Rwanda 7-31-13 Class Day 3

If Wednesday is hump day, this one was a hill!  We have had quite the day here in Rwanda.  The power has been out most of the day, and the day was non-stop.  We had our second quiz today, and the men seem to be holding up quite well.  I hope I can do the same!  It is inspiring to see men who have little to nothing making the effort to better their lives and ministries through education.  This drives me to continually keep giving my best.

There are so many stories here it is hard to know which ones to tell.  Tomorrow I will send several pictures including some of Rwandan pastors and their personal stories.  As I have shared before, many of these men have personally come through the genocide of 1994.  What they have personally endured and how they have moved forward against all odds is simply something to behold.  It is impossible to complain after getting to know many of them.

For those of you who did not see our Facebook page, I interviewed two nephews Sunday evening whose uncle’s family lost their lives in 1994.  The combatants came to their home in April of 1994 intending to kill them with machetes.  The father of three begged the men not to kill them that way and offered to pay them 50,000 Rwandan francs to kill them with a gun instead, a much more merciful death.  The killers took their money and left.  They told them they would be back in a few months.  They returned as promised and met the family at their home.  The father’s eleven year boy knew the end was near and attempted to run.  His captors caught him and brought him back to the yard of the family home.  They forced them to walk a few miles to where there was a large hole dug.  They men then asked the uncle how he wanted his family to die.  He asked them to begin with the youngest girl, and to shoot each child, then the wife, and finally to shoot him.  That is how it was done.

The nephews were permitted, after the genocide ended a year later, to exhume the bones and bury them on the family property.  For most of us, recovering from such horrific personal tragedy would have been next to impossible.  But for these men and woman, they have had no choice but to move forward in their lives.  The greatest victory of all has been their ability to forgive the killers and now almost 15 years later, call them brother and sister Rwandans.  The grace of God is simply greater than any human tragedy or horror.