On April 30th, I had the privilege to represent Wellspring at the fifth annual RL Peterson Awards for Innovation in Cambridge, Ontario.  The awards are hosted by the Bridgeway Foundation, a forward thinking private foundation committed to helping non-profit organizations "engage in creative transformational projects both within Canada and the developing world."  I sat there with other business and non profit leaders, celebrating how God is using the passion and creativity of his people to make a difference around the world, and in awe of the creativity being unleashed to find solutions to some of the World's most pressing problems. 

David Ngirimana has come a long way since he worked as a night watchman for a missionary family in 1998, just four years after the genocide.  Then he was just a young man of 24 years at the beginning of a lifetime friendship with an African raised Canadian named Jeffery Komant.  Jeff eventually co-founded the Wellspring Foundation and David now works alongside him and the rest of the Wellspring team as the Construction Supervisor.  He and his crew recently completed the building of the entire Wellspring Academy primary school. 

Last month, Wellspring’s 11 trainers completed a course on Servant Leadership, one of the first modules in the Whole School Development Program.  The trainers were personally challenged by the material and experienced radical transformation in their own lives.  Now the trainers have had the opportunity to lead almost 20 Head Teachers, Assistant Head Teachers, and PTA representatives from the schools Wellspring is working with through the same course.  They are half way through the 4-week training and it has been so exciting to hear examples of how people’s lives are already being changed.

In his book, The Wounded Healer, Henri Nouwen describes the great illusion of Christian leadership as the idea “that man can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there.” “Who can save a child from a burning house,” he asks, “without taking the risk of being hurt by the flames? Who can listen to a story of loneliness and despair without taking the risk of experiencing similar pains in his own heart and even losing his precious peace of mind? In short: Who can take away suffering without entering it?”

On a rainy, muddy Friday afternoon, I took our team of trainers to Gasabo District’s Kabuga II Primary School.  Our purpose was to introduce the Whole School Development Program to the teachers and representatives of the parent community.  As we waited for the meeting to begin I took a tour around the school and saw many of the 2000+ bright eyed little people that are taught by just 31 teachers. The school painted for me the perfect picture of what is happening in education in Rwanda today.