Pastor and prison minister Deogratias Gashagaza is known in Rwanda as a type of Mother Teresa figure. God has used him, perhaps more than anyone else, to bring reconciliation between Hutus and Tutsis since the 1994 genocide during which at least 800,000 Tutsis (and moderate Hutus) were massacred by rampaging Hutus. Pastor Deo lost 45 members of his own family.

I'm tagging along in East Africa with three of Heaven's Family's finest: my wife, Becky, who directs our Refugee Ministry, Diane Scott, who directs our Safe Water Ministry and Food Ministry, and Mel Miller, who has recently joined our staff after retiring as a career pilot for American Airlines. Mel is being trained to take over directorship of the Refugee Ministry as it has exceeded Becky's time capacity.

In my last blog, I told you the story of how American Joseph Zanetti began serving the Badjao people who live in a section of the Isla Verde slum on the Philippine coast of Davao City. It was the Badjao who first built their stilted huts, decades ago, over waters that were then teeming with tropical fish.

In August of 1983, at the age of 15, Joseph Zanetti walked forward during an evangelistic crusade in his hometown in North Carolina and "invited Jesus into his heart." The trouble was, although what Joseph did was common in the Bible Belt, it was foreign to the Bible.

I am now on the Philippine's most southern significant island, Mindanao, and Heaven's Family's primary contacts here are American missionary Gary Hawkins and his Filipina wife, Lyn. Gary has been serving in the Philippines for 4 years, but I've known him since 2008.

Any time that I visit Mexico missionaries Jason and Nicole Fitzpatrick, there is one special little girl whom I must always see. Her name is Irasema Flores Ramirez.