July 25
Before I left Philbert’s home I had one last meal with he and Sophie. Last night Philbert had said, “If you have any questions for me tomorrow make sure you ask them.” He was commenting on how quiet I was at dinner. I’ve had a few long days and was really tired by late evening! This morning we had a wonderful conversation. Even though I was not in church I felt as if we were having a service. I am dreaming of coming back to Rwanda. There is still so much to learn. Bakke University is going to send a class here next October and he told me more about what that is going to be. How cool would it be to take a class on forgiveness and reconciliation in Rwanda? It is one thing to read about such things in books. However, it is something totally different to be here learning from practitioners. They don’t just talk about forgiveness and reconciliation. Here some are living it out and facilitating a process for others to live it too. Philbert regretted not getting to spend more time in conversation with me this week. And sure I would have loved to take more of his time. However, just being around him and the people he works with has been my teacher.
This morning I asked him to tell me more about the process he goes through when he does a workshop. I’ve been curious about the “how” of reconciliation. As he described what he does I realized that his process is very much connected to this specific context. Of course! When he works with groups he spends a lot of time talking about the history of Rwanda. This history is married to the history of colonizing countries. It is also married to the church. The church too played a significant role in the conflicts and ultimately in the 1994 Genocide. His telling of the history isn’t just a lecture but it is a conversation. It sounds like the workshops create space for people to tell their stories in light of the greater story of Rwanda and the church. There is power in story and power in acknowledging how one’s life intersected and joined the greater narrative. Then another story is also presented. It is the story of God and his reconciling himself to us. Again Philbert mentioned that forgiveness and reconciliation involve great sacrifice. God’s story of reconciliation with humanity involved great sacrifice!
It occurs to me that in the USA that there may be different barriers to forgiveness and reconciliation. Not harder just different. Here because the killing was so extensive and between friends, families and neighbors there remains whole communities who live divided by the conflicts in them and between each other. In the USA when we experience conflict we can “move on” in different ways than they can here. (and I’m not meaning to trivialize moving on). If we don’t like the church we are at, we can change churches. If our neighbors have victimized us, we can move across town, across state or across the country. Also in the US we do not value community and family tradition as deeply as they seem to here. We might feel sad about leaving a community we’ve known but we can build a “new one”. If there is a problem with someone in our city we don’t often come across the on a daily basis. Our lives are more contained because we drive our individual cars, we stay in our homes, we shop in the stores across town. Here they have plots of land that are their families for years. We can flee from the people who hurt us in a different way than many others in our world can. Even if we have means to ‘move on” we don’t actually move on! The pain remains and the venom of hatred continues to eat away at our life.
I must admit that I was very sad to leave Kigali and my friends there. I felt really emotional leaving today. It has been a very wonderful visit. My last visit to Rwanda had me focusing on the Genocide and the history of colonization there. This visit was so different. There are some stellar people there and I’m incredibly grateful for all that I’m being taught by friends.
So my flight to Entebbee marks the last phase of the trip and it is the primary reason for the trip in the first place. Today begins my involvement with GAP International and GAP’s partnership with Pastor Wilson. Pastor Wilson runs a school and we are going to be spending most of our time with his school.
My flight and my journey through immigration was uneventful. I’ve been grateful for the ease of borders this trip. This year my hardest experience at a border was at the Canadian border…go figure. I was picked up by a man from Pastor Wilson’s church. I have been taken care of as I’ve traveled these last few weeks. I’m so grateful for all the help and people who have come into my path. Yeah, the adventurer in me wanted to negotiate the taxi to Kampala but another part of me knew this was just what I needed. Thanks to Pastor Wilson and the GAP team for working this out. Robert, the driver, drove me to Pastor Wilson’s home where I was greeted by our team members. And finally after several years of hearing about Pastor Wilson and his wife Grace, I’ve met them in person.
After lunch at Pastor Wilson’s we went to the school where we joined a teacher and parent meeting. We witnessed quite the scene. Of course we made introductions and expressed thanks to each other. Wilson gave us an wonderful introduction. We heard from some of the parents. And then the parents launched into some concerns they had to share. We were not sure of all the issues but it was clear that the parents really care about their kids and that Pastor Wilson cares about hearing the good and the “bad”.
We drove to the Namirembe Guesthouse after the meeting finished and met up with our Nazarene Missionaries. We enjoyed great conversation with Dan and Melody Anderson. What a wonderful couple they are!
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