In September, an mPower Approach team partnered to train dental health workers and vision students at a Rwandan clinic on the Congo border. Set high on a hill across the lake from the Congo border, this was a place of suffering and death as people tried to flee genocide 20 years ago.
We prayed it would become a place of healing for those who came to the clinic for help with toothaches and their vision.
The team also planned a soap-making venture with a group of women in an unreached people group of Pygmies who are treated as outcasts in Rwanda. Several of us traveled three hours through the rain forest to the small village of Batwa to visit and train seven women to make soap.
Some 30 women surrounded by children ran out to greet the SUV when our team arrived. They giggled when they saw their faces in cellphone selfies, showed off clay pots they had crafted and even danced for the team.
The village was barren except for a few primitive dwellings, a well, roaming goats, one pig, and children in rags and bare feet. Very few children in the village can afford the fees for school.
Many are sole survivors of genocide. Traveling to the guest house to make soap was a once-in-a-lifetime adventure. It was the first time the women had seen running water, toilets, showers, a restaurant or beds with mattresses.
While the soap is curing, the women talk about the strength of women in the Bible. Though they are not welcome in area churches, they have heard about Dorcas, Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Sarah and Rebecca.
They are experts at gathering kindling for the fire, softening the palm oil in the sun, eyeing measurements and adding flour and sugar to the mixture. The process is not easy in the hot Rwandan sun that seems to boil the air along with the oil. No one complains.
They are so proud of the sweet-smelling bars of soap they craft that day and plan to make more in their village to share and sell.
The women hug the team tight when it is time to leave.
“We do not want to leave you,” Brigit said. “You love us.”
They’re right.
