Well, praise the Lord! We finally paid our last payment for our lawyer, so we are now freer to start doing things again. All in all, it came to more than $18,000. Yes, a whole lot! I want to thank all those who sent special gifts to help, especially my mother, who happened to sell her house at the time and sent me $5,000 at the very start of this.
In April, the High Court of Rwanda finally heard our case of our radio being illegally closed. We are supposed to get an answer on May 28. Please pray that all that money we paid was not wasted. We debated a lot about going to court and decided last year that we just could not turn tail and run without at least trying to fight for this great ministry. Again, every law is on our side. People say the High Court is fair and honest, so we have high hopes for the decision in May.
For our church, I have finally appealed to the Office of the President of Rwanda. As I continually say, after more than a year of asking, not one government office can give us a simple reason why our church was closed. No one can state even one law that we broke. I heard the President’s Office is making an investigation—we shall see what happens.
In March and April, we took two trips to Burundi to check on papers and to start looking for a house. Burundi asked who would be our staff for the radio, and we found some good people in Burundi to run the radio. We submitted that list in April. So, I think things are looking good there, and we should get an answer in May for that radio also.
At the end of April, I had the joy of preaching in a revival in the South at Pastor Ignace’s church. I only know of two independent Baptist churches in Rwanda—his and one run by a Korean—that escaped the church shutdowns last year. We were happy to provide a stage and sound equipment for it.
I preached the opening message about idols. I smashed up a television and burned an idol and some money (worthless old money out of circulation) in front of everyone. Two other visiting pastors from the States finished the revival. People did not respond immediately, but Pastor Ignace reports that later 10 got saved because of the revival and are preparing to get baptized. Three also joined the church. Amen!
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Thank you all so much for your prayers and support.
In His service,
Gregg, Angela, Caleb, Hannah, Timothy, Virginia, Micah, and Zachery Schoof
