RWANDA: Boys from Garbage Dump Start Gospel Music Group

Garbage and filth surrounded their makeshift shanty in a small-scale dump in Kigali, Rwanda. Five years ago, three street boys, David, Pacifique, and D’Amour, lived in this squalor, their minds obsessed with survival and numbing their pain.

“They had no hope before they came to us,” says Hilliary Anderson, founder of Hope for Life Ministry (HFLM), based in Kigali. HFLM’s aim is to transform the lives of vulnerable street kids by providing housing, Christian counseling and discipleship, and resources to break the chains of poverty.

Last year the three boys formed a gospel band called Shining Hope and produced their first song, “You Are Precious,” singing about their transformed lives since they began to follow Jesus.

“When we recorded this song they were so excited,” Anderson notes. “They never believed anything like this could happen.”