Today’s post is from Paul, one of our friends who has joined us on our Vision Trip.

After learning about a very dark period in Rwanda’s history yesterday, day 3 of our Vision Trip turned the page and gave us all a clear picture of Wellspring’s part in helping to bring a brighter future for the Rwandan people.

As we met with the Wellspring founders, leadership team, and staff it was easy to see their passion and heart for Rwanda and its people. They all shared the part they are playing in Wellspring’s vision to be a catalyst for transforming education in Africa and viewed their work as a calling from God.

Next stop was the Wellspring Academy to experience the transformation we’d talked about in the morning. Again, you could sense the passion of the school leadership team and teachers for their calling as they serve over 600 students delivering high quality values based education. We visited primary and secondary classrooms and saw joy in the faces of the students – the fact they had a short break from their studies to welcome us may have helped with the smiles.

A highlight was meeting with a few of the student leaders from Grade 8 through Grade 12. They were impressive and articulate young people with dreams and plans to become doctors, business entrepreneurs, engineers, communications and IT specialists. More important was their commitment to use their talents to help Rwanda and its people. I felt like I was seeing transformation in real time!

When I get back to Canada and get the inevitable questions about how many wells we drilled, I’m in a much better position to tell my friends back home about what Wellspring is really doing in Rwanda. As Phocas, director of Wellspring’s Abundant Leadership Institute said: “Wellspring is good news for Rwanda”. I couldn’t agree more.