In July of this year, Aretha Mutumwika from the Kigali church had the honour and privilege of attending the HOPE Youth Corps in the city of Chicago in the USA. This is an account of her faith-building, life-changing experience. This story originally appeared on the disciplestoday web portal.

Earlier this year, an appeal was made on the disciplestoday web portal on behalf of four sisters from the church in Kigali, Rwanda, who had been accepted for the HOPE Youth Corps in the United States. Though they had qualified to participate, they did not have the necessary $ 2, 600 each for registration, airfare and visa application. (By contrast, the most costly youth camp that has been held among the East African churches so far required the equivalent of $ 63 per person, which only a handful managed to raise.) In what can only be termed as Christian care, compassion and concern - discipleship expressed and not only professed - members of the church in the US responded to the announcement and made funds and tickets available for all four sisters.

Eventually, only one of the sisters, Aretha Mutumwika (on the left in the picture), managed to travel to Chicago for the event as the other three were denied visas. Nonetheless, all four are deeply grateful to those who supported them and were able to learn valuable spiritual lessons from the experience.

Aretha was baptized on the 7th of July 2002, and so the commencement of the camp, on the 7th of July 2004, was a great way to celebrate her second baptism anniversary. Recounting the four sisters' initial efforts to raise the required money, Aretha says, "We went to various NGO's but they said that they do not support religious projects. I said to myself, 'If it doesn't happen than at least I will have tried.' "

It looked bleak. The sisters had applied for the camp by faith, encouraged by then leader of women's ministry in Kigali, Janet Waweru, whose conviction it was that one way or the other things would all work out. "I was studying Hebrews 11 and was inspired to trust God in this," she recalls. "I waited for a miracle." Janet had met (then KNN producer and current disciplestoday.net editor) Roger Lamb during the recording of the "KNN Africa" video and believed that he might be able to help. Eventually a write-up was put together and posted on the disciplestoday web portal, and people from some of our US churches responded.

Janet says, "I was so happy and I thanked God for his faithfulness. My faith was strengthened that there is no situation that God cannot change. Love and generosity of disciples is present and amazing."

Aretha, sharing about those who raised the money, whose identity she does not even know, continues, "I was blown away to hear that the whole amount was raised. I was grateful, grateful, grateful, and I want to say a big 'thank you' to all of them for their hearts. I can't wait to one day meet them in person."

Even before steeping onto the plane for her first ever visit to the USA, Aretha had learned a great lesson. "God can work through people, even people whom I don't even know and who don't know me. I am learning to be faithful. I see that I need to focus more on God's will, knowing that he can do anything as long as it is his plan."

In Chicago, where the participants stayed at the University of Illinois - Chicago, "We were helping middle school teachers with summer school classes," Aretha shares. There were groups for media, arts, photography, dance and music. Aretha was in the dance group, that later taught the children a hip hop dance. The group also did the dance as part of a presentation on the last day of camp when each group presented what they had done in the course of their ten days together.

The camp moved Aretha tremendously. "We were taught lessons. There was a lesson on how Jesus was the most giving person in the world. I saw the need to have that same attitude and put it into practice and not just talk of helping others. I was with special needs children at one point and that was encouraging to me. I felt special because I got to help someone who was helpless."

Aretha learned much more as well. "Previously I did not view serving and giving as part of the Christian life. I saw it as a good action and an option. [At the camp] I was convicted by scriptures like Jeremiah 22:16 ("'He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?'"). I saw that God values the poor and the needy. I hadn't had that heart. I didn't value the poor the way that God does."

And Aretha has been able to make some decisions following the camp. "I've been motivated to go back to my country and encourage those who did not get to travel to the camp and also to get the things of HOPE going more dynamically. I intend to have the same heart that I had in Chicago and teach from the scriptures that have encouraged me so we can bring out our best for the needy in Kigali. I'd like to see us concentrate our efforts not only on people in hospital (as is the twice-monthly custom of the disciples in Kigali) but also to schools and homeless children - the helpless in general."

Diana Uwineza (on the right in the picture) is one of the three sisters for whom money and air tickets were raised. Of not being able to attend the camp due to being denied a visa, she says, "I never thought that I would fail to get a visa to go to the HYC. It was never in the plan for me. I was shocked and disappointed when I was told that I would not be issued with a visa. I was sad, too, and cried a lot. I stayed in bed for two days. Then I realized that life has to move on, and maybe I'll get another chance to go for the camp another year."

"All three of us (who missed out on visas) needed encouragement," Diana elaborates. "It was really tough. But I was happy that we could share with each other and be together."

Diana is thankful to those who responded to the appeal for assistance. "I am very happy that they were able to make the effort (of raising money for all four of us)," she says, "I'm very grateful for the effort that they were able to make. At first we thought that we couldn't make it because the money required was too much, but we were amazed at how God was able to use them to raise the money."

Clearly, all four sisters have been able to grow through the whole experience, and surely that is what God expects of us as we journey through the highs and lows that we encounter as our challenging and exciting Christian adventure unfolds.

Hope springs eternal. As the girls saw the hand of God dramatically raise from the ashes of despair to the arena of reality their dream of attending the HOPE Youth Corps, the core lesson to learn for these youth was to never lose hope.