In our last letter, I wrote about a financial emergency we were having at the radio. Now I am happy to say that things have settled down a bit and have stabilized at the radio. I cut expenses as much as possible; I ended up firing four people and cutting down the work hours for some others. But also, President Paul Kagame made a surprise move and openly rebuked the Minister of Health for causing problems. Now some natural medicine healers are starting to advertise again on our radio, but it is only about half of what we were getting before.
We are also very thankful to First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana, for sending us a very large love offering to help. Thanks also to a couple of members there who sent us about $1,000 each. Because of them, we were able to make payroll and buy electricity. We actually spend about $850 per month on electricity! We also paid our 2017 frequency fee of $4,200 that was due in March and some other big bills. Praise the Lord!
In July, Twagirimana, one of our Christians, went out to the village to do a funeral for someone in his family. It was a sad situation, but God used him to lead 20 people to the Lord after he preached! He is the first person I ever baptized, and it is so good to see him growing and still serving God. We also had a visit from Emmanuel recently. Many years ago, he was the radio manager and also ran the church when we went on furlough. Now he is in Montreal and in a good Baptist church, teaching Sunday school and preaching sometimes; he is also a deacon. Amen!
We are also getting a family back that left our church about 10 years ago. He got disgruntled over something small and left with his kids. Now after 10 years of bouncing back and forth to many other churches, he says we are the only church in Kigali that preaches the truth! It is too bad he didn’t realize that 10 years ago.
Thank you all so much for your prayers and support. These 2 months, we saw 50 people trust Christ out soul winning, 5 professions, 1 baptized, and 56 saved through the radio.
In His service,
Gregg, Angela, Caleb, Hannah, Timothy, Virginia, Micah, and Zachery Schoof
Pastor David Baptizing