lenten journey, day 33 — a prayer for prince

This is our special son, Kibonangoma Prince, who is 10 years old and lives in Rwanda. We sponsor Prince through Compassion International, which is a wonderful organization that provides food and education to children in devastatingly poor areas of the world. The children also hear the great good news of Jesus and study the Bible at school.

Prince’s life is so very different than the life my own children know. He lives in a house with dirt floors, mud walls and a corrugated iron roof. He eats beans, cassava-bread and potatoes—and little else. Most adults in his region are unemployed, but some are subsistence farmers and earn the equivalent of $10 per month. Malaria and parasitic worms are serious threats to health in the area. There are many war orphans in Prince’s community, so I praise God that Prince’s family is intact.

I would love it if anyone reading this could join me in praying for Prince, his family, and his very broken nation. Rwanda is still greatly in need of reconciliation after the genocide and mass killings in 1994. It is also a country being ravaged by HIV/AIDS. More than 3% of the population was infected at the end of 2005, the last year for which numbers were available.

So often, we ask ourselves what difference believers can really make in the world when the amount of suffering, affliction, poverty, despair, and spiritual blindness is so staggeringly immense. When I look at Prince’s face, though, I know exactly how we are to impact the world for Christ. One precious life at a time.

I think that Prince’s name is so beautiful. He is a child of the Most High King, and that makes him a prince, right?

Here is a recent letter we received from our beautiful Rwandan son. I thought you might enjoy his simple faith:

To the parents of the child Kibonangoma Prince, your child greets you in the name of our lord Jesus Christ. He wants you to know that he and his family are good. His family is Patience, Esperance, Max and David. Your child wants you to know that he is in P2. He performed well. He is now in holidays, he helps his parents with house work like fetching water, and nowadays it’s scarce. He also babysits the baby. He enjoys playing soccer and tennis and running. He enjoys praying in the children’s service and he usually prays for you, that God may bless you. Read Job 28:28. That verse blesses him very much. He concludes requesting you for a photograph and if possible that you may visit him. He wishes you God’s peace. May God be with you.

Father, thank you so much for bringing Prince into our family. Help us to be faithful faraway “parents” to this precious child. Ignite in our hearts a true desire to pray for him without ceasing, just as we do for our own children. God, would you just place your hand of protection on Prince and his family? Would you help them to grow in faith and embolden them to share your salvation story with others in Rwanda? Thank you, Lord, for the good people at Compassion International and the way they have given over their lives in service to you and your neediest children around the world. May many more believers impact this hurting world through child sponsorship. Yes, and amen.

And he said to man, 'The fear of the Lord—that is wisdom, and to shun evil is understanding.' — Job 28:28 (Prince’s special verse)

Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it. — Proverbs 22:6

"Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me." — Mark 9:37