My experience in Rwanda will always be remembered as a time of great personal change. In 20 short days I was taken out of my comfort zone and impacted for a lifetime.
As I left Canada, I pictured myself helping and encouraging those who endured the 1994 genocide when one million people were murdered in only one hundred days. But the sudden reality that I would be the one encouraged and loved hit me as soon as I arrived. In an attempt to capture my experiences and wrestle with some of my deep thoughts and sudden realizations, I kept a journal. This entry is one specific time of the many experiences I had in Africa where God took something out of our routine and daily planned activities to speak to me personally.
Friday: April 25, 2008
I let the genocide tragedy hit my heart and not just my mind today. I let myself go to a place that I have never been before and the result was raw heartache and hurt. I tried to imagine the pain that I would have experienced if my loved ones were slaughtered and killed the way the Rwandans were in 1994. We ended up going to a memorial site today that was not originally planned in our day’s schedule but it turned out to be one of the most significant moments of the entire trip.
We went to a church where 5,000 people were killed. Walking into the sanctuary was appalling. Skulls and bones saved from the war lined the shelves behind all the pews. Some of the weapons still stuck in skulls and holes where they had been abused and tortured. Blood–stained clothing hung on the walls and ceiling of the church and the people’s personal possessions they had with them during that time were grouped at the front. The smell of death overcame me as I listened to one survivor who told his story of escape on the same grounds 14 years ago. This man had hid close by in the swamps and watched as people stormed into the church and murdered everyone who had gone there for protection.
I think it is going to take me a long time to fully process and work through everything I witnessed today. I had no idea humans could be so cruel. I just can’t imagine that kind of brutality. We went to one room on the property that was used for a kitchen before the war and it was there my heart broke. The walls were stained with blood, there were human bones and hair on the ground and the windows and walls were shattered. It was there that the killers crammed 2,000 people on top of each other and burned them alive. This experience shook me like nothing had ever before. There was evidence of pain and suffering everywhere. I fell to my knees as we prayed as a team and tried to comprehend what we had seen.
Words cannot explain the emotions I felt today as my heart broke for these people. These inhumane acts of violence were practiced and followed through by people living in the same world that I live on now. How can something of such horror happen on such a large scale? How am I so fortunate to live in peace? I will not be the same as I go back to Canada and share what I have seen today. God is moving in this country and doing great things for restoration, but the deep hurt and loss is so obvious in the eyes of the people. After what I have experienced today, complaining over bad hair days seems incredibly ridiculous.
I don’t understand the pain I witnessed today, but God is helping me to recognize that I have been blessed beyond belief not only with material goods, but the protection and safety of myself and my loved ones. I will never be the same.
It is my prayer that this experience will continue to stay with me as I encourage others who may be going on short–term missions trips or who are willing to hear my story. The pictures, my journal, and the souvenirs are only a sample of the impact Rwanda had on my life. There is not a day that goes by that I am not reminded of my many blessings. As I continue to process this journey, I am committed to living more simply, supporting ministries in Rwanda's, and praying for the people I met and built relationships with.
