Katie Blount

Katie is a licensed veterinary technician from Texas who grew up working with livestock and learning the importance of using everything that the animal produces whether waste, milk, or offspring. She worked in a small animal practice for several years and as she developed her veterinary technician skills, she also began to feel a call to the nations.  Katie's call to long-term missions was confirmed though a connection at the CVM booth during a conference and participation in a local church where she was able to serve on the missions team and participate in a short-term mission trip with CVM. In 2021, she went to CVM's Short Course where she learned more about serving cross-culturally in long-term missions and shortly thereafter began her journey to Rwanda where she will be serving at a local vocational school. 

Katie is encouraged by this verse, "And Jesus said to him, "'If you can?' All things are possible for one who believes." Mark 9:23. 

My Work

In Rwanda, Katie plans to serve with Rwanda Rise at Hope Vocational Training Center where she will work with students and their parents to raise goats and chicken to help alleviate financial poverty. The vision God has given Katie is to show these students how to use goat milk to make soap and sell it at local markets in packaging with a gospel message.  The school would also like to start a chicken coop as an income-generating project. Katie hopes that the coop project will be a good opportunity for her to develop relationships with the parents.

My Partner

Rwanda Rise was set-up after the genocide in Rwanda when the founder, Emmanuel Sitaki, returned home from university in the Republic of Congo and realized that many children didn’t have food, a place to live, or a way to receive an education. Over the years, the program continued to grow and develop and, in 2008, Hope Vocational Training Center was established. Hope Vocational Training Center is a government accredited program that offers certificates in hairdressing, sewing/tailoring, culinary arts, construction, and welding. Students in the program are sponsored as they complete their program and part of their support comes in the form of livestock that are distributed to the students for ongoing training and income-generation.