Day 8

This morning was spent packing and getting ready for departure for several of us. Eight of the sixteen are now on a plane somewhere over Africa headed for Brussels and will then be arriving home sometime tomorrow.

Philbert, Hilary Greer, and I left Kigali by car on an eight hour drive to Bujumbura, Burundi. We stopped for lunch in Butare, near the border with Burundi. Butare is Rwanda's intellectual capital, with the national university there and several other colleges.

Crossing the border took about half an hour. And then we began the winding path through the Burundi countryside on a two lane highway. It is a strange experience for us to travel at the high rate of speed they do on these highways -- especially because there are people walking everywhere, sometimes little children even standing or walking along the edge of the narrow road as we whiz past them with maybe only a foot between the car and a child at speeds of sometimes over 100 kph. It is amazing to me that no one was killed today. We passed other vehicles including long semi-tractor trailers on curvy roads. It's just the way it is here, and was important to entrust ourselves into the hands of a very skillful driver.

We arrived in Bujumbura around dusk after a long and really beautiful drive through the mountainous landscape of what is by many UN measurements the world's poorest country. Deep poverty is obvious everywhere -- but so is beauty and strength and courage and joy. I watched men on bicycles hauling loads piled high on their bicycles up mountainous roads, sometimes grabbing on the back of a tractor trailer to pull them along. We even saw one young man clinging face forward about half-way up the back door of a trailer for miles and miles and miles. We watched colorfully clad women with strength and grace (and the most perfect posture you've ever seen) balancing huge bundles on their heads as they walked for miles down these highways.

After a decidedly more urban crawl through the chaotic landscape of Bujumbura, we checked into our hotel -- the Hotel Club du Lac on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. After settling in the room that Philbert and I are sharing, we went down to a large outdoor pool and patio area where our dinner was being served. I immediately saw the faces of friends I have made over the past four years of being a part of Amahoro. Friends from Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda, Canada and other countries in Africa and around the world. I immediately felt the joy.

After a sumptuous buffet dinner at this very upscale hotel (Burundi's finest, I was told) we had an opening session of the gathering, at which Brian McLaren spoke. The topic this year is "The Bible: Library for African Transformation." Brian gave, as usual, a masterful talk on ways the Bible is used and misused, and focused on conflicts over how the Bible has been used around issues such as slavery, science, and poverty.

I'll be here until Thursday. Looking forward to seeing Jodi Mikalachki, our friend from Massachusetts who lives and works here in Burundi. She will be coming to Bujumbura within the next day or two from the countryside in the north.

It is such a privilege to be here.

Rwanda Journal -- Day 7

Sunday was a very special day for our group. We went to church in Ngenda, where Philbert is the pastor. We were received with such warmth -- and shyness at first -- and extreme hospitality. We arrived toward the end of the children's service where probably about 200 children were present, and then we were part of the later service where both children youth and adults filled the church. And the church was filled with music and dancing, as has been the case wherever we have been in Rwanda. There must be something about the dancing that helps explain the remarkable resilience of these people.

Christ Church Andover, watch out! We're all thinking there needs to be a lot more dancing in our worship back home! (Zero plus anything equals a lot more.) And yes, we have pictures of Frances Jennings Dodson, and Don DeLollis, and Jon Vacik, and Michael Marcinelli, and Elizabeth Walther-Grant, and everyone in our group dancing their hearts out -- yes, in church. There. I said it.

Some in our group expressed surprise that there was no communion. I explained some of the history of the church in Africa and the fact that a very protestant missionary society of the Church of England had first brought Christianity to this part of Africa, which means that they fall far to the protestant side of Anglicanism. They celebrate Holy Communion once a month in most parishes in Rwanda.

Philbert told me the next morning that the members of the church had called a meeting after we all left, to talk about how they had done in hosting their first big group of wazungu ("white people"). They had never seen such a big group before -- only ever one or two at a time in their church. It was a day they will always remember, he told me.

We spent the evening back at the Center for Unity and Peace, where we enjoyed a more relaxed day than we have had until now. Before our evening meal we spent about two hours together as a group, along with Philbert and three members of the REACH staff, reflecting on the week, and talking about ways we can stay engaged with this ministry. It's clear from the experience we have had that members of this group will (God willing) be coming back to Rwanda -- and hopefully with others who want to share this profound and moving experience. We closed the evening with the Holy Eucharist, which we had not shared together as a group until now.

Tomorrow will be the final day for some of the group, and will include visits to homes for HIV care through an organization called CHABBAH, and then into town for one last opportunity for shopping and seeing the city of Kigali. Philbert and I, along with Hilary Greer, a priest from Connecticut who has just arrived, will be driving to Bujumbura, Burundi, for the Amahoro Gathering. Others will continue for a few more days for a gorilla trek and visits to other places throughout the country.

It will be hard to say goodbye to this place and the experience we have just had.

Rwanda Journal -- Days 4, 5, and 6

Well, this is what happens when you get behind -- it's just too hard to retrace it all. We've been off in the Eastern Province for the past two days, and I didn't take my laptop because of limited space. So now I am left to try to remember and report the thousand things that have happened in our pilgrimage here.

And it has been a pilgrimage. By that I mean that we have walked on holy ground, ground made holy by the suffering of the people, and by the hope that continues to transform this land from the deep darkness of genocide toward the light of peace and reconciliation. And that is what is happening through the ministry of REACH.

Early Thursday morning we left Kigali for Kirehe. Our first destination was to the site of a house being built for a woman who is a genocide survivor.

I don't know a lot about her story except that her husband and children were all killed in 1994, and she has been destitute since then, getting by as she is able, living with other people, and living at the subsistence level. She has been a participant in a REACH Unity Group, and chose to take part in the restorative justice program.

Restorative justice is a term used in the peace-building community to refer to justice that is achieved not through revenge or retribution, but through the desire for the restoration of

relationship. What that means in the context of REACH's ministry is that ex-genocide prisoners who are coming out of prison after serving their sentences and being trained by REACH to re-enter their communities -- often the very communities where they killed their neighbors, to help them be able to live alongside the survivors of the genocide. One way the offenders can demonstrate the

genuineness of their repentance is to do community service, and REACH helps facilitate that with projects to let them build homes for the victims of their crimes. And through this process, many people are asking for and receiving forgiveness from the survivors. We worked alongside about 15 ex-prisoners to lay the foundation for a house for the survivor I mentioned above. There were about a hundred people there including us, and we hauled rocks, got our hands in the

mud used for mortar, and formed conga lines to pass the rocks and mud into the trenches that had been prepared.

There was something mildly haunting about working alongside men who had murdered hundreds of people with their own hands -- and in the most brutal ways imaginable. And yet,

there we were, with both offenders and survivors who had been reconciled to one another, and were now living in community together and helping to build a house together. Restorative justice, indeed.

From there we met with another Unity Group in Kirehe, where we heard yet more stories of survivors and offenders, and of the reconciliation they had found with one another. It was sometimes hard to tell as they were telling us their stories and they were being translated for us just how genuine the repentance and forgiveness really were. The memories and the pain still go very deep. But then, you see the two people embrace one another and tell stories of how they are helping one another, and it begins to feel like there really is something to this.

We checked into our rooms where we would be for two nights at the Seeds of Peace conference center, which is owned by the Diocese of Gahini in the Episcopal Church of Rwanda. After dinner, our reflection time was once again filled with thoughtful reflections on the day's events. I wish I could remember them all. This group of sixteen people really are remarkable, and they are getting so much out of this experience.

On Friday, we went first to a waterfall on the Akagera River, right at the border with Tanzania, and we walked across a bridge into Tanzania to see it from the other side. During the genocide, this river was flowing with bodies. We learned that the bodies of Lydia's two children had been thrown into the river just near the border. Many miles downstream in Uganda there is a burial ground for all the bodies that had traveled down the river, and into Lake Victoria, and had washed up on the shores in Uganda. Perhaps Lydia's children are buried there.

From there we traveled to the Akagera National Park, a game preserve, where we saw lots and lots of wildlife: zebras, giraffes, Cape buffaloes, antelopes of many varieties, baboons, monkeys, and many other animals. The bird life is also very diverse. We saw birds of paradise, yellow weavers, Marabou storks, black-billed cranes, and lots and lots of others. I wished by daughter and son-in-law had been here to tell me what all the birds I was seeing were.

We next made a visit in Rwinkwavu to the Partners in Health hospital. We had made arrangements through Ali Lutz, our PIH friend from Cange, Haiti, to visit one of their hospitals

in Rwanda, and we were hosted by a wonderful group of four staffers, two Americans and two Rwandese. In addition, we met PIH founder Paul Farmer's wife, Didi, who lives and works here in Rwinkwavu. She was delightful. They served us a lovely lunch, and gave us an orientation to

PIH's work in Rwanda, which was followed by a tour of the compound, including the gardens where they grow food and teach agronomy.

From there we traveled to Kayonza, where we were entertained by a fabulous youth choir, some dancers, and saw a skit about the genocide played by a group of young people, all of whom were born after the genocide. It was disturbing on the one hand, but hopeful to know that Rwandese youth are learning the lessons of their troubled history, and hopefully will not repeat that history again. Philbert's parents and sister live in this community and were present for this event. It was a privilege to meet them and thank them for what their son and brother has come to mean to all of us!

Today, Saturday the 19th, we had a relatively leisurely morning, then met with Bishop Alex of the Diocese of Gahini where we were staying. He was very hospitable toward us, and spoke at length about the history of the church in this area, including East Africa's apparently famous

Gahini Revival that began right here in 1935 and was influential in the growth of the church throughout East Africa. He has big ideas, and he's apparently someone who has achieved many of them. We were, however, skeptical when he announced to us that he has a plan to eradicate illegal drugs from Rwanda within six months. I told him that once he has done so, I hope he will share his secret with us in the US. He also invited us to drive up the hill to see the grounds of the Diocese of Gahini, which we did. It is a fairly impressive complex

of buildings and the cathedral on over a hundred acres.

We then drove to Rwamagana, where we

had the most amazing experience. Prior to our arrival, the latest installment of 120 goats bought by Christ Church Andover had been distributed to their proud new owners in this community. And we arrived to find them all lined up alongside the street on the outskirts of the downtown area in celebratory dress -- people of all ages, children, youth, middle age and older people -- all proudly standing with their bleating four-footed creatures. It was a moment I will never forget. We mingled with them for some time, taking pictures and videos, and talking with gestures and the few words in Kinyarwanda that we have learned.

"Murakoze chani" was about the best we could do to thank them for welcoming us in this amazing display of gratitude. We gathered people and goats as best we could to offer a blessing of the animals. And then we went down the street to a local Pentecostal church -- a sort of open air structure with a roof of corrugated iron. Here we were once again feted with song and dance, and a presentation of gifts to the REACH Director, Philbert Kalisa, and to Thomas Brown of Epiphany Winchester and myself. It was joyful and humbling to be received in this way.

Then back to Kigali this evening -- it felt like coming home, here to the Center for Unity and Peace, where we reclaimed our rooms and rested for a while before gathering at

the bar for some refreshments, and then going to the large hall where we partied the rest of the evening away. There were lots of guests for the celebration -- both Rwandese and American - about 50 people in total. A few folks have come for the Amahoro gathering that will begin in Burundi on Monday. It was quite a surprise to find my birthday (today) being celebrated, along with three others in our group who have May birthdays. We blew out the candles on two large (and delicious) cakes. Throughout the evening we were entertained by a group of Twa dancers and singers. It was quite a cultural immersion experience. And toward the end of the evening they had us all out on the floor dancing with them in their traditional dances. As I write, I can still hear the sounds of music at the other end of the building. Apparently some are still partying!

What an incredible experience this has been -- and it's not over. Gifts were presented from the REACH staff to Thomas Brown and me, representing our two parishes. We were humbled yet one more time for their display of hospitality and gratitude. Michael Marcinelli spoke on behalf of our entire group to offer our thanks for the experience we have been having. He was absolutely eloquent as he described what this experience has meant to him and to us. And he described how challenging it will be to adequately share it with others back home. But we will do our best.

Rwanda Journal – Day Three

Today we were witnesses to the depths of horror, and the heights of joy. I can’t say much tonight, because it is late after a long and emotional day, and tomorrow we have to get up for an early departure. But here is the thumbnail version.

We began the day with the drive to Nyamata, which is about an hour to the southeast from Kigali. Nyamata is the site of one of the genocide’s most infamous incidents, where over ten thousand Tutsis sought refuge at a church, thinking they would be safe there -- and indeed, this particular church did have a history of being a safe haven in one of the earlier precursors to the 1994 genocide. It didn’t turn out that way this time. The Interahamwe militias came to the church and massacred the people not only on the grounds outside the church, but also those inside – over ten thousand in all. They used automatic weapons and grenades to kill as many as they could, then walked through the church with machetes to finish off anyone who had not died. After the genocide the church was turned into a memorial site. Today we walked through the church, where the pews are piled high with the blood soaked clothing of the people who were found here. Their remains are interred in mass graves on the site. You can walk through them and see rows and rows of skulls and bones, the evidence of death-dealing machete wounds everywhere. We heard stories I won’t even dare to write about here. Shocking is too soft a word.

REACH has worked in the town of Nymata for quite a few years, where they have developed Unity Groups. These Unity Groups were a response to the isolation and loneliness of women in the community after the genocide, and the absolute breakdown of any sense of community. Some of the women had lost their husbands and children. Others were “widowed” when their husbands went to prison as offenders in the genocide. Everyone’s life was shattered. And everyone found it difficult to speak to anyone else, knowing that their neighbors were often on the other side of the genocidal equation. Into this hopeless-seeming situation came REACH, and the beginnings of a way forward. Women were invited to come to a meeting where they could tell their stories. They found some who shared their own deep grief, and they learned to sympathize with those who had been on the other side, but whose lives had also been shattered by the genocide. Women who could not even look at each other or speak to each other gradually became… yes, friends. I’m thinking now especially of Immakulee and Berenside, two of the women who gave their personal testimonies today. Perhaps more of their stories later.

We visited Unity Groups in two different towns – Ngenda, which is a very rural area near the border with Burundi, and Nyamata. At Nyamata, we met the only person to have survived the massacre in the church at Nyamata. She is still living there, and is a member of the REACH Unity Group. Heartbreaking tales were told. But the remarkable thing was the absolute joy they shared with us at what had happened to their lives because of REACH. They have made friends. They are no longer lonely. They realize that everyone there has suffered greatly. And the fact that we would come all the way from America to see them brought them more joy than we could imagine. They danced and sang. They gave testimonies to the healing they have experienced in their lives.

It helped to put some of the divisions and conflicts in our own lives back home in perspective, at least for me. And most of all it renewed my hope in the possibility of forgiveness and reconciliation even in the worst situations you can imagine.

And for the folks at Christ Church in Andover, both of these groups of women have received goats from our Goats for Rwanda project -- and we got to see some of the goats and their offspring. Joy indeed.

Rwanda Journal – Day Two (May 15, 2012)

“I don’t think I had ever been in the same room with a murderer before.” These were the words of one of our group tonight during our reflection on the day’s experiences. They were a reference to this morning’s session with two people, Lydia and Silidio – she a survivor of the genocide, and he an “offender.” Offender is the word most often used here, but it feels like such a euphemism. He did more than offend. He murdered. Lots of people.

But Lydia and Silidio each told their stories – stories of growing up in the years before the genocide, the harrowing experience of those incomprehensible 100 days in 1994, and their shattered lives since that time. She told of the brutal deaths of her husband and two young children. And of being raped. And of contracting HIV. He talked about going out and killing, "because my government told me to do it," as he said at one point. But he also took responsibility for the horrendous crimes he had committed. He had murdered people with his own hands. Lots of people. He talked about fleeing into Tanzania after the genocide was stopped, then later being sent back into Rwanda. He knew if he came back he would die, but decided it was better to die in Rwanda, than to die in a strange country.

These two people were on opposite sides of a genocide where Hutus set out to systematically and brutally eliminate all the Tutsis. One million people were hacked and clubbed to death in one hundred days. That’s ten thousand every day. Twenty every minute – for one hundred days – while the world stood by and did nothing.

These two people also told their stories – difficult stories – of forgiveness and reconciliation, of offering forgiveness and of receiving it, victim and perpetrator. We were privileged to be witnesses not only to their stories, but to the transformational work that REACH is doing with people just like them all over the country. They are both now leaders in REACH’s restorative justice program. Lydia works with other survivors as they seek and find healing for the trauma in their lives. Silidio has supervised the building of 41 homes for the survivors – all done by volunteers, including himself.

Our time this evening was filled with moving reflections from every single one of our group, not only about Lydia and Silidio, but also about our visit to the Kigali Genocide Memorial, and our admiration of the incredible people here on the staff of REACH who do this work day in and day out, year in and year out. It is an experience that defies words.

Rwanda Journal – Day One (May 14, 2012)

Rwandan hospitality at its finest!

We arrived this evening in Kigali to be met at the airport by Fr. Philbert Kalisa four staff people from REACH – Fr. Fidele, Alphonsine (the office manager), and Theo (the business manager).  They brought our group of sixteen missionary-pilgrims to the Center for Unity and Peace (CUP), which will be our home for the next week.  And a center for unity and peace it is! 

After getting us all situated in our rooms (all private en suite accommodations), we went to the restaurant here on the premises for a buffet dinner that had been lovingly prepared for us.   We also toasted one of our group, Hilary Treat, whose birthday it is today!  Having traveled for nearly 24 hours. From Boston, to Newark, to Brussels, to Kigali, we are tired.  Some had a night cap at the bar, and others went straight to bed.

 It is good to be back in a place that now feels like one of my homes, to take in the evening view of the lights of Kigali on the hillside below and to feel the cool evening breeze in this lovely spot on the outskirts of the city.  And it’s wonderful to be sharing it with fifteen other people this time!

We will have a busy week ahead of us, and I hope to be sharing much more of it here.  But now it’s time to rest.  This won’t get posted until tomorrow morning when Philbert has the wireless internet set up for us and gives us the password. 

And just to show how “at home” I am becoming in this city now, I have to tell a story from our arrival at the airport.  We were in line to go through the immigration desk after getting off the plane and walking across the tarmac into the terminal.  Our group was gathering in the two or three lines of people when I heard a voice a few feet away saying, “Is that Jeff Gill?”  I recognized the voice, and I turned to look and there was Lauren Servin, a young American woman I had met, not in Rwanda, but in Sudan in 2008.  She had just flown in from Juba, South Sudan, where she is now working.  I had not seen her since the three days I spent in Sudan in 2008 when I visited the newly opened secondary school for girls in Yei.  Lauren was then working for NESEI, and has since completed a Master’s degree at NYU before returning to work in the new country of South Sudan.  I remember Lauren for her hard-working, gentle but strong command of the chaotic environment of Yei, as she drove us around those three days.  I was impressed that a young woman in her then early twenties had come to a place like this, was learning both the local language and the local Arabic, and managing to help open a school in a place where there had never been a school for girls.  We had fun catching up in our brief airport visit this evening.   Lauren tells me that things are terrible in South Sudan – something I have sensed from the news reports we get, but did not want to hear from people actually working there.  We discovered another mutual friend in Abraham Ding Akoi, who is now the Finance Minister of the new South Sudan.  She has come to Rwanda for a conference and commented on how wonderful it was to be in a country for a few days where things actually work!

I’m grateful for people like Lauren who believe enough in the impossible to be in a place like South Sudan to help make it happen.  And Philbert, who against all odds returned to Rwanda after the genocide sixteen years ago to develop a ministry like REACH.  We’ll be learning all about how to make the impossible happen this week.  Stay tuned!

Ready, set, go!

Sixteen people will leave Boston Logan tomorrow afternoon for Rwanda.  We're going to participate in the work of REACH, along with our friend, the Rev. Philbert Kalisa and the staff and members of the organization.

We'll visit communities throughout Rwanda where REACH is doing the work of reconciliation, bringing people together across the lines of the artificially constructed ethnic divisions left behind by the colonialists.  These divisions led to one of the world's worst nightmares in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.  Rwandans now face the monumental task of building a new society and a culture of unity, forgiveness and reconciliation.

We're going to play some small part in supporting them in this work.  We'll visit Unity Groups that include both Hutu and Tutsi people.  We'll meet survivors of the genocide, as well as perpetrators, and we'll hear their painful stories.  We'll witness the restorative justice program where ex-prisoners from the genocide are building homes for the victims of their crimes.  I think we'll be spending part of a day helping them build someone's home.

Check this space in the coming days.  We hope to be able to share some of our experience -- and perhaps some pictures, too!  And please keep us in your prayers.