PROFILE ON PASCAL NYAMINANI (KIGALI, RWANDA)

Pascal Nyaminani, a disciple in the church in Kigali, Rwanda, has been forged by the fire and learnt through thick and thin to turn to God.

In 1997 war broke out in the Democratic Republic of Congo where he, his wife and his four children were among hundreds of thousands of Rwandan refugees. He ultimately walked 700 kilometres with his family from the town of Bukavu to the city of Kisangani, crossing forests and rivers and living off wild plants, small wild animals, and in the most severe cases eating mud.

He was ultimately to lose his wife and two of the four children before making the decision to return to his country, Rwanda.

Pascal had already previously left two mainstream churches, searching for God and disillusioned with denominationalism.

In 1997 a religious young lady, Francoise Murakatete, was met by and studied the Bible with the then leader of the women in the Kigali church, Georgeanne Rayola, but did not make a decision to become a disciple. In early 1999 Francoise, now married to Pascal and pregnant with their first child, ran into Georgeanne and expressed her desire to come to church together with her new husband. The two of them came to church the following Sunday and Pascal started studying the Bible with the brothers.

Pascal and Francoise were at the time members of a breakaway congregation that sought to return to biblical truth and abandon denominationalism but which was fraught with disunity and retained certain denominational doctrines.

Pascal had to work through his deeply religious background, his leadership position in his congregation, and three previous baptisms. In August, after studying the Bible for six months and having come to conviction, he not only was baptized into Christ but baptized his wife as well on the same occasion.

Fired up to have finally found God's kingdom after a life-long search, he continues to inspire the church, translating the preaching and leading songs in four different languages.

A kingdom-first disciple, he once had surgery late on a Saturday evening after 2 fingers were severely lacerated by a machine at work that morning. Hours later, on Sunday morning, rather than recuperate in bed at home as most expected, he was at church with his family, fingers heavily bandaged, and insisted on even leading some songs.

Pascal and Francoise are incredibly focused on helping men and women become Christians and many of the disciples in the Kigali church were either directly or indirectly initially invited to church by Pascal or Francoise. At 43, with the enthusiasm of men half his age, Pascal continues with his wife to faithfully and powerfully serve the Lord and dream of one day working in the full-time ministry.