I went to Africa almost a year ago now and I am finally about to post about my experience in Rwanda. I wrote this blog post back in december but I wasn't ready to post it at the time. With a new adventure approaching this summer I think it is time to share what I learned from my last trip and inform you about the new journey God is taking me on. Here you go:
" You would think one blog post wouldn’t be that hard, but to write about Rwanda, you have to talk about the genocide and to write from the heart about such about such a horrible thing is extremely difficult. Now the genocide is not where you start when talking about this wonderful country, and it is not where you finish but it is a part of their history that you could not, and should not, forget. It really hit me, when I was there, that I was on the land where this happened, I met the people who spent those months fighting for their lives, I met the kids who lost their parents, I met the parents who lost kids, I learned the raw details they don’t always include in the textbook and I finally got it. After years of learning about what happened in Rwanda, I finally got it. I’ve been struggling for months to sit down and write this, because to write is to remember. And some things you don’t always want to remember.
So we arrived in Rwanda on a Saturday in the afternoon. We went to a café and had the closest thing to food from home since our layover in Belgium. It was bit of a mixed moment. Although I was thankful to be eating “Normal” food again, I was already starting to miss the amazing, fresh food we had in Burundi.
On Sunday we had church, which in Africa is always a different experience. We got to witness a few choirs that were amazing but then we were forced to go up and be a choir, which led to the church pulling out their phones and videoing us (laughing their heads off) while we did the dance to father Abraham (Which if you didn’t know, he had many sons), and we did the actions to the classic Lord I lift your name on high and Our God is an Awesome God.
That night we went to dinner with our host and friend Zacharie. The evening was wonderful, and they cooked us a wonderful dinner. During the dinner there was this weird purple potato like vegetable that Zacharie insisted that everyone try and reluctantly we did. After dinner Zacharie told us a bit of his life story. He shared with us his experience of the genocide and how he hid in the hillside for the 100 days. He explained that he had to crawl through the ditches in the middle of the night to sneak food growing nearby. The vegetable we had tried at the dinner was one of the main foods he ate during those days. We ate it cooked and it was quite bland, but he had to eat it raw because a fire would have shown their location.
Monday morning we went to the genocide memorial where you walk through a hallway with walls covered in facts, pictures, and stories explaining the genocide. There was one room filled with skulls. There was another dedicated to the clothing items found by the side of the road. Some of it was still soaked in blood. One shirt had a Canadian flag on it. There was a children’s room where the stories of the children hung on the wall. Their name, age, favorite food, and how they died was written on the plaque. It was an absolute horrendous experience to visit this place, as it should be. They did not water it down, they explained exactly how it happened and showed it for the tremendous, disgusting, mass murder that it was.
That afternoon most of my team went to church. During the genocide thousands of people fled to the church for safety and the walls they hoped to protect them, trapped them and the place of life became a tomb. The skeletons of the dead were set up around the church. Their personal items stacked on shelves, the walls still stained with blood. This is their reminder of what happened. This was not the place that five thousand people died. This was the place that five thousand people were murdered. One at a time someone looked them in the eye and decided to play god. This was not an accident. It is believed that 10,000 were killed inside the church with another 35,000 killed around the church compound between April 10th and April 12th of 1994.
On the Tuesday Zacharie took us out to the place where he hid during the genocide. He showed us the ditches that he hid in and the hills he crawled through to find food. He introduced us to the village that is there now. The words that come to mind to describe this village are “typical poverty found in the countryside”, but I hesitate to call any poverty typical. Poverty should never be typical, and countries such as Rwanda and Burundi should not be known for their current lack of wealth, but should be known by the large hearts of the people that live there. So I will describe this place as a village, like most others, where the physical resources are scarce but the hearts and smiles were overflowing.
Out of everything I learned from Rwanda I think one of the biggest things I learned was that God loves to redeem. Everything that happened in Rwanda was disgusting and disturbing but twenty years later the country is being remade. The capitol city in Rwanda, a place that was once filled with fear and terror, is now one of the safest cities in Africa and The land that Zacharie hid on during the genocide, is the land he will soon build a center of hope for the community currently living there. I learned that the places that hold the most hopeless situations are the ones that will be redeemed for the most hope.
This trip has deeply impacted me, and I know it was something I will never forget. This trip reminded me of the value of life and it taught me about the proper place of money in my life. This trip also reminded me that everything I do matters. Many times on the trip I felt hopeless to change anything. These people don’t just need handouts they need justice, a fair government, and healthcare; things I can’t change for them. But I will still do the things I can do. I can love those that are around me, I can donate money, I can volunteer my time, and I can be a voice to the voiceless. Even in my personal life I can work on my character because my actions, and thoughts are contagious, whether that be for good or evil. Things as big as genocide start in the hearts of ordinary people like you and me, but so does greatness, so I am going to aim for greatness."
" You would think one blog post wouldn’t be that hard, but to write about Rwanda, you have to talk about the genocide and to write from the heart about such about such a horrible thing is extremely difficult. Now the genocide is not where you start when talking about this wonderful country, and it is not where you finish but it is a part of their history that you could not, and should not, forget. It really hit me, when I was there, that I was on the land where this happened, I met the people who spent those months fighting for their lives, I met the kids who lost their parents, I met the parents who lost kids, I learned the raw details they don’t always include in the textbook and I finally got it. After years of learning about what happened in Rwanda, I finally got it. I’ve been struggling for months to sit down and write this, because to write is to remember. And some things you don’t always want to remember.
So we arrived in Rwanda on a Saturday in the afternoon. We went to a café and had the closest thing to food from home since our layover in Belgium. It was bit of a mixed moment. Although I was thankful to be eating “Normal” food again, I was already starting to miss the amazing, fresh food we had in Burundi.
On Sunday we had church, which in Africa is always a different experience. We got to witness a few choirs that were amazing but then we were forced to go up and be a choir, which led to the church pulling out their phones and videoing us (laughing their heads off) while we did the dance to father Abraham (Which if you didn’t know, he had many sons), and we did the actions to the classic Lord I lift your name on high and Our God is an Awesome God.
That night we went to dinner with our host and friend Zacharie. The evening was wonderful, and they cooked us a wonderful dinner. During the dinner there was this weird purple potato like vegetable that Zacharie insisted that everyone try and reluctantly we did. After dinner Zacharie told us a bit of his life story. He shared with us his experience of the genocide and how he hid in the hillside for the 100 days. He explained that he had to crawl through the ditches in the middle of the night to sneak food growing nearby. The vegetable we had tried at the dinner was one of the main foods he ate during those days. We ate it cooked and it was quite bland, but he had to eat it raw because a fire would have shown their location.
Monday morning we went to the genocide memorial where you walk through a hallway with walls covered in facts, pictures, and stories explaining the genocide. There was one room filled with skulls. There was another dedicated to the clothing items found by the side of the road. Some of it was still soaked in blood. One shirt had a Canadian flag on it. There was a children’s room where the stories of the children hung on the wall. Their name, age, favorite food, and how they died was written on the plaque. It was an absolute horrendous experience to visit this place, as it should be. They did not water it down, they explained exactly how it happened and showed it for the tremendous, disgusting, mass murder that it was.
That afternoon most of my team went to church. During the genocide thousands of people fled to the church for safety and the walls they hoped to protect them, trapped them and the place of life became a tomb. The skeletons of the dead were set up around the church. Their personal items stacked on shelves, the walls still stained with blood. This is their reminder of what happened. This was not the place that five thousand people died. This was the place that five thousand people were murdered. One at a time someone looked them in the eye and decided to play god. This was not an accident. It is believed that 10,000 were killed inside the church with another 35,000 killed around the church compound between April 10th and April 12th of 1994.
On the Tuesday Zacharie took us out to the place where he hid during the genocide. He showed us the ditches that he hid in and the hills he crawled through to find food. He introduced us to the village that is there now. The words that come to mind to describe this village are “typical poverty found in the countryside”, but I hesitate to call any poverty typical. Poverty should never be typical, and countries such as Rwanda and Burundi should not be known for their current lack of wealth, but should be known by the large hearts of the people that live there. So I will describe this place as a village, like most others, where the physical resources are scarce but the hearts and smiles were overflowing.
Out of everything I learned from Rwanda I think one of the biggest things I learned was that God loves to redeem. Everything that happened in Rwanda was disgusting and disturbing but twenty years later the country is being remade. The capitol city in Rwanda, a place that was once filled with fear and terror, is now one of the safest cities in Africa and The land that Zacharie hid on during the genocide, is the land he will soon build a center of hope for the community currently living there. I learned that the places that hold the most hopeless situations are the ones that will be redeemed for the most hope.
This trip has deeply impacted me, and I know it was something I will never forget. This trip reminded me of the value of life and it taught me about the proper place of money in my life. This trip also reminded me that everything I do matters. Many times on the trip I felt hopeless to change anything. These people don’t just need handouts they need justice, a fair government, and healthcare; things I can’t change for them. But I will still do the things I can do. I can love those that are around me, I can donate money, I can volunteer my time, and I can be a voice to the voiceless. Even in my personal life I can work on my character because my actions, and thoughts are contagious, whether that be for good or evil. Things as big as genocide start in the hearts of ordinary people like you and me, but so does greatness, so I am going to aim for greatness."