When two OneWay team members traveled to Rwanda this month, they expected to spend the week training locals in how to use the Heart Bible for the Nations curriculum. Instead, they spent most of the week celebrating how God is already using Heart Bible there.
JP Lindsey and Equipping Evangelist*, both part of OneWay’s Gospel Advance ministry, intended to follow up on two trainings our team had already done. After learning Heart Bible at one of these previous trainings, a young leader from Kigali brought Heart Bible to a camp in Rwanda. Though the OneWay team had never been to this camp before, they were met there by nine new believers asking to be baptized.
“The trainees are training others,” explained OneWay’s Equipping Evangelist. “Heart Bible for the Nations is multiplying. We went there thinking we were doing more teaching, but instead they were doing the teaching and we were observing them.”
“It’s amazing to see how it’s taken off,” Lindsey added. “They not only are telling stories, they want to do dances with it. They also did dramas for us, and it was really fun to see that.”
Throughout the week, Lindsey and Equipping Evangelist witnessed evidence of Heart Bible’s ability to empower believers like the young Kigali leader. “It’s amazing to see the authority God has given him,” Lindsey said. “He’s sold out for the Heart Bible. He is seeing how it’s changing his people.”
The same was true of a 13-year-old Heart Bible trainee. As the young woman recited a Bible story for more than 100 people, many of them religious leaders, she asked the crowd to repeat the story back to her. The leaders responded with simple answers about the Bible story.
Lindsey expressed how striking their attitude was: “They were just humbly participating in God’s Word. That was amazing. To me, that is the start of something big: when you have leaders who are humble enough to participate in the Word of God.”
Heart Bible is also at work outside the camp. Ezekiel lives far in the mountains and had to walk more than five hours and take a long bus ride to get to the training earlier this year. Returning to his village, he began teaching everyone there, including his wife, who is non-literate. Recently, Ezekiel sent videos of his wife teaching other women Bible stories.
“She is thrilled with this new method that has empowered her to share the gospel in a way she never thought possible,” Equipping Evangelist said.
Another woman, Telezia, couldn't believe the change in her husband, Daniel, after he completed the training.
"Daniel was afraid to even touch his Bible in the past! Now he's teaching us!" she shared.
The vision of Heart Bible leaders is to equip and empower Christians with biblical knowledge even in the midst of unparalleled hardship. Based on extreme drought and lack of agricultural output from Ukraine, world leaders have predicted a famine of historic proportions throughout East Africa. Rwanda is preparing for refugees from Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya.
Heart Bible for the Nations has seen trainees recognize that though they may not have material resources, they do have the gospel, and they can share it with others in need of the same hope.
While in Rwanda, Lindsey and Equipping Evangelist visited the family of a current OneWay intern, Shema Innocent. It was a wonderful opportunity to celebrate our OneWay family as we reach people together all around the world.
*Name withheld for security reasons