Reconcilation that Hurts

Last Sunday night at my church, I got to do one of my favorite things: inform church people about issues of significance in the world out side of the United States. In particular, I gave a presentation on my trip last summer with Duke Divinity School to Rwanda and Uganda. In preparing for the talk, stories and memories which had begun to settle in the back of my psyche began to come to mind again. The first Sunday of our pilgrimage was particularly meaningful, and I wanted to share it with you. (I have also included pictures of the choir members I mention).

One of the most memorable times for me came as our group worshiped at the Methodist church in Butare, Rwanda alongside the Emmaus worship choir. The Emmaus worship choir sang with gusto as they proclaimed a powerful message of truth and reconciliation to everyone crowded in this small one roomed church building. Not only was the worship experience magnificent as the Holy Spirit joined our hearts together in praise of God despite language, cultural and denominational barriers, but in this context I saw the mouth crying for the first time. She was a face that proclaimed Rwanda’s pain.

I have no idea what her name was, but my eyes were drawn throughout the choir’s presentation, to this bright and cheerful woman on the front row. When the choir sang: “Prayer for Rwanda” I noticed tears running down her checks— they were silent but powerful. Thankfully, we were given English translation to the songs and I realized the poignancy of this moment. Their song was speaking the truth about how the genocide had destroyed communities, families and lives. This young woman truly lived through what she was singing about. I could only imagine what was going through her head as she sang. I wondered who she lost to the genocide. I wondered how her life changed since 1994. I wondered what she hoped for the future and how she thought it would come about now in spite of the great losses. I wondered if the government’s programs for reconciliation would ever reach her village. I wondered how her view of God was shaped by such a tragedy. That morning in church, I saw a person who in her young adulthood had seen a world of pain that my young adult years have been sheltered from in many ways. And I cried too, wanting to take her pain away, wanting Rwanda to not be broken any more, and wanting answers to my questions as to why such evil could be allowed to reign on the earth in 1994.

On a larger scale, this choir member’s raw, unashamed tears among other things spoke volumes to me about the pain still lingering in Rwanda. I found such sorrow not only in this woman but in the spirit of Rwanda itself. I could just feel the intensity of sorrow in the air as I walked the streets of Kigali and as our bus made a sweeping trip through the hills of Rwanda. There was a sense of heaviness permeating the nation—even after eleven years, the country’s pain was so deep, it stung. I saw this pain in the faces of women carrying water on the roads; I saw it in the faces of guards at the borders, and in the faces of the testimonies of survival that we heard throughout our trip. Just as Laurent Nkongoli, a survivor recounted to Philip Gourevitch, “I got tired in the genocide. You struggle so long then you get tired." I saw many emotionally and psychologically tired people too.

But, as much as I grieved to see how deeply the nation still hurt, on that Sunday in Butare, I rejoiced as well to see the great hope in the faces of all the members of the choir The choir’s joy was contagious. In the choir’s faces, I saw Rwanda’s greatest hope: the courage of its young people. Courage that would welcome strangers like us into their worship and their lives, courage that would enable persons to rise above ethic divisions and prejudges, courage that would pave the way for reconciled people to walk hand in hand in Rwanda once again. They truly embodied what Dean Jones’ sermon exhorted the congregation to: “Praise of God from the top of your head to the tips of your feet.” The choir did not sing simply to be singing. They sang with conviction of the great hope that was theirs (and ours) to claim in Christ Jesus. Yes, the genocide killed close to one million people. Yes, it was a horrific event that should not have happened, but their songs reminded all of us that the love of Jesus Christ was stronger. The reconciliation power in Christ could bind up Rwanda’s wounds and heal their hearts. It was real.