About the Column "Rwanda's Smile"
In 1994, ethnic conflict led to genocide in Rwanda. Since then, international support and growing coffee and IT industries have helped Rwanda keep the peace, and the country is sometimes called "the Rwandan miracle."
At Green Pastures, our theme is "Connecting with Rwanda through coffee." Through coffee, we have been actively supporting the people of Rwanda. We believe this miracle rests on a spirit of love that Rwandans hold dear: loving God and helping one another. If that same spirit of love lives in each person's heart, then our lives, our communities and our nations can be at peace.
Green Pastures started this column as a place to learn that spirit. If you have any thoughts or comments, please send them to us through our contact page. — Kusaba
"Character Produces Hope"
1 From Despair to Hope
"Life takes unexpected turns. It doesn't go the way we want it to. Yet when we entrust ourselves to God's hands and move forward one step at a time, we sometimes find that, before we know it, our despair has turned into hope."
The novelist Ayako Miura wrote these words about her own experience. Her life was full of trials. From the age of 17, she spent seven years as an elementary school teacher, devoted to militaristic education. After the war, guilt and despair led her to resign. Soon after, she developed both pulmonary tuberculosis and spinal caries, which kept her in recovery for 13 years. She lay confined to a plaster body cast, and during that struggle she came to believe in Christ and was baptized. Having found hope to live from the depths of despair, she left the hospital and became a writer. Her work kept returning to two questions: "What is sin? What is love?" Her books have sold more than 42 million copies in Japan and abroad.
While I was studying in Australia, a Christian classmate recommended her novels. I borrowed the English translations of Shiokari Pass and The Wind Is Howling from the university library. They moved me deeply. Later I, too, came to believe in Christ, and I found hope where there had been despair.
2 Character Produces Hope
"…suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope."
(Romans 5:3–4)
Paul, who went through many severe trials, wrote these words. He calls this hope "the hope of the glory of God" (Romans 5:2).
"For it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose."
(Philippians 2:13)
The hope that character produces is not our own wish. It is God's desire, God's hope. Because God Himself fulfills it, this hope will never end in disappointment.
Why, then, does character produce God's hope? The Japanese Bible uses a word for "character" that can also be rendered "proven character," and in English it is simply character. As we endure suffering, our character is refined. This is the process of dying to self and living in Christ. Through it, the "inner being" that is born anew as a child of God through faith in Christ is woven together with the Spirit of Christ, who dwells within. In this way, the "God of hope" Himself fills us to overflowing with His hope (Romans 15:13).
"And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."
(2 Corinthians 3:18)
"But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit."
(1 Corinthians 6:17)
"Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it."
(1 Corinthians 12:27)
In short, it is the process by which, through the work of the Holy Spirit, God and people are made one in heart and body: a union of God and humanity.
3 God Is the Potter
To put it another way, God is the potter and we are the clay (Isaiah 64:8). As the potter, God uses suffering to temper the clay, which is us, and make it strong. Through perseverance, He works His own character into ours. The process of turning worthless clay into a valuable vessel can be painful to the point of despair. But once it is complete, the clay becomes a precious, shining "vessel of God." That is why the Bible tells us again and again to rejoice in our trials, and even to consider them "pure joy" (James 1:2).
"Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him."
(James 1:12)
Mitsuo Sasaki (Legal Advisor, Green Pastures)