HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Situated along the banks of the Nyabarongo River, a primary tributary of the Nile, in a remote, heavily populated, agricultural region of westcentral Rwanda, the parish of Kirinda serves as one of the primary centers for the Presbyterian Church in Rwanda (EPR). In 1907, King Musinga granted land and authorization to German missionaries from the Bethel Lutheran mission to establish two Protestant stations in Rwanda, including one on a hill called Kirinda in Nyantango, a region only recently incorporated into the Rwandan kingdom during the reign of Musinga's father. Nyantango remained largely independent and rebellious. As Danielle de Lame writes, “The region of Kirinda was… an enclave little assimilated into the administration of the central kingdom.” Hence, Musinga apparently hoped that locating a Protestant mission at Kirinda could contribute to his efforts to centralize his rule, just as the missions of the White Fathers in Rwaza and Nyundo had done.

Kirinda quickly became the main center for Protestant missionary activity in Rwanda. By the time the German Protestant missionaries were forced out of Rwanda during World War I, they had begun to gather a core of converts, counting sixty members in Kirinda, and had established a growing number of mission outposts around Rwanda. With the departure of the missionaries, however, the congregation at Kirinda swiftly fell into decline.