VGR - Rwanda

Rwanda

Contact Information

Office Contact:

Raymond Munyamakombe

Office Address:

P.O. Box 3705
Avenue 377 St. #6
Umudugudu Y’Akaruvusha
Kigali
RWANDA

Business: 250 78 851 11 85
Email: rwanda@vgroffice.org

Country Demographics

Capital:
Kigali

Population:
12,337,138

Languages:
Kinyarwanda only (official, universal Bantu vernacular) 93.2%, Kinyarwanda and other language(s) 6.2%, French (official) and other language(s) 0.1%, English (official) and other language(s) 0.1%, Swahili (or Kiswahili, used in commercial centers) 0.02%, other 0.03%, unspecified 0.3%

Religion:
Roman Catholic 49.5%, Protestant 39.4% (includes Adventist 12.2% and other Protestant 27.2%), other Christian 4.5%, Muslim 1.8%, animist 0.1%, other 0.6%, none 3.6%, unspecified 0.5%

Life Expectancy:
59.26 years

GDP per-capita:
$632.76

Of Interest:
In 1959, three years before independence from Belgium, the majority ethnic group, the Hutus, overthrew the ruling Tutsi king. Over the next several years, thousands of Tutsis were killed, and some 150,000 driven into exile in neighboring countries. The children of these exiles later formed a rebel group, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), and began a civil war in 1990. The war, along with several political and economic upheavals, exacerbated ethnic tensions, culminating in April 1994 in a state-orchestrated genocide, in which Rwandans killed up to a million of their fellow citizens, including approximately three-quarters of the Tutsi population. The genocide ended later that same year when the predominantly Tutsi RPF, operating out of Uganda and northern Rwanda, defeated the national army and Hutu militias, and established an RPF-led government of national unity. Approximately 2 million Hutu refugees - many fearing Tutsi retribution - fled to neighboring Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda, and former Zaire. Since then, most of the refugees have returned to Rwanda, but several thousand remained in the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, the former Zaire) and formed an extremist insurgency bent on retaking Rwanda, much as the RPF did in 1990. Rwanda held its first local elections in 1999 and its first post-genocide presidential and legislative elections in 2003. Rwanda in 2009 staged a joint military operation with the Congolese Army in DRC to rout out the Hutu extremist insurgency there, and Kigali and Kinshasa restored diplomatic relations. Rwanda also joined the Commonwealth in late 2009. In January 2013, Rwanda assumed a nonpermanent seat on the UN Security Council for the 2013-14 term.

Location:
Central Africa, east of Democratic Republic of the Congo

Office Staff

Raymond Munyamakombe

Office Manager

Manager History:

I always wanted to serve the Lord since I was a young boy, but it took a while for me to answer. I was staying in my comfort zone, away from what was going to be my destiny.

I came to the Lord during the years 1984 – 1985 in Kinshasa, DRC (then called Zaïre). Making my way warily, I went through different Christian Catholic trends, and others including Islam, having been baptized “Daouda El Mohamed”. Later, I wanted to become a Catholic priest, but ended up with a Charismatic Pentecostal group “Christian League for the reading of the Bible”, in Kinshasa.

I came in contact with the Message of the end time in Bandalungwa (DRC), in 1986. After that, I made my university studies in Europe, and came back to Kinshasa. I solidly established my faith in the Bible and the Message of the hour among a Message assembly in Kinshasa (DRC). This period helped me to settle my faith in the Message of the end time as preached by Brother William Marrion Branham. It is during that time that I also became a preacher of this Message.

I came in Rwanda in 1998, for family and professional reasons. I stayed faithful and became devoted to the believers of the Message in Rwanda, where I was proposed and then elected as the VGR Representative. This nomination was important to me and confirmed the call I had in my life to serve the Lord.

I stay totally disciplined to my work, and neutral toward the different churches of the Message and what they believe. I make no compromise with the Message of the hour, the Word of God, and treat everyone with brotherly love, just as it was revealed and preached by the prophet of God, Brother William Marrion Branham.