Since 2007, War Survivors Ministries started a project supporting 30 orphaned students who were not able to pay their school tuition and necessary school supplies. Those children lost their parents to the genocide, AIDS or other diseases. The annual tuition runs between $200 and $500, for one high school boarding student. High School is free in the United States of America, but it is not in Rwanda. That is the reason why only children who have parents or who have other guardians willing to pay for their education can go to school. Our Good Shepherd Program social worker in Kigali contacts local churches for referrals of students who have lost their parents, and who are in need of assistance for school fees. She submits the names of the children in need of help, and we contact churches or other compassionate people in America, asking them to sponsor them for a Christmas present. The most important Christmas present needed by these children on the top of their wish list is not a new bike, a new video game, or a new toy, but it is the assurance that he/she will be allowed to get back in the class room when school resumes.

Our Christmas Present Project has helped raise around $10,000 each year, and enabled us to pay tuition and school supplies for all the 30 children for a full year. This project was initially supported by Lamb of God Lutheran in Haines City Florida, and later on, other churches and individuals joined in the effort to help children who lost their parents. The school year in Rwanda starts in January of each year and ends in October, which makes our Christmas present project very convenient for the children we support, and for the supporters who sponsor them. When the children come back to their guardians for the annual school break at the end of October, they start praying for a miracle. They pray that they will be able to have a Christmas present, the assurance that they will be able to afford tuition and some school supplies for the upcoming school year. This Christmas 2010, they will be praying the same prayer.

Please consider being the answer to the prayer of an orphaned student. You can consider sponsoring one student for a Christmas present. You can add one student on your Christmas list, having in mind that their wish list is mainly: “School tuition and personal care items”. To participate in this project, please click on the following link and download the sponsorship form. /Lifeline_for_Children_and_FamiliesECWGCX/KidsChristmasPresent.zip . Thank you so much as you consider being part of this very important project.