Healing Hearts and Minds- by Ruth Bundy
During our PVT we visited the Genocide Memorial which commemorates the victims of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide and other genocides in history. Honestly, this place is a sad testament to the worst of human kind. Unlike other museums, you leave this place with a deep sense of grief and loss.
Fast forward to the end of our PVT. My husband and I stayed a few extra days to visit one of the local Compassion International centers outside Kigali in Ruhanga; our guide Edward tells me it is only a few kilometers from Pastor John’s church. The center staff was extremely welcoming and friendly and shared exactly what $38 dollars a month does on the ground in country. Our family sponsors 6 children in Africa, and I have participated in sponsorship programs at my church to encourage others to sponsor kids. Praise God! We left the center with the names of 6 children who were waiting for sponsors in this village. I shared their names in an email with some of the other parents from PVT. When I arrived at home and checked the Compassion website, all of the children were sponsored!
Our visit in Ruhanga ended with a tour of the local genocide memorial across the street from the center. One of the local church members is on the community Compassion board and is the caretaker / guide for memorial. The building is a former church and is about the size of a community gym. When you enter, the entire floor is marble with a raised marble crypt – about 2 feet – that is almost the size of the room. There is a door that leads you down into the crypt where casket after casket is stacked. 39,000 people are buried here with at least 15,000 from the village. Multiple remains are in each casket. As the country develops, more remains are uncovered, and the government is paying locals to build an addition to the burial facilities at this time. When we entered the room, there were about a dozen caskets stacked to the left waiting for the new addition.
For 100 days in 1994, the majority Hutu government killed approximately 70% of the Tutsi population, mostly with machetes and knives. In Ruhanga, some of the Tutsi fought back but eventually were tricked and sought refuge in the former church which is currently the memorial. Soldiers were sent to the church and shot into the windows. The church was then set ablaze to make sure no one escaped. 5 children from the village hid under the dead bodies and escaped before being burned. One of these children is a mother in the village who still bears the scars from the machete.
The story is not a Ruhangan story, but the story of a nation. Memorials such as these tell the story of a lost generation. However, it is my opinion that this great tragedy is not the nation’s legacy.
You see, in place after place, it is the story of forgiveness that resonated most for me. After the genocide, the government worked with local churches to provide counseling and healing. Perpetrators who admitted their role and asked forgiveness were forgiven. What a picture of grace! Now, in Rwanda the people will tell you they are not Tutsi or Hutu – just Rwandan.
The restoration of this country is a testament to the power of unmerited grace! As we visited place to place, I constantly thought of our own county, divided by politics, economics, race, etc…….Our government wants no part of God. The Rwandan government sought the churches’ help in moving past this atrocity. And which country is the most progressive?
An unbelievable healing has taken place in Rwanda thanks to God. Just as Christ gave us unmerited forgiveness, brother forgave brother after a great tragedy that could have destroyed the hearts and minds of these people. Our racers have seen bodies healed on this journey, but our God has also healed a country. The church continues to preach the gospel but faces challenges that come with modernization. May God meet these needs as the gospel continues to spread and flourish in Rwanda!
