Good news from Rwanda… the Umuhuza Pineapple Plantation* is now producing about 1600 pineapples per week!  They have saturated the local markets and are exploring possibilities in Kigali (the capitol) where there is much more demand.  By planting and eventually harvesting different sections of the field at different times the women more smoothly meet market demand and create a continual flow of income to meet the needs of their families.  It also makes for steady work to maintain the field rather than being overcome with one particular time when all the work needs to be done quickly. 

And more good news… if you saw the film “Wounded Healers” you know that reconciliation between former enemies and recovery of that nation is at the heart of the Rwanda Partners’ ministry.  If you didn’t see the film, we have it in the church library!  It is on DVD, about 30 minutes long, and includes a study guide for individual or small group use.  Check it out!... literally!  It is a sign of God’s love and forgiveness that these people are coming together to restore relationships that were torn apart by the genocide over 15 years ago.  This movie will inspire you in your own life and prayers.

Even more good news…  the Men’s Breakfast Fellowship received a matching grant of $1,000 from the Mustard Seed Foundation and will soon be sending the funds to help purchase mulch grasses needed to hold more water in the ground as the newest crop of pineapples mature.

And the best good news!… is that the Good News of Jesus Christ is flourishing among the 80+ women of the co-op!  As they engage in reconciliation training they are being drawn deeper into their faith and some are coming to faith in Jesus Christ for the first time!  These wounded people who bear both the visible and invisible scars of hatred, prejudice and violence are being healed and brought into community again by the power of God’s love through Jesus Christ.

Let us give thanks and praise to God for this new life that the wounds we, too, might carry in body or soul will find healing in the power and peace of our Lord.

Pastor Dave Templin
Whidbey Presbyterian Church

* In the fall of 2007 the Whidbey Presbyterian Church Men’s Breakfast Fellowship partnered with Rwanda Partners, a mission of First Presbyterian Church of Bellevue, to fund the startup of a pineapple plantation in the Bugesera region of southern Rwanda.  This plantation would ultimately be self-sustaining, owned and operated by a co-operative of about 80 women survivors of the genocide including both Hutus and Tutsis.  Seven hectares of land was eventually purchased and cleared.  The planting of some 55,000 slips – all by the women’s own hands – began in the spring of 2008 and the first pineapples were harvested about one year later.