Vanguard Global Network - Where We Work

CHINA

INDIA

NEPAL

RWANDA

Rwanda is at the "Heart of Africa", and was part of the Belgian Congo in colonial times. It was the scene of the horrible genocide in 1994.

Now, the country is in the middle of a social and economic boom. Western companies like Google, Costco and Starbucks have heavily invested in the country, and the U.S. has made Kigali its new African security headquarters, complete with Special Forces trainers and a new state-of-the-art embassy.

Kigali, Rwanda, is the Home Base for Vanguard's work in Africa. Vanguard has conducted numerous pastor's training conferences, and have trained around 500 pastors in the country and have ministered to several hundreds more believers. Several of the pastors are leaders of their own denominations and associations, and are using VGN's template as the basis of their future church-planting and extension. Vanguard has also conducted numerous pastor's training conferences, discipleship coaching sessions and Bible School training classes. We've also led about 15 women's conferences in the country, training over 600 Women's Ministry leaders (including several Rwandan Members of Parliament).

For 9 months in 2009, Vanguard Missionaries John and Janie Chitester trained a series of Central African pastors in their home in Life-to-Life Discipleship. These pastors went back home and trained their church members in the biblical material, and our hope is that they will coach other area pastors in it.

We're currently preparing a 20-church-planting project where the training will be in Rwanda (through one group of congregations) and the churches will be planted in northern Tanzania.

Vanguard's African Great Lakes Coordinator is Claude Kabutware, pastor of the Kimironko Gospel Church, and founder of the Good News Evangelical Churches. Claude coordinates Vanguard training for churches in Rwanda, DR Congo, Tanzania and other African locales. John Mihigo (below, with Ed) is the pastor of Christian Unity Fellowship Church in Kimisigara, Kigali, and serves both as Vanguard's National Representative in Rwanda and our Special Ambassador for all of Africa.

Vanguard was invited to come to Rwanda by the late Jean-Pierre Kamanzi at TOPIC in Manila in 1999, and Ed came to Kigali that autumn. The nation was just beginning to rebuild after the genocide. Ed went with Jean-Pierre's partner, Claude Kabutware to not only tour the genocide areas, but to travel to D.R. Congo to speak with Congolese pastors and leaders about forming a pastoral training circuit in the two countries. Sadly, Jean-Pierre passed away from malaria before his dream could be realized, but Ed continued to plan with Claude, and later, to train with him. God is fulfilling Jean-Pierre's dream now with Vanguard's work in Rwanda and the Heart of Africa region.