seventh-day Adventist schoolteachers across the East-Central Africa Division aren’t always equipped to teach the subjects they are expected to teach. A portion of this quarter’s Thirteenth Sabbath Offering will help fund continuing education for our teachers, to help them learn the skills they need to provide a Christ-centered education for their students.

 

“We cannot help those kids if the teachers are not trained,” says Joyce Musabe, director of Education and Children’s Ministries for the Rwanda Union Mission. “We have teachers in our schools—even those who are in Sabbath school classes—but they need training.”

 

After the genocide in 1994 many children were left as orphans. Traditionally, the government of Rwanda mandated that all students must wear uniforms to attend school. Since many orphans can’t afford uniforms, they’re allowed to bypass the rule and attend school without them. Still, Adventist schoolteachers have observed how not having uniforms affects these students.

 

“When they look alike in a classroom, there is a kind of a motivation, a kind of a feeling that they are not alone, a feeling that they are integrated into the classrooms with the other kids,” says Musabe. “So when they don’t look like others, they will surely think, Why are we here? Who are we? Why are we different from others?”

 

To help students feel they are not alone, part of this quarter’s Thirteenth Sabbath Offering will help provide uniforms for orphans who attend Seventh-day Adventist schools in Rwanda.

 

Thank you for your continued support of the Thirteenth Sabbath and mission offerings. Thanks to church members like you, all around the world these special projects are helping touch lives for Jesus.

 

For more information about Adventist Mission, visit: www.AdventistMission.org. 

 

Andrew King is a writer and editor for the Office of Adventist Mission.