Giants Among Pygmies
Today our Rwanda adventure continued with more visits to folks who are benefiting from Heaven’s Family’s ministries here. We started by visiting an elderly couple whose lives have been greatly impacted from learning and practicing Farming God’s Way (FGW). Their names are Gafili and Therese. They are in their 90s and live by themselves in their small mud brick home. Although they both struggle to walk, they are model FGW farmers, and they’ve just harvested a bumper crop of maize. Here they are:
Their God’s Love Group members, along with others from the community, gathered at their house when we visited, and the love was thick. Before we left, everyone gathered in a circle on their just-harvested field to sing and pray for God’s greater blessing on their land:
Just when I didn’t think it could get any better, we all walked uphill to the maize field of a couple named Sisiti and Garrett. I watched as everyone worked together to harvest all of their maize in about ten minutes. They explained to me that is how God’s Love Groups work. Members not only come together every week to study the Bible, worship, pray, and learn more about Farming God’s Way, they also help each other in their fields. Here’s two photos of that harvest in action and thankful Sisiti and Garrett:
Just when I didn’t think it could get any better, we all walked uphill a little more, and I soon realized I had been “climbing a stairway to heaven”! We gathered outside Sisiti and Garrrett’s simple home. All of the just-harvested maize was piled high on a tarp on the ground. First, Sisiti and Garrrett danced with joy. Then, as they stood before the crowd with their eight children, they told their story of redemption.
He was formerly a worthless husband and father who used and sold drugs. He would wait to come home each day after his children were asleep so he wouldn’t have to face them. Sisiti was an abandoned Christian mother who struggled to feed her children, working as a day laborer when work was available.
Her brother told her about Farming God’s Way and invited her to a training. She quickly began practicing it with her eight children. After their first harvest, they knew they would never face hunger again. And that got the attention of Garrett. He has since believed in the Lord Jesus, repented, and become His disciple. He will soon be baptized.
But here’s the best part: Garrett is among 14,695 people who have believed in Jesus and been baptized in obedience to him so far in 2026 because of the influence of Heaven’s Family’s ministries and indigenous parters in Africa and Asia.
Later, we visited a small village of Batwa People, called Pygmies by outsiders. Traditionally, they were semi-nomadic forest hunter-gatherers who lived in mountain and lowland forests. But they were forced from their ancestral forests to make way for national parks. That destroyed their traditional livelihood and left most of them landless and extremely poor. There are 25,000 of them in Rwanda. They rank among the most marginalized groups in the region and are often treated as inferior by others.
As you can imagine, they are wary of outsiders. Our Rwandan partners, however, have loved their way through their resistance, and we were welcomed with singing and dancing. With the help of Heaven’s Family, our Rwandan partners have been teaching them self-reliance along with Farming God’s Way which, of course, is centered around Jesus. Below is a photo of a gravity-fed community safe water supply provided by Heaven’s Family that saves them hours each day collecting unsafe water in lower elevations.
Below is a final photo that I wanted to share. I’ve seen children’s toys like this handmade milk-bottle truck all over the world. It always gives me reason to pause.
