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As one of hundreds of thousands of orphans left in the wake of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, Chantal Nyiraneza knows the necessity of relying on God’s care – and the joy of extending that care to others. Like so many Rwandans, Chantal found herself grieving the loss of her parents even as she faced the unexpected responsibility of caring for her two younger brothers and a cousin.
Rather than resenting her newfound responsibilities, Chantal saw them as opportunities to extend God’s love. In the 16 years since the genocide, she has continued to share this love, and the number of people she supports has only grown. Several years ago, she married another genocide survivor, whose two younger siblings joined the family. Together the couple adopted yet another orphan and had three biological children.
In order to help support their large family, Chantal started selling milk, sodas, and African tea to bicycle taxi riders and other passersby. A natural entrepreneur, Chantal soon saw that her limited menu was not attracting new customers. Undaunted, Chantal took out a HOPE loan of $35. With this money, she slowly began to introduce various food items to the menu, including roasted goat meat, fish, and chicken.
Just as Chantal predicted, business has increased exponentially with this expanded menu. Currently on her 18th loan, Chantal now roasts two goats a day to keep up with the demand of her 200 customers, and her restaurant makes more money each day than she took out in her original loan. Chantal’s profits help provide food, clothes, and school fees for her nine children, and she has also built a new home that is large enough to comfortably house the entire family.’
As Chantal’s situation has improved, she has in turn been directly responsible for improving the lives of her community members. Over the years, her restaurant has employed 28 people, and rather than viewing them as competition, she has encouraged each of them to use their experience at her restaurant to start their own business.
With her encouragement and help, 20 of them have done so, forming a community bank to take out HOPE loans themselves. Chantal glorifies God for her own success and the help she has been able to give these former employees. “There is no way I could have changed my history without God’s help. God has done this that you see today.” With God’s help, Chantal dreams of expanding her business to other underserved areas, spreading the impact of her business to many more individuals and helping to rebuild her country one person at a time.
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