NEWS RELEASE


DR. RICK AND KAY WARREN UNVEIL A TRANSFORMATIONAL CHURCH, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE COOPERATIVE PARTNERSHIP IN WESTERN RWANDA:
National Health, Municipal and Church Leadership Confirm Agreements for Legal Cooperative, AIDS  Testing in Churches and National Offering in all Houses of Worship

KIBUYE , RWANDA, April 4 – Dr. Rick Warren and his wife Kay returned to Kibuye in the Lake Kivu (Karongi) District of Rwanda for several days this week to inspect the progress on their massive Western Rwanda HIV/AIDS Healthcare Initiative Project. This unparalleled program represents an innovative approach to decentralizing healthcare and increasing its access for the poor by using local churches in an unprecedented partnership with the Rwandan government’s Ministry of Health, three Rwandan hospitals, the University of Maryland, Saddleback Church in California, and the global network of Purpose Driven churches.

According to Dr. Robert Redfield, one of the early pioneers in discovering AIDS, if successful, the strategy will revolutionize healthcare on the African continent and around the world. To serve as a teaching and training center for 726 churches in the district, a new hospital expansion will begin soon on the grounds of the infamous Kibuye soccer stadium where more than 8,000 children, women and men were brutally slaughtered during the 1994 genocide.

While standing on that site, Dr. Warren spoke to reporters and film crews from ABC News; CBN News; Fox Searchlight; TIME, Reader’s Digest, and Relevant magazines, and other media outlets. “During the genocide, thousands of people sought refuge here in this stadium only to discover that they had been tricked and betrayed to come here to be killed,” he said. “Yet, out of these ashes of evil will spring hope and healing to replace hurt as a new and different kind of hospital will be erected here. A place of betrayal will become a place of blessing; a place of pain will become a place of promise; suffering will be replaced by service to the community; and what was once a place of death will become a place of life!”

The Western Rwanda Healthcare Initiative is just one of many P.E.A.C.E. Plan projects in Rwanda and 68 other nations. The project falls under the “C” of the P.E.A.C.E. acrostic which stands for “caring for the sick.” Nearly 1,000 P.E.A.C.E. team members from Saddleback Church and other Purpose Driven Churches have already served in Rwanda. In addition to the Warren’s team, four other P.E.A.C.E. teams were in-country this week working directly with local churches in development.

Although the Karongi District has more than 650,000 citizens, healthcare has been limited to three small hospitals, which are located about two days walk from most residents. “By partnering with the 726 local churches spread throughout the district, access to healthcare will take a giant leap forward,” said Kay Warren, originator of the initiative.

The three hospitals have agreed to partner with local churches to create hundreds of decentralized health centers, and in return, churches are helping upgrade the hospitals in training and equipment.

“The greatest health problem for much of the world is not a lack of medicine, but a lack of access to it,” Dr. Warren noted. “There will never be enough professionals – doctors, nurses, and clinics – to care for all of the health needs in the world. But there is a church in practically every village of the world, and volunteers ready and willing to be trained. The P.E.A.C.E. Plan is an amateur movement. It is led by people who are motivated by love, not money or fame.”

Dr. Agnes Binagwaho, executive secretary for HIV/AIDS planning in Rwanda, expressed her enthusiasm about the progress of the P.E.A.C.E. project. “This is a unique pioneering program – it has never been done anywhere else in the world,” she said before agreeing to allow pastors and church leaders to be trained and certified to conduct AIDS testing in churches.

“We are proud to see the dream become reality. The church is the last mile in service to the community. No other organization has a greater distribution network and the ability to provide grassroots healthcare,” said Redfield, University of Maryland at Baltimore, who is overseeing the medical standards of the Western Province P.E.A.C.E. project.

“In a national stadium rally of 20,000 on Sunday, President Kagame said, ‘What we are modeling in this project is a truly transformational healthcare model by reinventing when, where, why, how, and by whom healthcare is provided,’” Dr. Redfield added. “We have no doubt that it will spread from Kibuye throughout Rwanda to the rest of the world.”

Dr. Warren explained that the P.E.A.C.E. Plan is a long-term development strategy, not a quick-fix relief program. “The three non-negotiables of everything we do through the P.E.A.C.E. Plan are sustainability, scalability and reproducibility,” he said. “We never do for others what they can be trained to do for themselves. It’s easy to go into a country and just do things for others, but we are interested in far more than that. The answer to every problem is training – helping others help themselves. We are not worried about how long it takes or how fast it goes. We’re building a network to last.

“Our goals for this project are to train every church in basic healthcare; upgrade and improve the three hospitals; get the hospitals and churches to partner together; and develop sustainable solutions by using local churches,” Dr. Warren explained to a gathering of government, business and church leaders in Kibuye. “The bottom line is that churches can be mobilized to improve the health in any community. Churches can provide volunteers to hospitals to feed, care, pray for and support those in the hospital and also care for the young children of sick mothers who have no place to go.”

Following the breakfast, the Warrens met with community leaders to review the progress of training teams from area churches. Thirty pastors were asked to each choose two leaders from their church to become Community Development Trainers. The three-person teams from each congregation are then trained in how to train others in basic healthcare and participate in a joint Community Development Project.

At that meeting, Kibuye Mayor Bernard Kayumba announced the formation of an official legal cooperative, through which the public, private and faith sectors of the district can work together in this initiative. Anglican Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini then proclaimed a one-day national offering in all houses of faith, including Christian and Muslim, to support this project.

“This is exciting because it is what the Bible says the church is supposed to do, and it brings tears to my eyes,” Kay Warren said, affirming the overwhelming support from congregations across the district. “Nothing is closer to the heart of God than to come together and use your hands and feet to serve your community, especially widows and orphans and others in need.”

Kay Warren will minister to several thousand women in Kigale on Saturday in anticipation of the genocide anniversary remembrance coming up on April 7, while Dr. Warren has private meetings with government leaders. On Monday, he will depart Kigali for Nairobi, Kenya, to meet with church leaders in the wake of the recent violence following national elections.

 

NOTE TO EDITORS: For more information about Rick Warren, including downloadable photos from his Rwanda trip, please visit www.RickWarrenNews.com.