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History of sentbychrist.org
Feel free to contact Dave Nims
The 'sentbychrist.org' domain name was orginally purchased in 2001, and the purpose was to document the activities of the various missionaries supported by New Life Center, the church Carol and I were attending in Everett, WA. When we moved to Sherwood, OR in 2005, I maintained contact with Margaret Nelson, a Christian nurse who had moved to Uganda, and was/is heavily involved with a local church. Originally my website was her primary means for documenting her activities there, but eventually she started creating her own newsletter and started posting it online. So, at present, my role is simply to maintain an archive for her monthly newsletters. Learn all about Margaret's impressive work in Uganda and read her newsletters.
In Sherwood, we attended Countryside Church. Countryside had partnered with Africa New Life, a ministry founded by Rwandan Charles Mugisha after the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Carol and I supported this ministry, and I began to learn more about Rwanda and the genocide. It was then I learned that there was another ethnic group in Rwanda, other than the Hutu's, who were the agressors in the genocide, and the Tutsi's, who were the victims. This ethnic group, the Batwa, were pygmies, and those in Rwanda were part of a larger population known as the Great Lakes Twa. Though they are rarely mentioned in discussions of the genocide, approximately 1/3 of the Batwa of Rwanda were murdered by the Hutu during the genocide.
During one of his trips to Rwanda, Senior Pastor Paul Duppenthaler of Countryside was teaching at ANL's College of Theology. There he met Pastor Charles Uwiragiye, one of his students. Pastor Charles was an ethnic Batwa, and shared his vision for GRACE, his outreach to the remote Batwa villages in Rwanda, with Pastor Paul. Aware of my interest in helping the Batwa, Pastor Paul e-introduced me to Pastor Charles. This was the beginning of my support to Pastor Charles' GRACE ministry, which is ongoing, and has been joined by the support of Pastor Vic Cline and the members of our current church, the Butte Evangelical Free Church in Butte, MT. Learn about the Batwa, the Twa of Rwanda, and the ongoing support of Pastor Charles' GRACE ministry.
After the 2020 elections, Carol and I were shocked by the election fraud and irregularities that resulted in Joe Biden becoming President of the United States, instead of President Trump serving a second term. As with millions of others, we decided that grass-roots activism was the only thing that could prevent similar tactics from impacting future elections. Thus Butte in Action was formed, a loose association of church friends and other like-minded acquaintances, with the objective of exerting influence on legislators to ensure local/state election integrity and that laws and policies will reflect the values of our group. sentbychrist.org is used to keep the group advised of action needed on various legislative issues, to maintain a list of websites relevant to the group, and to maintain a schedule of upcoming events. Learn of the activities associated with Butte in Action.