A Real Resurrection Story

A Letter from Kay Day, serving in Rwanda

May 2019

Dear Family and Friends,

Post-Easter greetings from Rwanda. I pray that your Easter experience was as blessed as mine was.

This year was a bit different. Usually I preach at our English chapel Easter service and then rush home to prepare a meal for the students who are on campus. Easter break means that only those who live a great distance away or are working on campus or on their final graduation papers are still around. The school is usually closed. But this year was different in a number of ways.

First, the school didn’t close until Good Friday this year. We began a “holiday” program, intensive classes scheduled to offer teachers and other school employees the opportunity to advance their training or retrain in a new direction during the normal primary and secondary school breaks. Some teachers are now in the holiday theology program, earning degrees to be pastors. Others are in education, upgrading their credentials. This is an opportunity for them to renew their lives and focus. I was asked to teach an intensive Academic English course — a 10-session class in four days. (Each session is 3-4 hours). I completed the course on Thursday afternoon and then conducted the Maundy Thursday Communion and the Good Friday service.

Elders with Monique last year before she returned home.

Second, we had a real resurrection story in our congregation on Easter morning. Monique Ladosz has been a member of our congregation since before I arrived. She is a French-born American citizen who has been working with widows and street children in Rwanda for the past 20 years. She is 89 years old. In November, her pacemaker failed, and she went into congestive heart failure. The doctors here could not change the pacemaker. They worked to assist her to get back to the States. The English chapel assisted her in several ways and, with medical support, she made it to the States. There the doctors strengthened her before they did the surgery. At one point, they thought they had lost her and were ready to pronounce her dead, but she began breathing again. On Easter morning, she walked into the English service with her own strength. She not only survived the surgery, but she is back at work here in Rwanda, with her doctors’ amazed blessings. Her testimony is that Christ has raised her from the dead because he still has work for her to do. We loudly praised God on Easter for our own resurrection story, testifying to the power of God to restore life.

Third, after the service at the English chapel I hopped in a car (courtesy of Monique and her driver) and went with a student translator to a former student’s parish. He is an intern, not yet ordained to do the sacraments. He invited me to preach, do a confirmation and celebrate communion. I had arranged for the students at PIASS to have dinner with two other professors, and off I went to continue Easter worship. What a joy-filled celebration! The confirmation was for a young woman who had strayed from the church and returned when the new pastor and his wife struck up a friendship with her. She gave a testimony of new life. When I returned home at 4:30 p.m., I was exhausted but elated. It was a great resurrection Sunday.

You were with me because of your financial and prayer support. I could not do any of this without you. We are partners together in ministry in Rwanda because of your participation with me. I never take that for granted, and I ask that you continue to join me in prayers and in finances. I depend on you for these. Resurrection events are happening as we join together. Thank you. I pray that you are living each day in the resurrection power of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He is at work around us and in us and through us.

Yours in Christ,

Kay (Cathie to the family)