Shaking Hands With a Killer

{{Passing the equator on the way to Rwanda!
(I'm the baby. :)) }}

Greetings, faithful readers! It’s been awhile since my last post because life has been a complete whirlwind for me over the past few months. Since my return from Uganda at the beginning of May, I have been visiting friends and family in Florida, Illinois, and New York (<< where my big brother just got married!! Holla!), and I also spent a couple of weeks in the Middle East. (Stay tuned for a post on my experience there a little later on!) Needless to say, the rhythm of my life has been a little abnormal as of late…but I’m not complaining, because God’s faithfulness to me has been so abundantly evident through it all! Before I get too much into my post-Uganda life, however, I still have some experiences and insights I’d like to share with you from my time there, beginning with my end-of-the-semester excursion to Rwanda. So sit back (trust me, you’re going to want to be sitting for this one!!), relax, and read on for a tale of incomparable power and incredible hope!

Just over twenty years ago, a very ugly thing – genocide – took place in a very beautiful country – Rwanda, the “land of a thousand hills.” Equally as dazzling as the country’s sweeping landscapes are the Rwandese people, who proudly claim that although God traverses the world by day, He rests in Rwanda at night. With such a strong national pride, it is hard to imagine how Rwanda ever got torn apart as badly as it did in 1994, when 800,000 Rwandans were killed in 100 days…by other Rwandans. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this historical event or with the term, “genocide,” let me give you a little crash course.

Dictionary.com defines genocide as “the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group.” In other words, genocide occurs when a particular group of human beings goes extinct because another group of human beings doesn't like something about them. Though a classic example of genocide is the Holocaust, there have been several other genocides throughout history, including the Bosnian genocide, the Armenian genocide, and our very own Native American genocide (because studies show that genocide is definitely the best way to kick-off a new country…). The tools of genocide range from guns and gas chambers to deprivation and disease, but the one thing that all genocides have in common is that they happen on purpose. A genocide must have a specific blueprint for kill in order to be considered a genocide, and not merely a massacre.

{{The rolling hills of Rwanda!}}

In the case of the Rwandan genocide, the target victims were an ethnic group called Tutsis, and the perpetrators were an ethnic group called Hutus. These two people groups make up the vast majority of the population of Rwanda, and tensions between them had been rising for many years leading up to the 1994 genocide. Basically, when Belgium colonized Rwanda after the First World War, they utilized the Tutsis, who were the slightly wealthier minority at the time, to help them rule. However, just before Rwanda gained its independence from Belgium in 1961, the power structure was flipped, and the Belgians put the majority Hutus in charge. Some time after that, Hutu extremists formed a political party, “Hutu Power,” and began to campaign an ideology of revenge for the many years that the Tutsis had been elevated above them. They used public radio to brainwash ordinary Hutu citizens into believing that Tutsis were “cockroaches” that needed to be “exterminated.” The extremists capitalized on fear tactics, often convincing Hutus that the Tutsis were plotting their own schemes to kill, making it seem necessary for Hutus to kill first.

After having laid a solid foundation for the genocide with such propaganda, the extremists began training and equipping Hutu citizens with machetes, clubs, and other blunt murder weapons with the goal of causing Tutsis to suffer as much pain as possible before drawing their final breaths. Upon the anonymous shoot-down of a plane carrying the presidents of both Rwanda and Burundi on the night of April 6^th, 1994, Hutu Power gave the green light to kill. Literally overnight, neighbors turned against neighbors, even brothers against brothers in some cases, and worst of all…Christians against Christians. Women were raped (systematically by HIV-positive men, no less), babies were smashed to death against walls, men were buried alive in pit latrines, and the horrifying list goes on and on. It turned out to be perhaps the most intimate genocide in history, which is what makes it so incredibly disturbing. Can you even imagine how anyone could do such terrible things to people whom they had grown up alongside and loved?

I couldn't, and my first response to it all was anger. Where have all the educated people gone? How does a person go from soundness of mind one day to hacking their neighbor with a machete the next? Why was the voice of public radio stronger that the voice of God’s spirit within these people? These are some of the questions that ran through my head and made my blood boil as we visited genocide memorials on Good Friday. (Talk about a double whammy!!) In addition to it being Easter Week, the timing of our trip to Rwanda was very significant also because April is the annual, official “month of mourning,” and because 2014 marks the 20^th year anniversary of the genocide. So, I was definitely grateful to be there at such a poignant time, but what I saw, learned, and experienced put me on edge and my emotions ran high.

{{My friend Henry giving my infamous
sparkle bow a try! I almost traded it for
his strawberry tie. ;) }}

Particularly distressing was our visit to Nyamata, a church where 10,000 refuge-seeking Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered before each other’s eyes. After the genocide, the decision was made to leave the church “as-is” in order to memorialize the site. Therefore, twenty years later, there are still bullet holes in the ceiling and blood stains on the wall, and all of the victims’ soiled, tattered clothes are piled up on the pews as far as the eye can see. Outside of the sanctuary there is a mass grave with an equally vast and nightmarish display of human skulls, accompanied by the most deafening silence I have ever heard.

Now, had visiting memorial sites been the entirety of our purpose in Rwanda, I would have left with nothing but fury in my heart. I still cannot begin to reflect on the genocide without immediately feeling a sense of righteous indignation and just plain sorrow for the injustices suffered by innocent people there. But because of the next thing that happened on our trip, there is something else that I now feel just as intensely when I think about Rwanda: HOPE.

At about the halfway point of our time there, we visited a place called a “reconciliation village.” In this village, perpetrators of the genocide and victim survivors are VOLUNTARILY living side-by-side, and the perpetrators are working to build new homes for the survivors!!! (Go ahead, read that one again!) The scene we arrived upon was a small clearing between a couple of houses in which three or four rows of benches were set up. Each bench was inhabited by a graceful, colorful wave of Rwandese people, who smiles were subtle, but sure.

After offering a warm greeting, the first thing our translator explained to us was that the Rwandans were sitting killer-victim-killer-victim-killer-victim, side by side by side...Now, after processing that astonishing information, we all could have walked away right then with a surplus of praise to God in our hearts because of such a truly miraculous sight! But this captivating tale of hope and redemption didn’t stop there, so we listened on as one brave woman stood up to share her heart.

Like so many other women genocide survivors, this woman’s story was one of great terror and loss. During the genocide, she was forced to flee her home, her husband was murdered, and she lost all of her children. My heart ached for her as she explained all of this to us, somehow still managing to keep her head held high. Just when she was finishing, right as she sat down, the translator pointed out the man who had murdered her family – he was sitting just one row behind her. The woman glanced back at him, turned back to us and spoke the four most powerful words I think I’ve ever heard in my life: “But I forgive him.”

{{Funny Rwandan currency...the kids
on laptops crack me up!!}}

Then, a different man stood up and began to share about how the genocide had affected him. This man was a perpetrator who had previously been imprisoned for his crimes. He explained that during his time in prison, he came to his senses and realized just how much he had been brainwashed, and he felt absolutely terrible for what he had done. In fact, he expressed that he wanted to die because of his sins, that he felt there was no grace left for him. “But praise God,” he concluded, “because these people have forgiven me and I have a place in this village today.”

Wow.

I’m telling you, that was the most radical Christlike thing I have ever experienced in my entire life, and I don’t think I will ever forget it…ever!

In that moment, I realized that my understanding of forgiveness is far less transformative than God’s. For my whole life, I have believed that forgiveness means: “I’m not mad at you anymore, but we don’t have to be friends.” I thought that as long as I spoke those three standard words – “I forgive you” – then, my conscious was clear before God. No further effort to salvage a relationship or a situation necessary. But what Rwanda taught me is that forgiveness is merely the key which opens the door to reconciliation, and reconciliation is what God truly desires. To see people – His creations – persevering in relationship with one another, extending grace for each other’s flaws, seeking restoration where there is brokenness – THAT is God’s heart! Scripture says this:

“But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.” –Luke 6:35

You see, Jesus didn't come to earth to high-five saints, He came to transform sinners – the ungrateful, the wicked, the proud, the competitive, the jealous, the deceptive, the irritable, the stubborn, the lazy, the judgmental, the broken. We all fit into one of those categories or another (and if you feel like you don’t, please reconsider the third one listed…), and we are all in need of grace from God and grace from each other. Love for our enemies is the kind of mind-blowing, earth-shaking, life-changing love that characterizes Jesus and should also characterize His followers. It’s the kind of love I witnessed in Rwanda, and the kind of love I want to pursue in my own life here in America.

{{An artisan hard at work!}}

Before we left the reconciliation village that afternoon, we went up and thanked each of the Rwandese people for allowing us to visit them and for sharing their stories. I remember looking into one man’s eyes as I thanked him and thinking to myself, “Whoa, I am shaking hands with a killer right now.” Even more mystifying than that realization, however, is the truth that by the grace of God, that man’s crimes no longer define him, and transformation is possible for even the most distressed of hearts and circumstances.

At this point (if you've made it this far…), I encourage you to take a moment and reflect on any relationships or situations in your own life that are in need of reconciliation. Perhaps you don’t need to shake hands with a killer, but what about a gossiper? A heartbreaker? A manipulator? A thief? As you begin to come to terms with whatever hurt you are holding onto, I want to encourage you in three ways:

1) Let it go. (No, that was not a Frozen reference, but you can keep singing if it makes you feel better...) Something the members of the reconciliation village are taught is that holding a grudge is like carrying around a backpack full of bricks, which weighs you down wherever you go. But as soon as you choose to forgive, you toss that backpack off of your shoulders and your whole journey lightens up. Withholding forgiveness often causes more pain for the victim than for the offender, so use the power that is in your hands to your own advantage!

2) Empathize. I realize that this is a lot easier said than done, but we have to recognize that at some point we are each the victim sitting next to the killer, and at some point we are each the killer sitting next to the victim. You don’t have to be Rwandan to be capable of genocide. As a wise Rwandan pastor explained to us, “human nature is a mixture of the angelic and the demonic,” and sometimes, unfortunately, the latter gets the best of us all. So in our efforts to reconcile, let us not forget that victims and offenders have humanity in common.

{{Some fellow PRENT-ers - Gilbert, Ivan,
and Jeff. :) Dressed to impress for our
end-of-the-semester talent show!!}}

3) Persevere. Forgiveness may be a one-time event, but reconciliation is an ongoing choice. It may take 20 years for us to be able to forgive and reconcile with someone, as it did for these Rwandans, but we will never arrive if we never set foot on the journey in the first place. So let us take intentional steps, baby as they may be, towards the kind of restoration that is possible with God on our side. Embrace the process!

Obviously this is not a step-by-step manual on reconciliation. Only you know what specifically needs to be done in your circumstance to make things right. But I hope that these suggestions help to at least get your gears turning, and to inspire you to take the power of reconciliation into your own hands. May your load be lighter because of it!

Until next time, be good to yourself and be good to everybody else!

Thanks for caring,

Kelsey Jo