Her story… She is strong and gentle. She is quiet, and speaks up when needed. Her name Is Sylvie from Kigali, Rwanda. We sat down one evening after evening tea she wanted to tell us her story. She said she has been writing everything down since it all happened.
She calls her story “The Journey of the Cross”. It’s a long story she says, we lived in south province here in Kigali. I married the love of my life in December 1993 and was pregnant with our first child when they began to kill house by house. Sylvie’s family was killed right before her eyes, her husband, father, brothers and sisters. Her and one of her older sisters were the only survivors. Her life was spared the first time because the killers wanted to sell her instead. Sylvie was at gunpoint many times and had a blade at her throat even more. Sylvie was a Christian then and constantly prayed, but she explained that there were several times she just wanted someone to kill her. She said; the thought of jumping in the river even crossed my mind, but I knew that was a sin. Sylvie was stripped from her clothes and walked around for days naked and hungry. Sylvie said the entire time I walked the villages filled with death, God took care of me.
After a long traumatizing 100 days of being sold, beat, humiliated, scared Sylvie somehow dodged death.
I live with Sylvie this month she invited a group of 7 missionaries to stay in her home. She has loved us well and confided in us even more intimate stories than the genocide. She has lived a life that most wouldn’t even survive the first day off. Since the genocide she has remarried, had four children adopted two genocide orphans and teaches young adults sewing and basic cleaning skills. Sylvie is a woman of valor, a woman that offers love and peace with her smile. After all that she has been through, this women still loves. Everyday when she serves us tea, with simple words and broken English, she says; I love GOD.
There are many sites you can get information on the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda. Please pray for the survivors and the generations to come here I beautiful Rwanda. Every home here has a story like this. Sylvie told me once, I only share my story with people that aren’t from here, because if we share our story with our neighbors it doesn’t make a difference we all have the same story, some even worse.
If you’ve been up all night and cried til you have no more tears left in you- you will know that there comes in the end a sort of quietness. C.S. Lewis
