Houghton College Partners with Rwanda Rising

Praise to the Lord for His favor on us during our travels north to upstate NY! We visited family, established several new connections, and began our relationship and partnership with the music department of Houghton College.

Our 7 day trip started off with excitement in Roanoke VA (that is if you think an abundance of mysterious smoke coming out from under the hood is exciting) (apparently, the Gaskills prefer this style of traveling). Fortunately, of all places to break down, we have family in Roanoke, and within minutes Uncle Jim came to the rescue. While a hose was being replaced on the van, the four extra hours were well spent with homeschool work in Barnes & Noble, and Uncle Jim treating us to lunch. The hose was repaired, but the previous leaking coolant (cause of mysterious smoke) instigated a new handicap of one our pistons misfiring. With the necessity of staying ahead of the approaching snow storm moving up the east coast we headed on and adapted to a new sort of ‘rhythmic’ sensation as we chugged up Interstate 81. The Lord kept us safe and kept the van going as we proceeded northward all the way on dry roads. Don’t worry, we didn’t miss out on the snow, we had plenty of that where we were headed!

Upon arriving to NY, we received such a blessing getting to spend time with the McEuens in Painted Post. Steve McEuen and Lance worked together several exciting years on staff at First Wesleyan Church in High Point. We were able to meet with Tom Kuehner, the missions pastor at the Wesleyan church where Steve has been Senior Pastor for the past 7 years. Pray with us as we work toward a long-term relationship with Victory Highway Wesleyan in Painted Post, NY.

As well, you can pray for a long-term relationship to develop with the United Methodist Church of Livonia (NY) where we shared during the Feb. 16th Sunday morning services. The Senior Pastor invited us to fill the entire sermon time. Lance gave a “sermonette” on ‘God calling and us responding’ based on Exodus 3 and Luke 22, in addition to us also sharing about Rwanda Rising and the needs ahead of us as we return to the mission field. Adam & Lance also played a Bach duet for offertory. We received such a warm reception from the wonderful congregation of UMCL and gracious giving toward our ministry.

The Lord’s favor was on every aspect of our trip, and besides the fun we had visiting with Jen’s sister Ronda and family, the major outstanding highlight was the beginning of our partnership with Houghton College. The key player (pun intended) for the doors opening there was our friend Dr. Sharon Johnson, on the piano faculty at Houghton, and formerly our great accompanist back in the good ol’ days at First Wesleyan in High Point.

We were on the Houghton campus twice. Our first visit was for the Wind Ensemble concert on Valentine’s night entitled ‘Shades of Love’ which was a terrific selection of pieces reflecting different aspects of God’s love expressed with thrilling hues, rhythm and tone. Their new conductor Dr. Justin Davis has done an excellent job with them. They sounded great!! As part of their concert, and the representation of “love being a verb” they highlighted our ministry ‘Rwanda Rising’ showing our video and taking a collection for our ‘Rwanda Band Box Project’ toward our endeavor of raising the funds needed to send the container of instruments, music, and equipment – hopefully departing in April.

Our 2nd trip to the Houghton campus on Monday evening (17th) was outstanding and astounding! It began with a Wind Ensemble rehearsal where Lance was able to work with the college musicians for about an hour establishing relationship infusing his energetic liveliness. Such fun! Following dinner, our meeting with the Music Ed students was opened up for others to attend resulting in an overflowing room running out of chairs. How exciting! Jen and Lance shared about our ministry and God calling us.

An unexpected surprise was when the international liaison for Houghton Academy (M.S. & H.S. with some boarding students) walked in with several African students including 3 Rwandans from Kigali who used to be students at Green Hills Academy and were there when the KICS Bands played there May of ’13! They knew many of the students in our videos. Isn’t that cool?!? What a joy to get to meet them.

For the last portion of our time with the Music Ed students, Dr. Gingras had us share in more detail about the educational aspects and “ins & outs” of music mission work. We shared a beautiful, tender moment through our common bond with the Young family acknowledging Greg Young’s instruments being donated to Rwanda Rising in his memory. The students were very engaging, and as our partnering relationship with Houghton continues to grow, you can pray with us that we will see some of these students in Kigali on future, short-term music mission trips.

And for a snow-covered, icing on the cake finish back up in Livonia, on our last day, all the cousins got to go sledding!! Thanks Ronda for all the great meals and the warm hospitality for our whole visit.

The Lord got us up there and back in our bumpity van and blessed us with the start of something great connecting southwest NY and Rwanda. Thank you for praying for us. We hope to come visit your way soon. Maybe you can be a ‘key-player’ in opening doors for us too! Send us a note.

Be sure to go to our ‘Videos, Links & Pics’ page to see some fun conducting and sledding photos from the trip! Don’t forget to check out Grace’s latest blog link on that page too.

#rwandarising #houghtoncollege