Since the internet connection here has been so painfully slow, we've been pseudo-blogging inside Word documents and are finally getting caught up on the actual posting! These posts were from the 2nd day of the conference.
Day 2
We heard from Frida Gashumba this morning, a young Rwandan woman who narrowly escaped the Rwandan genocide. Her story is one of unspeakable tragedy and also of stunning beauty.
In April 1994, Frida was with her family when the interahamwe militia came, forcing her family outside where they slaughtered them with machetes. Frida was hit on the back of the neck with a machete and was unconscious for several hours, during which time she was left for dead. She awoke to find herself buried alive and managed to break free of the shallow grave. Her entire family had been killed.
Her survival, recovery and transformation is truly inspiring. Today Frida is a beautiful woman, a mother who has taken in children from both the Hutu and the Tutsi tribes. She has been an example amongst her people of the power of forgiveness, as she has visited the prison cells of the people that killed her family and has personally forgiven them. Frida told them “I don’t know why you have done this. I have forgiven you. There is nothing you can do to hurt me anymore.”
Those words stayed with me all day. There is nothing you can do to hurt me anymore. Frida was saying that she had exhausted the evil of the man who tried to hurt her. I couldn’t help but think of the parallel between Frida’s words and God’s victory at the cross. Jesus took the evil of the world upon himself and emerged victorious. Evil gave Him its best shot and lost.
Another Rwandan shared her genocide experiences after Frida. This woman, though, was Hutu. She had played a role in perpetrating the genocide. As Tim mentions here, she feels compelled to speak a message of repentance for the entire Hutu people wherever she goes. She says that the Hutu people do not listen to her because many of them believe that all sin is personal. She stood in front of all of us and asked for us to forgive her.
The power of these stories is overwhelming. It was very hard to listen to them, even harder to try to understand.
The Dinner Party
Tonight’s dinner was a celebration complete with singing, dancing, and an address by the Mayor of Kigali. The highlight of the evening was a drumming group from Burundi. The young boys had driven from Bujumbura just to play for us that night. They came marching in single file, each with a very heavy drum balanced on their head. They then put all the drums down in a circle, with one drum at its center, and began to play.
Unfortunately, about 20 minutes after they started to play it began to rain heavily. The fun part was Sarah and I ran for cover underneath a tent with them and had a great time trying to talk to them with our broken Kirundi (which they thought was hysterical) and them talking to us in their broken English. When the rain stopped the boys left the tent to begin playing again. He turned to Sarah and said "I must go. It is time to pray."
Sarah looked at me quizzically, wondering if she misunderstood him or if he had misspoke, intending to say "play" instead of "pray". She asked him, and he said that indeed yes, he had meant to say "pray" - that their drumming and dancing routines are prayers. Some are prayers for Burundi, others are prayers for the world, some are deeply personal prayers of forgiveness. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a more beautiful expression of worship. The enthusiasm those boys sang and drummed with was awe-inspiring.
It really made me think about the misplaced suspicion we in the West have often had about physical forms of worship. We accuse yoga of being Buddhist, Native American song and dancing as pagan, and meditation as being "so New Age". But this is a God who enjoyed diversity so much that he created all of us. It seems to me that the same God is unlikely to quibble over the diversity of expressions of worship we've created.
Day 2
We heard from Frida Gashumba this morning, a young Rwandan woman who narrowly escaped the Rwandan genocide. Her story is one of unspeakable tragedy and also of stunning beauty.
In April 1994, Frida was with her family when the interahamwe militia came, forcing her family outside where they slaughtered them with machetes. Frida was hit on the back of the neck with a machete and was unconscious for several hours, during which time she was left for dead. She awoke to find herself buried alive and managed to break free of the shallow grave. Her entire family had been killed.
Her survival, recovery and transformation is truly inspiring. Today Frida is a beautiful woman, a mother who has taken in children from both the Hutu and the Tutsi tribes. She has been an example amongst her people of the power of forgiveness, as she has visited the prison cells of the people that killed her family and has personally forgiven them. Frida told them “I don’t know why you have done this. I have forgiven you. There is nothing you can do to hurt me anymore.”
Those words stayed with me all day. There is nothing you can do to hurt me anymore. Frida was saying that she had exhausted the evil of the man who tried to hurt her. I couldn’t help but think of the parallel between Frida’s words and God’s victory at the cross. Jesus took the evil of the world upon himself and emerged victorious. Evil gave Him its best shot and lost.
Another Rwandan shared her genocide experiences after Frida. This woman, though, was Hutu. She had played a role in perpetrating the genocide. As Tim mentions here, she feels compelled to speak a message of repentance for the entire Hutu people wherever she goes. She says that the Hutu people do not listen to her because many of them believe that all sin is personal. She stood in front of all of us and asked for us to forgive her.
The power of these stories is overwhelming. It was very hard to listen to them, even harder to try to understand.
The Dinner Party
Tonight’s dinner was a celebration complete with singing, dancing, and an address by the Mayor of Kigali. The highlight of the evening was a drumming group from Burundi. The young boys had driven from Bujumbura just to play for us that night. They came marching in single file, each with a very heavy drum balanced on their head. They then put all the drums down in a circle, with one drum at its center, and began to play.
Unfortunately, about 20 minutes after they started to play it began to rain heavily. The fun part was Sarah and I ran for cover underneath a tent with them and had a great time trying to talk to them with our broken Kirundi (which they thought was hysterical) and them talking to us in their broken English. When the rain stopped the boys left the tent to begin playing again. He turned to Sarah and said "I must go. It is time to pray."
Sarah looked at me quizzically, wondering if she misunderstood him or if he had misspoke, intending to say "play" instead of "pray". She asked him, and he said that indeed yes, he had meant to say "pray" - that their drumming and dancing routines are prayers. Some are prayers for Burundi, others are prayers for the world, some are deeply personal prayers of forgiveness. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a more beautiful expression of worship. The enthusiasm those boys sang and drummed with was awe-inspiring.
It really made me think about the misplaced suspicion we in the West have often had about physical forms of worship. We accuse yoga of being Buddhist, Native American song and dancing as pagan, and meditation as being "so New Age". But this is a God who enjoyed diversity so much that he created all of us. It seems to me that the same God is unlikely to quibble over the diversity of expressions of worship we've created.
You have found your voice in the inspiration you have opened yourself to receive. Many of your comments, insights, and connections need to preserved for further thought. And, perhaps most importantly, they need to be shared in some way. You understand something in a way not before -- and I don't have the phrases to put into thought what I am feeling from reading your words. The bottom line is, keep your heart open, it is moving you along a powerful journey...
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