Today is our last day in Rwanda, so I thought I would update you all on what we've been up to whilst we've been here! (having now been sat here typing on my phone for 40mins, I'm going to have to split all we've done into two parts!!) I'll also write a blog on some more reflective thoughts on how I've found Rwanda (we've got a couple of very long bus journeys coming up, so plenty of writing time!).
We arrived here on Saturday morning after a long flight to Nairobi, and a short connecting flight onwards to Kigali. We were met here by Egide (one of the partners at Lawyers of Hope) and Richard, who has been our driver for the week. We headed to our accommodation which is a charity guest house - very African, but comfy beds, fairly clean and usually running water! We spent the day settling in, exploring the area around our accommodation a little and getting our first taste of the traditional Rwandan goat kebabs - really tasty!
On Sunday we went to church at a large pentecostal church called Christian Life Assemblies, which was in many ways like a Rwandan version of City Church in Cambridge. It was very different to my past experiences of African church, but they were super welcoming and we enjoyed it very much! We then headed into the centre of Kigali for lunch at a Chinese restaurant (there's quite a strong Asian influence here which I really wasn't expecting). The centre of Kigali is far more developed than I had expected and there is still a lot of development going on. The roads and infrastructure in the city are pretty good, which is again not what I expected. I was talking to another of the partners, Juve, about why this was and he was explaining the government's Vision 2020 which aims to see the country progress in its Development, providing infrastructure across the whole country, including sanitation, and also free WiFi across much of the country. The finding for this has come primarily from international aid - the rest of the world (rightly) felt pretty guilty about not stepping in to prevent the genocide when they could have done, and so Rwanda has received large sums of international aid. The corruption here is very low, although there has been the same president for the last 22 years, and the constitution has just been changed to allow him to continue, and this means the money seems to be getting to a lot of the right places. There is a slum clearance project which has seen lots of people paid compensation to move out of their slum dwellings to allow development to come in. There seems to be some divide in opinion as to whether the compensation is sufficient or not - I do wonder if this is just serving to push the slums to the outskirts of the city.
On Sunday evening we had dinner at another Charity guest house with the board members of Lawyers of Hope (LOH) - standard Rwandan buffet of rice, chips, vegetables, beans, a meat stew and some fruit. It was really exciting to meet the board members and I had a lot of fun with Grace (see photo - some of the team with Grace!) teaching me some Kinyrwanda phrases which have been very helpful over the week.
Monday morning was our first day at 'work' - we went to the LOH offices where Egide explained the various work that they do. Since starting in 2008, they have been working towards 5 objectives:
- To provide legal assistance and access to justice.
- To help religious leaders to understand laws of Rwanda
- To promote unity and reconciliation through access to justice and international conventions
- To contribute to favourable legislation.
They provide legal information, education, advice, assistance and representation. They have prison projects, community projects, marriage reconciliation projects, child rights projects and so on. All their work is aimed at dealing with the root cause of the problems that come before them, rather than just finding a quick fix. They also take every opportunity they can with their clients to share the gospel. It incredibly refreshing to hear lawyers talk about their work with such a passion and conviction - there is no question of them being in it for the money (they're certainly not on high-flying lawyers' salaries!) but they've seen and understood God's heart for justice and long to be used by him to right injustices that surround them in their societies. It's really challenged me to think carefully about why I'm doing a law degree, and where I go from here.
On Monday afternoon, we visited the genocide memorial. This was incredibly hard-hitting and very moving. It was really hard witnessing the sheer scale and horror of the atrocities that tore through this beautiful country in 1994, where neighbour turned on neighbour, friend on friend, godfather on godson - all over ethnic differences which had caused no problem before the colonialists started dividing and classifying people. The UN general on the ground tried to warn of what was about to happen and ask for support, but it never came. It was so hard to see the pictures and videos of the violence - it wasn't just systematic killing, but it went so far above and beyond that, designed to inflict as much pain as possible - widespread rape, people being buried alive, babies and toddlers being hacked into pieces with a machete or smashed against a wall. It was extremely moving for all of us to see. Putting yourself in their shoes, imaging close friends and neighbours attacking your family and refusing to help you is really shocking. And so much of it started with the media pushing images of the Tutsis taking what was really the Hutus (jobs, wives, land and so on), trying to dehumanise them and encouraging hatred and people to try and find differences between them. I was quite starkly reminded of some of the responses that came out to the migrant crisis, and some of the viewpoints pushed in the run up to the referendum. It's hit very hard - more so than when I visited Auschwitz, I think because its much more recent history (just within my life time), and its a lot easier to imagine the horror of a neighbour or friend turning on you, rather than the slightly more removed Nazi soldiers.
But its also been incredible to hear the testimony of survivors, willing to forgive those who killed their family and siblings, and to see how Rwanda has moved into what appears to be a deep unity once more - there has been a huge effort towards reconciliation, and it's really incredible to see how far they've come in 22 years. The power of forgiveness is so so strong - although this is so central to the message of what Jesus accomplished in his death and resurrection, it's importance hit home on a new level.
In processing and praying through the things we saw there, a quote from Gary Haugen (author of Good News About Injustice) has been really significant: 'Standing with my boots knee deep in the reeking muck of a Rwandan mass grave where thousands have been horribly slaughtered, I have no meaning, no hope, no life unless there is a God of history and time who is absolutely furious, absolutely outraged, absolutely burning with anger against those who took it into their own hands to commit such acts as these.' God is a God of justice - he is a Father to the fatherless, defender of the weak, saviour to the captive. He is not passive when injustice happens in this world, but is present in and through suffering, and is furious when evil is perpetrated. We take comfort in the fact that there will be judgment and perfect justice at the end of time, and that he provides mechanisms on earth through which a measure of justice can be achieved before then.
I've still got a lot to process from this, but I really pray that God would use it to challenge my attitude towards other people, that he would teach me more about his heart for justice, and that he would set a passion for that justice in my heart too.
Prayer points:
- Thanks for safe travels, that all our bags arrived and we were able to get visas sorted.
- Thanks for such a warm welcome here in Rwanda
- Pray that I would be learning more about God and in processing what we've seen here, particularly from the genocide memorial, that I'd be open to what God wants to teach me
- For safe travels over the next few days - we have a long bus journey to Uganda tomorrow, and then on Tuesday another long journey on to Kampala.
- That as a team we'd be growing in our cultural sensitivity towards the partners and that we'd grow stronger as a team.
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