Eraste's Journey

by Doug Roland

SMMS’s newest staff addition is Dr. Eraste Niyirimana, Acting Head of the Biblical Studies Department. He comes to us from Rwanda, but the journey getting here was long and circuitous.

Born in 1957, five years before independence from Belgium, Eraste grew up in the foothills of southern Rwanda. His was a close family located in a community of subsistence farmers. They grew and lived on a diet of lentils, beans and sweet potatoes. His father, a lay Anglican minister, built two houses with mud walls, one with a grass roof and the other with tires and other material. Both were built on the rock of his faith, passed on to his children.

Eraste enjoyed the freedom of the year round outdoor life that rural living provides. In addition to soccer and traditional children’s games, he would strip the layers off the trunk of banana trees and use them to slide down the grassy hillsides. He was happy being in a big family and had no aspirations or dreams of what he might do one day. Just having food to eat was enough. This would change went he was sent to an Anglican Missionary school. A lifelong love affair with education had begun.

After completing primary school, followed by teacher training school, he taught grades 4 – 8 for four years. During this time he attended a camp sponsored by Scriptural Union, a global organization with the mission of bringing the Bible to remote areas. It was at the camp that he met, and later married Rose, his wife of 31 years.

He didn’t see himself as a career teacher. He was nagged by a feeling that there was more for him to do. He knew instinctively that taking the next step meant more training. With the encouragement and aid of his bishop, he entered university at Butare, then later to the main campus in Kigali where he studied law and received his license. The bishop’s plan was for him to be a legal advisor to the church. The war of 1990 changed everything.

The church granted him permission to begin work for the government of Rwanda and move to Kigali. He worked in a department that provided legal advice to the three branches of government in this relatively new democracy. It was heady stuff for a young man fresh out of school. After a year, he was moved to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, again for the purpose of handling legal issues, but as the war droned on without resolution, the government became highly politicized. Unbiased, neutral suggestions were no longer welcomed. The culture of cooperation vanished. Reluctantly, he left his position to join the staff of Compassion International, an NGO based in the U.S. focused on the needs of children worldwide.

Meanwhile, the bishop was having second thoughts about Eraste’s legal career. He advised that he wanted Eraste to go into full-time ministry, but before the bishop’s plan materialized, the genocide started.

Compassion International heeded its staff’s request to flee Rwanda and operate from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Dangerous under any circumstance, the situation was made more difficult by the fact that Eraste and Rose were from competing factions – Hutu’s and Tutsi’s. Any move would be perilous.Their security was at risk whether in Rwanda or in a refugee camp in the DRC. Nevertheless, “the Lord kept us safe in the DRC”.

As the genocide ebbed somewhat, the NGO was eager for Eraste and Rose to return to Rwanda. It was a risk he refused to take. This decision left him and his family stranded, no job, no home to return to, no prospects. In this very dark time in his life, he did not despair. Rather he did what his father would have done – he cried out to God. He persevered in his faith. God returned the call with an invitation to enter full-time ministry.

The “call” rarely materializes quickly. For Eraste and his family, there were no prospects, no aid, no help, just a still, small voice. Again he did not despair for he placed his faith where he had before – in the power of education to lift him up. This time though, his goal was the ministry, an acceptance of the invitation.

He applied to a seminary in Nairobi, Kenya, and was accepted. He had no apparent way to get there or ability to pay the deposit. Eraste and Rose “ . . . took our request to God, asking for his provision from January, 1995 to August, 1995.” Shortly after, they received a gift of money from a friend. It was enough to pay for tickets for Rose and the two younger children to fly to Nairobi. Two months later, another friend, who was hosting Rose and the children, helped Eraste and the remaining children to make the trip and reunite the family.

Once in Nairobi, Eraste made contact with a friend who was planning a trip back home to Rwanda. Through that visit, his “home” bishop, probably with a wry grin on his face, sent a little money to Eraste. It was enough to pay the deposit and gain admission. The seminary provided accommodations and once he was placed, he also was granted a scholarship. Three years later, he obtained his M.Div. degree.

Rose had enrolled in the same seminary after Eraste. While he was waiting in Nairobi tending to the children, a friend from South Africa came to Kenya for a meeting and sought out Eraste who brought him up to date. This led to a meeting with a man looking to fill a position at a seminary in Nigeria. Eraste followed up and in 2000, the family moved again.

The position involved supervision of graduate students. After being a refugee and student for several years, it was a badly-needed job. He performed as required but he knew he was capable of more, and he knew to what had to do - more training. He began applying to schools to study for his Ph.D. He was admitted at Sheffield in the UK but had no money. Yet, this determined man would not be denied taking the next step. With the perseverance, character and hope Paul describes in Romans, he applied to the University of KwaZulu Natal where he was admitted and obtained a scholarship. His Ph.D. in Biblical Studies was awarded in 2010.

No description of Eraste would be complete without a further note. His wife Rose, fondly known as Mama Rose, is now a staff member at ESSA, another seminary in Pietermaritzburg. She hopes to complete her Ph.D. in New Testament by the end of this year. Of their seven children, three have finished their undergraduate training (one is a teacher), one is in post-graduate studies, and four are in varsity.

Eraste was asked if there anything that he would want to change, if he could. He answered that we wished there had been no war as he wanted to serve in his homeland.