Personal Narrative: Rwanda Genocide

Imagine driving down a road in the hilly countryside of Rwanda. On one side of the road there are banana trees, and on the other side lush green grass that fills the hills along the side of the road. This road leads to a tiny town where kids run up to a car and say, “muzungo” which means foreigner in Kinyarwanda. Now imagine just twenty-two years earlier, this same road is filled with bodies lying on the side of the road while straight ahead walking down this road with machetes and rifles are members of an extremist group. This is what happened in the small African nation of Rwanda in the spring of 1994, Hutu extremists spent three months killing Tutsi, and Hutu sympathizers. A genocide that tragically put families and neighbors against each other. A country was torn and scarred from a massive tragedy that lasted 100 days. Even though I was not personally affected by the events of the genocide, it still has had a defining impact on my life because six years (2010) after my trip to this tiny nation of Rwanda, I spent two weeks listening, visiting the memorials, walking with the victims of this terrible tragedy, and trying to understand the process of reconciliation. I
I have come to this revelation through my experiences with the church. As a student at a college of the church, a staffer at a camp of the church, and a former young adult leader of the church, God is calling me to be a part of the church. I am being called to be an agent of change within the church, and to make the Lutheran church better. I am being called to fight against the injustices that are going on in the church, and I am being called to make the church uncomfortable and not be complacent in the injustices that are happening. God is calling me to continue to challenge the church to be more inclusive, and to continue the tradition of the Bible to fight against injustices, and to stand in solidarity with the marginalized and