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The Impact of Radical Forgiveness
The group of young women filtered one-by-one into the dimly lit rooms in heavy silence. They were nearing the end of their 16-day visit to Rwanda and were visiting the Murambi Technical School that is now a genocide museum housing the mummified bodies of more than 50,000 Rwandans, who were brutally killed there during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
In shocked horror the women toured the 32 classrooms where the genocide victims lay on tables, twisted in anguished death poses and preserved in white lime chalk.
Though they had come to this country to see firsthand the reconciliation work of PF Rwanda, they now realized how difficult the act of forgiving the perpetrators of such horrendous crimes could be. “The anger I felt as we drove back that night to our lodging caused me to pray about whether I could face their killers in prison,” explains Jill Casey, one of the group participants.
But face the perpetrators they did, as they followed Deo Gashagaza, PF Rwanda Executive Director, into the men’s prison near the Burundi border the next day. A true testament to the power of forgiveness, Deo lost more than a dozen family members in the genocide— including his sister and brother-in-law and their five children—yet he visits these prisoners every week to pray for them and enthusiastically share with them the Good News of the Gospel.
Fearful at first, the young women began to relax as they watched the prisoners listen with rapt intensity when Deo preached. “He becomes the centre of attention from the moment he starts to speak,” says one of the American team members. The prisoners, mostly Hutus who had a part in the slaughtering of nearly 800,000 Tutsis, can see from Deo’s facial characteristics that he is a Tutsi, making his presence here all the more remarkable to them. That he is able to forgive these men and care about them is a testimony to the God he has come to tell them about.
“I will never forget what I saw that day,” exclaims Jill.
Their trip at an end, the women returned to their home and their church, still in awe of the reconciliation work that Deo Gashagaza and PF Rwanda are doing with the victims and perpetrators of the genocide. They shared their experiences with friends, church congregants and family members and soon collected $5,000 (USD) in donations for PF Rwanda, with $6,000 (USD) additional donations coming from individual group members.
“We are planning to use the donation from The Falls Church to start an HIV/AIDS project,” says Deo. The project will incorporate a craft-making programme that will provide income for the ill prisoners and their families and also teach them the artisan trades of making jewellery, baskets and other crafts. “The project will benefit the society both directly and indirectly,” says Deo, as some of the revenue from sales of the products will be given to the victims of the genocide, furthering the message of reconciliation.
