This week Sue and I set out again on some travels... this time to Rwanda. We packed in the dark (our electricity has been very scattered lately) and boarded a night bus at 3am to take us with nine of the people we have been working with to a conference/Wilson Bugembe concert (by the way, the music video we're in has been airing on several different television stations, and all the time we get asked on the street if we're the mzungus in the Ugandan music video) It was so much fun travelling with our Ugandan friends, even at 3 in the morning on a bumpy, hilly, cliff ridden bus ride.
Many people are still very uninformed about the happenings in Rwanda in spring of 1994... I was until seeing the movie "Hotel Rwanda" but here's a brief history if you didn't know. (it's from wikipedia.com)
"The Rwandan Genocide was the 1994 mass extermination of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutu Sympathizers in Rwanda and was the largest atrocity during the Rwandan Civil War. This genocide was mostly carried out by two extremist Hutu militia groups, the Interahamwe and the Impuzamugambi, during a period of about 100 days from April 6 through mid-July 1994. Over 500,000 Tutsis and thousands of moderate Hutus died in the genocide,[1] with some reports estimating the number of victims to be between 800,000 and 1,000,000.[2]
In the wake of the Rwandan Genocide, the United Nations and the international community in general drew severe criticism for its inaction. Despite international news media coverage of the violence as it unfolded, most countries, including France, Belgium, and the United States, declined to intervene or speak out against the massacres. Canada continued to lead the UN peacekeeping force in Rwanda, United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR). However, the UN did not authorize UNAMIR to intervene or use force to prevent or halt the killing.
The genocide ended when a Tutsi-dominated expatriate rebel movement known as the Rwandan Patriotic Front, led by Paul Kagame, overthrew the Hutu government and seized power. Fearing reprisals, hundreds of thousands of Hutu and other refugees fled into eastern Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). Ethnic hatreds that fueled the Rwandan Genocide quickly spilled over into Congo, fueling the First and Second Congo Wars. Rivalry between Hutu and Tutsi tribal factions is also a major factor in the Burundi Civil War."
I highly recommend the movie "Hotel Rwanda" to really visualize the horrificness of the events that occured there. In fact we visited the hotel the movie is based on during our short two day visit. Upon entering Rwanda a strange feeling filled our hearts and it lingered there for the duration of our stay. We were encountering a generation of people that have lived through things we can't even imagine, and as we visited genocide museums, mass graves, and just sat and listened as people told their stories it forever impacted the way we look at the hardships we encounter.
Unbelievable stories of women who held their children as they were hacked to death by a machete, people who were forced to kill their loved ones, and then be tortured and killed themselves, children who watched their parents die terrible deaths, and now are orphans with scarred memories. Not one person in all of Rwanda escapes the effects of that brutal extermination, all have friends and family that were victims, and murderers. We attended a church in a village just north of Kigali, the capital, and were overwhelmed with the open arms that accepted us... These people were incredible, they gave us everything, from places to stay, to food, to tours, to an image of what it truly means to be joyful. Lately I feel i've let my heart become hardened by the different cynicisms I've developed, and the Rwandan people
inadvertenly exposed that in me, and it drove me to my knees. I have absolutely nothing to not be joyful about, and these people have everything to be resentful about... and we'd somehow switched places. Those two days in Rwanda brought down walls Sue and i have been building for a lifetime. Walls of cynicism, pain, callousness, selfishness, and resentment, walls that had the right to be demolished, because there's no need for them in the all encomapassing joy of our Lord.
Our last night we ate dinner with much of the congregation and as we concluded our time together, we prayed over our journey, and their church, and we ended by singing "Because He Lives" acapella, and the sounds of those voices will echo through my thoughts for years and years to come, and the tear stained eyes that sang them will be impressed on my memory for just as long. We took another bus home early yesterday morning, and Sue and I processed through our experience in that beautiful country with beautiful people, and even more beautiful souls hoping to return as soon as possible.
As the days dwindle, we look forward to the conclusion of our trip, and the things the end has in store. Look for at least one more update, and then look for us at home :) we love you all very much.
Because He lives,
Nicole and Susan
