Colfax grad to speak on Rwandan mission

Scott Edinger, a 1995 graduate of Colfax High School, is speaking this Sunday at the Country Bible Church in Dusty about a two-year mission to Rwanda on which he and his family will embark early next year.

Currently, Edinger is the family life pastor at Northside Community Church in Newberg, Ore. Edinger is speaking at several churches where he and his wife Natasha have attended in the hopes of raising support for their mission to Rwanda.

“I’ll be training the pastors and church leaders in Rwanda, and I’ll be helping to provide ministry opportunities for training them,” he told the Gazette.

Edinger will speak at the 11 a.m. service Sunday, July 17, at the church in Dusty.

The 35-year-old pastor said he became curious about missions work after reading a book called The Hole in Our Gospel by World Vision CEO Richard Stearns.

“In there, he has a lot of details about life around the world. At least for me, he opened up my eyes to how the rest of the world lives life,” Edinger said. “I read that book about two years ago and felt like I was supposed to do something.”

The Edinger family, and their three children, aged eight, five and three, is now raising money for a planned departure to Rwanda next January. They’ll be serving with a mission organization called Free Methodist World Mission. The Free Methodist Church has more than 200 churches in Rwanda with native pastors.

Edinger said after the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, the ministry of many pastors suffered. Edinger hopes to instruct the native pastors on clearer methods of teaching Christian scripture.

“They just don’t have the resources or manpower to teach or facilitate those classes,” he said.

“We’re pretty excited to hear where they are going to go with their little family. We’re excited about them being called to the mission field,” said Floyd Overstreet, pastor of the church in Dusty.

Country Bible Church partially supports six other missions, both in the U.S. and overseas.

Edinger’s father, Palmer Edinger, is the song leader at the Dusty church. His mother, Betty Edinger, resides in Uniontown.