A gift of hope

As 6-year-old Alex Nsengimana watched his home being brutally attacked, he thought, “Why are these people doing this to us?”
Nsengimana was born and raised in the country of Rwanda at a time when tribal unrest and genocide were at their peak, but he could not fathom why the neighbors he knew so well would act so violently. After witnessing the murder of his grandmother and uncle, Nsengimana and his two siblings fled for safety.
“I can still remember … hiding in the bushes and abandoned buildings,” he said. “But along the way, God continued to miraculously protect us.”
Nsengimana’s aunt placed him in an orphanage, where he lived among 250 other children who had also lost loved ones in the violence. It was there, in 1995, where Nsengimana experienced the love of Jesus through small items that had been placed in an Operation Christmas Child (OCC) shoebox – the very first gift he had ever received.

Given from the heart
“One of the most important items that I got was a comb. It was so unique,” he remembered. “On one side it had a brush, then on another side it had a little pick. I always carried that comb with me.”
Nsengimana also discovered a watercolor set in the shoebox. Painting helped him process the violence and bloodshed he had left behind.
“Our minds were full of trauma,” he recalled. “When we got to have those watercolors, we were able to create new memories.”
But the most important shoebox gift he received that day was the seed of hope and love of Christ that was planted in his heart through OCC.
“It was years later that God sent people to disciple me,” he said. “Then my faith continued to grow into a relationship with my heavenly Father.”

Wrapped in the gospel
Today, Nsengimana serves with OCC to spread the same hope and love he once received through a shoebox.
In 2013, he traveled back to Rwanda to deliver shoeboxes to the same orphanage where he grew up.
“It was such an exciting time when we got to share the gospel with the kids,” he recalled. “I saw one child opening his box in the same place that I stood as a 7-year-old. It always encourages me to know that through Operation Christmas Child, kids are getting to hear about Jesus Christ.”
On that same trip to Rwanda, the Lord providentially sent Nsengimana to deliver the good news of Jesus to someone who had played a painful part of his childhood.
“I got to go to [a] prison and found out the guy who killed my uncle was still there,” Nsengimana explained. “We were able to share what Christ did and plant the same seeds that were planted in my life by that Operation Christmas Child shoebox gift.
“The gospel is also for him, and if he can repent of what he’s done, God can forgive him, just like He forgave me,” Nsengimana added. “That’s how powerful the gift is. It plants the seed of Jesus Christ to transform lives, and anyone can be a part of this.”