One of the most powerful experiences during our trip was visiting many of the genocide memorials and
especially, the village of reconciliation. It
was almost too terrible to even imagine some of the stories that were told to
us, too horrible to believe that the mounds of blood-stained clothes, piles of
skulls and bones, and remnants of scar-bearing buildings were not just a story.
To give some background, years of escalating rivalry in Rwanda were propitiated by a
colonialism that separated and assigned class based on physical
characteristics. As two primary groups, the Hutu and Tutsi, emerged and were
treated differently based on their identification, the stage was set for the
brewing of hatred and resentment against one another. Generations later, with
widespread propaganda and tensions higher than ever, the government declared
that the Tutsi minority had killed the president, were trying to overthrow the
government, and were out to get the Hutu. Many of the majority Hutu population
accepted the challenge exclaimed by radicals, to eliminate the Tutsi people. In
an unfathomable step of fate, over 1 million Tutsi people were hacked by
machetes, shot, raped, tortured, and killed in less than 100 days.
After the
genocide, because so many had become involved (most of the men in the village
would be recruited to kill in mobs with the alternative often being to face
death themselves), there were so many people guilty of crimes that the prisons
would never be able to hold all of them and the country would never be able to
support them all in jail. In an attempt to solve this issue, the president
issued a ruling based on a traditional system of judgment, called Gachacha
court. In these, all the people, friends, and family affected by the crime come
to hear what the perpetrator has to say. If the perpetrators sincerely asks for
forgiveness, the people can choose to reduce the sentence or even let them go
free. Around the same time that this was going on, many pastors began to visit
the jails preaching the message of Christ’s forgiveness. They began encouraging
the perpetrators to receive forgiveness from God and then ask forgiveness from
those whom they wronged. In addition, the pastors went to the victims, helping
them to lay all bitterness, anger, and hate at the foot of the cross, and
receive healing themselves.
More than
anyone could have imagined, people began to realize the full power of the
forgiveness of Christ, ask victims for forgiveness, and forgive those who were
their perpetrators. Unlike the world has ever seen, light began penetrating the
darkness within this place.
After
visiting the genocide memorials and many of the churches where thousands and
thousands of people were murdered in ways I shall not even write about here, we
left in a state of somber shock and sadness. On the ride to the village of
reconciliation, no one spoke, no one smiled, and the rain that fell from the
sky outside seamed to echo how we felt inside. Yet when we arrived, the rain
had stopped, and as we got out of the bus, our ears were filled with the sound
of instruments and voices singing melodious shouts, and our sight was filled
with colors and the motion of people dancing in joyful movement. The sudden
change of emotion was surprising enough, but wasn't this the village where
perpetrators and victims live next to one another? We looked around, unable to
tell perpetrator from victim, and were floored by the understanding that these
people could go through something worse than we could have ever imagined, and
be rejoicing such as this.
As people stood up to give their testimonies, perpetrators
claimed turning from a life of hate, nightmares, and shame, to one of complete
repentance, standing forgiven as a child of Christ. Victims stood exclaiming
answers to our questions with statements such as, “How could I have not chosen to forgive, after
being forgiven of so much myself by Jesus Christ. I will choose to be faithful
with what God has told me to do, and trust that He alone will judge.” When asked how
they view one another now, they smiled as they proclaimed that they see one
another as one family. They even go so far as to leave their kids when they go
into town to work, with those who had killed their whole family in the
genocide. The children from both sides have even gotten married. People no
longer see themselves as Hutu or Tutsi, but as one people, as Rwandan. This was one of the most real visual displays of the gospel I
have ever seen.
During the genocide, Rwanda fell as far down that they could,
and hit rock bottom. But because of this, they have been able to build a new
foundation that is firm. Even more, they
have recovered to a place that is
even stronger than ever could have been, had the genocide never happened. Not
only are they beginning to work in other countries to promote unity, dissipate
ethnic rivalry, and prevent violence from occurring again, but
they also have been building up the entire infrastructure of their country. And
most of all, their testament to the power of forgiveness that comes through
Jesus Christ, stands as a beacon for all of the world to see.
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