Entrepreneurs Can Change the World

"You people are like God!"

At a weekly team meeting, I asked Jane, the president of BURANGA to share how her meeting went with a new potential KEZA partner. The group she was meeting with was visiting BURANGA for the first time. They are another women’s cooperative that sews material based products that will soon come on as a KEZA partner. I asked BURANGA to meet with them to share ideas about what it takes to become a cooperative and run a business in Rwanda. Jane said, “Have I told you how they treated me the first time I visited their project a couple weeks ago?”

Uh oh, I thought to myself. What happened?

I said to Jane, “No I haven’t heard, tell me.” She smiled and said, “They were very rude.” I thought oh no, this is not going to be good. “But I prayed for them because I know I needed to just be patient. I understood the women just wanted to go home from work.” She said. “So I was patient with them.” She said again, with a big smile on her face.

I thought to myself, this woman is wise beyond her 32 years.

She proceeded, “So before they came to visit BURANGA, I gathered our women together and told them, ‘We need to honor the visitors that are coming to see us today. We need to welcome them very well and make them feel at home here at BURANGA. We have talked about being leaders and teaching other women. Now is our time to be good examples.” They all agreed and welcomed the visitors as warmly as if they were old friends.

After Jane showed the visitors around the BURANGA Center they sat to talk about business. The leaders of BURANGA sat with the leaders of the other cooperative and they shared ideas, problems and solutions. Jane shared that the BURANGA women do not get jealous of each other anymore because they have become a family, so when one woman makes more necklaces than another they celebrate in the accomplishment because it means they have all improved. If one succeeds they all succeed. The leader from the other cooperative said, “Wow you are very good people! That is amazing that you take care of each other that way.” She then asked Jane, “So what do you do when someone is sick and does not work at all?” (This is a common problem for both groups since many of the women are HIV positive). Jane answered, “We take care of her if she is sick. If someone has a baby she takes 2 months off and still gets paid. If she is sick we make sure she is ok, and she comes back to work when she is healthy.”

“You people are like God!” A member of the other organization exclaimed.

Jane laughed. “No, we are family. It’s simple. We take care of each other so that we all can move forward.”

I interrupted Jane trying to hide the tears welling up in my eyes, and said, “Jane this is huge. Yes it’s a simple story but you are living Ubuntu and you are showing others that it truly is possible to do so. You are true leaders and with humility and kindness you have shown others Ubuntu. When Jared and I first talked about what KEZA could be, this is what we talked about. We talked about you being leaders and being examples of Jesus to others through your business and the community you’ve created in BURANGA.”

Jared said, “Yes exactly. You are living like Jesus, you aren’t just talking about Him, but you are showing others his message by living it. Jesus lived the gospel, He didn’t just talk about it. And He expects us to do the same. The first followers of Jesus lived in community like this and took care of each other just as you are doing now.”

Jane continued, “At the end of the meeting the leader from the other cooperative apologized for how they treated me when I visited them. I told her not to worry, that I understand and that I forgive them.”

I couldn’t find the words to express to Jane how deeply her story had touched me. It touches a place deep in my heart where there is a reservoir of desire for how women are viewed in the world, especially in Africa. This simple gesture of showing kindness to someone who has wronged you. To welcoming others, not as a threat, but as family. And at last, of how the women of BURANGA truly care for each other.

They have come a long way in the 3 years they’ve been working together…and have made the biggest leaps in the last year. Through our tribulations last year we were forced to unite. Race or tribe was no longer an issue. No longer are cliques acceptable. No longer are the women competing in a way that harm their competitors, envious if one succeeds. But rather they learned that together they are stronger and can truly pull themselves out of the poverty that has plagued much of their lives. When one is strong, she pulls the weak with her, and in turn when she grows weary, the weak she once pulled with her can now pull her along.

KEZA’S HEART

As I look back on the last year, I am struck by a number of things. Sisters of Rwanda’s morph into KEZA has been so much more than a name change. In August we experienced a tragedy that shattered all of our hearts. The women of KEZA came to us to share a reality that has had immeasurably devastating consequences. Our gratefulness runs deep and wide for their courage to expose the reality that was taking place within the organization. They told us that Co-Founder & Pastor , Joseph Ayienga and General Manager, Margaret Karara were stealing from the organization, using the name to raise funds under false pretenses, pocketing money allocated for school fees and verbally abusing the women. The Directors of the organization and the remaining team members were both shocked and deeply saddened by this betrayal.

The aftermath of this has been a tiresome journey, each of us trying to balance the uneasy volatility of their retaliation to the exposure, full of lies, slander and false accusations.

But the heart of this story lies not in the horrible abuse being heaped on the organization, its leaders and the women, the true heart of this story has left us humbled and awed by the strength, courage and resilience of our women yet again. Despite consistent threats and being kicked out of the church they’ve attended for almost 2 years, the women have stood their ground. They believe in KEZA…they believe in what we are doing together and in the family we’ve built. But most importantly they believe in each other. In our last newsletter I described walls being broken down as the women embraced a spirit of healing in their own lives. Little did we know how deep that spirit of healing would have to journey in each of our hearts over the next few months. But she has journeyed with us. Our family at KEZA has never been so strong. The women have defended the honor of our President & Founder Jared Miller as false accusations continue to fly at him day and night. They have stood in the gap, in a place where only they could stand. They fought hard, both on their knees and in local government offices telling the truth about the controversy time and time again.

In 1910 Theodore Roosevelt said: “It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

This quote spoke to me yesterday as I reflected on the journey Sisters of Rwanda…now KEZA, has taken over the last couple years. We have made mistakes yes. But we have learned from them, and though mistakes are seemingly devastating at the time we face them, their teaching is immense. We find ourselves covered in dust and sweat and blood often, not because we are doing something wrong, but because we are doing something each of us deeply believes in. The women of KEZA are daring greatly to overcome generations of abuse and poverty in their lives. They are daring to believe that they can make some of the finest fashion in the world. They are daring to embrace each other despite deep pain that once cause division amongst them. They are daring to believe in a God who will see them through anything. And alas, though few have in the past, they are daring to believe in themselves.