Saturday in Rwanda

    We spent Saturday at the Shalom Office where immediately we were greeted with a celebration of school age dancers as we walked thorough the door.  These children are hired out for weddings and other celebrations and with the proceeds from dancing they are able to pay their school fees. Every time they dance they also share messages about peace, unity and reconciliation. The morning was a true celebration of ethnic unity between the three original tribes of Rwanda (Twa, Tutsi and Hutu) as each group was represented in the dance group. The young women danced the richness of cattle with their arms in the air to demonstrate the horns of the cows and the young men danced the strength, courage and fierceness of lions while each tribe bantered back and forth.  What a celebration of all ethnicities becoming one! We have been blessed with only a few thunderstorms even though this is the start of the rainy season.

     We then heard from 6 women who are rising up as leaders in the Shalom ministry of reconciliation. Women are moving quickly form being healed to becoming healers themselves.
     Rahab and Nyirakazuba: In 1994 14 year old Rahab watched as her Tutsi parents were killed by a neighbor. Twenty four years later she had still never shared that experience with anyone. Last March a Shalom healing workshop created a safe space that allowed her to break her silence and to begin to find healing and a desire to actually forgive the old man who is now in prison. First she went to his wife, Nyirakazuba, to share her desire to forgive the husband. Nyirakazuba then shared that she too had lost all of her 9 children and with her husband in prison her only "children" were the little mice in her house. She was a terribly lonely woman. The Shalom staff accompanied Rahab to the prison as she met face to face with the killer, and then stayed close by her side in the following days until the resurfaced trauma gradually subsided. Rahab has no parents, and Nyirakazuba has no children. Now God has created actual love between them. They consider each other mother and daughter and Nyirakazuba comes to watch Rahab's six children. They now live quite a distance from one another, and sometimes one would walk to the other's home and find them not there, so Jean Paul gave them each cell phones so they can talk and arrange times to be together. He has such a great heart.
    What a privilege it was to listen to all 6 of these women tell their story and how it has affected their lives, but more importantly the transformation they have had over the last 6-18 months with the help of Shalom Ministries in reconciliation.  Each woman had her own story of tragedy, triumph, horror and peace.  Each one of them stated that this new found peace would never have been possible without the love of God and of the Shalom staff.  For me (Bonnie), this was the first time I had heard stories in the first person about the Genocide.  It was an emotional day and God shone his light again in the history of darkness.

Julienne, Nyirakazuba, Rahab, Bonnie, Sekinah, Mukamurenzi, Sally, Alphonsine

Sekinah, a Muslim who knows she has been healed by Jesus, and Julienne

   We finished off the day with a stop at Shalom Director Jean Paul's home to enjoy time with his three children while wife Judith was at work. She works in housekeeping at a high end hotel on the lake to help support his ministry. She works 6 days a week and earns about $120 per month. Yes, that's less than $5 a day. This ministry is a calling and an act of love for Jean Paul and Judith.

Lucky (9) adopted daughter Rachel (18) Ryan (4) Jean Paul