“I know there is a God because in Rwanda I shook hands with the devil.” – Major General Romeo Dallaire, Force Commander, United Nations Mission Assistance in Rwanda.

But where evil is strong, hope is stronger.

I’m an employee at Compassion. I work as an assistant for our International Program Communications Director. I love my job and I love working for Compassion.

However, for years my heart has ached to travel to East Africa. I wanted to see firsthand the children that haunted my dreams and now consume my days as I work to help release children from poverty.

Last year, my boss agreed to let me take a two-month leave of absence to work at a Rwandan orphanage. I just got back a couple weeks ago.

While in Kigali, I experienced more hope and more devastation than I thought possible. But it’s because of Compassion that I am able to bring you this story about love, hope and sorrow in Rwanda. About some orphans, some widows and some abandoned children who when they have nothing left, cling to Jesus. In the midst of extreme poverty, they choose hope.

Rwanda. It seeped into every part of me. The only phrase that seems appropriate for this country is “Devastating Beauty.”

In Kigali, I saw more beauty than words can express. However, in some of the same moments, the realities of poverty and sickness overwhelmed and haunted me. All I know is that it profoundly changed me.

Like many 25-year-old girls in America, before I left for Rwanda, I attempted to define some characteristics of young men of integrity. In Kigali, I found examples of those men.

The first: Gilbert. Gilbert is 26 years old and just learning English. During some of our talks I asked him to tell me his story.

He became a man when he was 11. It was 1994, and he watched his parents brutally murdered in the genocide. He then had the responsibility to care for his three sisters.

In broken English and with tears in his eyes he said:

“After the genocide, a man from the village came to me and told me I had to come to a meeting to represent our family. He said, ‘YOU are now the man.’ I remember thinking, ‘What? I am not a man, I am 11 years old! How can I be the man?’”

With no other options, he accepted responsibility, and to this day continues taking care of his family. His story is similar to many of the Compassion children you help sponsor.

But the young man who had the biggest impact on me in Rwanda was a 7-year-old named Innocent.

Besides possessing a divine name, Innocent carries an amazing heart. He is mature and selfless. He picks up the emptied plates at the dinner table and then rushes to help the babies eat, or work on his studies. Never once did I see a poor attitude or an inkling of complaint from this boy.

Innocent works hard in school and plays hard at home (He beat me in soccer every single day!). When I looked into his eyes, I saw hope for Africa. Hope that young boys like Innocent will continue to grow into men of integrity. Hope that in the midst of incredible evil and unbelievable circumstances, the young children of Rwanda will grow up to be leaders who follow hope and pursue Christ.

Hope for Africa. Many moments in Kigali, as I walked down the dusty streets, grief-stricken by the poverty I saw, I wondered if there really was hope. How can there be hope when I see little children begging on the streets in rags?

Despite this, God is evident in Rwanda. In the aftermath of the genocide, His presence is everywhere, especially in the eyes of the children.

While at the orphanage, I developed a special relationship with Deborah. This 2-year-old has unique needs, as she has cerebral palsy.

With shame, I admit my initial discomfort with Deborah. She drooled constantly. She smelled of urine as she wet her diapers frequently. She was always covered in dirt from frequent falls.

However, this could not touch her startling beauty. Of the 29 incredible children I lived with at the orphanage, Deborah had an extra glimmer and shine in her eyes. Oh how I long to see the world through her eyes! When she saw me, she squeaked with joy and ran to me, longing to be picked up and held.

So much hope can be found in a hug and a smile. I found hope from Deborah on my worst of days.

I remember one particularly hard day in Kigali. I felt utterly exhausted and wanted to escape the daunting presence of poverty and evil. I walked back into the home, and Deborah was at the gate, waiting for me. She ran as fast as she could, drooling, wet and dirty.

Yet this time, as I picked her up, I couldn’t let her go. I wouldn’t. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I hugged this little one. In her eyes there is love. In her eyes there is hope. And there is no shame.

Yet again a child taught me a lesson about our Jesus. I am Deborah. I am handicapped, weak, smelly and covered in filth. So many times while in this state, I am too ashamed to come to Jesus, to run to Him. I want to clean myself up and not be seen as I really am. But in that moment, Deborah’s vulnerability deeply impacted my heart.

Only weeks ago, little Deborah was in my arms. Now, in America, thousands of miles away and in a completely different world, my arms ache to hold Deborah again. I pray that someday each of you will get the opportunity to visit the country that stole my heart and see the hope that rose from the ashes of the genocide.

Yes, in April of 1994, the presence of the devil was strong in Rwanda. However, this April of 2009? This April, people will mourn and remember, and look toward the future with glorious hope. Hope best seen in the eyes of our children

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We have that word in our vocabulary. And somewhere, at some point in history someone said, “What name will we have for the deliberate mass killing of people?” We needed a word for it because such a thing was taking place.

It completely unravels my nerves, but not as much as my ignorance does. In a lot of ways evil, for me, is something I have heard of. Something I have learned about. But for so many it is a memory, an experience. Some of those people live in Rwanda and have come intimately close to witnessing pure hatred.

My lack of knowledge took a back seat in college when I truly began to discover so many horrific events that I had heard of at one time, maybe on the news or seen as a headline, but was never thoroughly introduced to what had taken place.

I watched documentary after documentary, movies based on true events, read history books … I was like a sponge soaking it all in, attempting to wash away my ignorance, trying to grasp how such things had even taken place.

How can we be so capable of such evil?

The lump in my throat, the knot in my stomach, they are still there. The most pure and clear memory of my own disgust with evil was when I learned, fully, about the genocide in Rwanda. Hollywood horror films have nothing on the reality of what took place in this country in Africa.

Questions of doubt fiercely raged war within me. Learning more about the details made me feel like my own purity was being washed away.

Spiraling down in the midst of trying to find answers to my own questions, I was losing grip. How do I categorize this? What bin of understanding does this belong in? In 1994 somewhere around 1 million people in three months had their lives ended, mercilessly.

The Lord’s answer to my heart in agony, as I raised question after question about evil, has been transformed. The more I learn about our capacity to carry out evil I am continuously being introduced to our capability to do good.

We can do good. We are doing good and good will always trump evil. Always!

My introduction to The Lord’s awareness is deepened every day I come to work. Shout out to Compassion! OK, so I know I work here, but honestly I need to say it. Working here has been like a crash course in “How Much God Cares 101.”

Would you like to know two instances of God’s goodness going forth in the lives of two people who live in Rwanda? Welcome to your crash course:

A young lady named Kirabo lives in Rwanda and graduated from the Compassion Child Sponsorship Program in 2004. She is now studying computer engineering at university, and working in the Program Communication Department at Compassion in Rwanda.

She was enrolled in Compassion at an early age. When she was asked how the child development center helped her she stated,

“To begin with, at Compassion I met so many children. There was fellowship. I could see children that loved God. That was a big turning point in my life.

“When I would work at the pulpit, and see these children look so innocent like they hadn’t seen any bad things, and I wanted to be like that. I wanted to be able to look at the world without seeing the bad side of it, and just enjoy it.

“That’s what I got in Compassion. They were loving, and caring, and not too weird. They used to come and pray, they used to give us meals inside the child development center, we used to do arts and crafts and sing. I think that helped me a lot.”

Then there is Antoinette, who went into prison because of her involvement in the genocide. Her daughter, 10 months old, stayed with her in jail until almost four years of age. Then Antoinette asked a friend to register her daughter, Alexie, into our program.

Alexie was registered and under the care of her aunt. Ten years later Antoinette was released from jail because she was found innocent of the chargers that had been brought against her.

Her daughter, Alexie now leads the choir at her church, studies hard in school, and hopes to become a teacher.

Antoinette is now a believer and is immensely grateful to Alexie’s sponsor.

Beauty from ashes. We serve a Lord who restores in the midst of so much evil.

Are we really capable of such good?

To offer hope in the midst of a pitch-black reality known by too many? I know this truth well!

How great His trust in us, that we are ministers of His light and hope to those surrounded by ruthless lies and incomprehensible evil.

Where do you find your mind’s contemplations? What steeps within your heart: our ability to do good? Or evil?

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I was in the midst of my self-absorbed teenage years – a time in my life when nothing seemed as important as what kind of clothes I was wearing, and my daily mood was dictated by whether my current crush had said “Hi” to me in the hallway between classes that day. I was the center of my attention.

I distinctly remember the moment that God took my focus off of me.

Throughout my childhood, my mom subscribed to Time Magazine. There were always a few copies lying somewhere near the couch and occasionally I would pick one up and casually leaf through it.

One day, in May, I picked up a magazine with this cover …

I proceeded to read the article, both fascinated and horrified by the words I was reading. As I looked at the gruesome pictures, God did a major work on my heart.

My focus suddenly shifted from myself to those living through the nightmare happening in Rwanda. I was at once both distraught about what was happening in Rwanda and heartbroken for my own self-centered worldview. My world – my concerns, my interests, my dreams, my prayers – suddenly seemed so trivial in comparison.

That was the first time I remember thinking about people outside of the world I knew. I didn’t realize that God was using that moment to plant seeds in my heart – seeds that would eventually bear fruit in my choice of career, where I give my money, and how I live my life.

Fifteen years later I still haven’t forgotten that day or those images.

Elie Weisel, a Jewish Holocaust survivor, said: “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.”

Even though the genocide happened 15 years ago, we must never allow ourselves to fall into indifference. The images can still have a profound impact on many lives.

Pictures tell stories in ways that words never can. So here is the story, 15 years later…

How did the genocide affect your life? Did it alter your view of God? Did it change your perspective on injustice? Have you explained to your children what happened?

Photos and slideshow by Chuck Bigger, one of God’s biggest blessings to Compassion.

If you have difficulty viewing the slideshow in this post, you can also check it out in Flickr.

Upload your photos to our Flickr group. Show us how you see poverty.

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Mbanda is now Compassion’s Regional Vice President of the African region.

I was not in Rwanda. I arrived in May 1994 with Compassion to administer relief behind the RPF fighting lines. I was in Nairobi, Kenya, but before that I lived in the USA for 21 years. My parents left Rwanda, running for their lives, when I was 4.

2. How was Rwanda on the ground when you arrived?

Horrific! The country was on fire, it was in disarray, people were dying like flies; displaced people everywhere, bodies rotting everywhere. The military the RPF was trying to stop was visible. I could hear gunshots from where I was.

3. What were your impressions?

Horrible! Inhuman!

How could a human being do what the Hutu militia did to another human being? How could a government, a leadership of a country, turn against its people and butcher them?

I was angry. It was my people that were being butchered. I was scared for my life even as we went around administering relief where we could.

Initially, I was angry at some NGOs (nongovernment organizations). Many were coming in taking pictures and returning back to raise money. How could they have gone in empty-handed?

4. What did you do?

An American friend who was with me said that I was not grieving for my people! I had no time to grieve. I was on a mission to rescue and assist where I could. To feed children, nurse their wounds, and attend to the general needs of displaced people who were everywhere on the hills of Rwanda and the zones already rescued by the RPF.

5. What did you find the hardest?

Witnessing a country in disarray! It was hard to believe that a human being could have killed children, women, the elderly, their neighbors; people they had known and lived with, and in such a violent way. It was hard to believe the depth of hatred, the seed that had been sown, the divisions that went that deep.

6. How has the country changed?

Rwanda has had an amazing recovery and extraordinary progress since the genocide, on many fronts, but especially in the fight against poverty.

Rwanda’s economic growth rate of over 10 percent a year is an unbelievable success story. It has the highest number of female leaders of any parliament in the world. The country enjoys peace, security throughout and visionary leadership.

It is a story of success and model of good governance in the region. Reconciliation is taking hold, the country and people are turning to the Lord. Rwanda is a country committed to “never again” genocide in Rwanda.

7. What did Compassion do when it first arrived?

Compassion sponsored children to go to school, provided them with spiritual teaching, cared for their physical health, and taught them different skills for social development. The continued focus was on the individual development of children.

8. And straight after the genocide?

Compassion committed to contributing to the rebuilding of a then devastated society.

Currently, we are focusing on programs that contribute to the development of the country, meeting the Millennium Development Goals, and reducing poverty in the country.

Over 50,000 children and their families are benefiting from our program. Their well being, educational provisions, spiritual nurture and economical needs, among other things, are being met.

9. How do the government and the Rwandan people view ministries like Compassion?

They are thankful because they are committed to the development of Rwanda and its people.

The government’s desire is to see that aid is spent in a way that has maximum impact on economic development and poverty reduction. Agencies are encouraged to provide aid in line with national priorities. There is promotion of local ownership of development activities. The “handout” approach is not encouraged here.

When the genocide ended, Dr. Mbanda penned the book, Committed to Conflict: The Destruction of the Church in Rwanda, which discussed the church’s horrific involvement.

10. Your book is controversial. Why did you write it?

To tell the story about the role of the church in the conflicts that led to the genocide and the difference the church could have made. It questions the depth of teaching and discipleship of believers.

11. What do you say after all you have seen?

God continues to be in control and that He loves Rwanda and Rwandans. The heart of man is sick and needs a savior. The international community should never be put to shame again like it was during the Rwandan genocide. We cannot afford another genocide anywhere in the world. The international community needs to be watchful and must intervene in time whenever it is needed.

12. What is your dream for Rwanda?

To be a peaceful country, a prosperous witness of God’s grace and forgiveness, an example of what can happen with good leadership, a nation of purpose and unity among all Rwandans.

This post was written by Choe Brereton- Communications Specialist, Compassion Australia and Sara Martin, Contributing Writer, Global Ministry Center

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He had seen a lot of injustice in the past, working to combat human rights abuses around the world. And in Rwanda, he stood amid it. He led a team in gathering evidence against those who perpetrated the genocide. He didn’t just fight a legal battle from afar; he stood at the sites of mass murder and mass graves, and looked into the ugliness of this world. 

And his response to it was quite surprising to me.

“When you are standing in a mass grave in Rwanda, the question that came to my mind was not the question that was coming to everyone else’s mind perhaps. I’ve had people ask me, ‘Where was God in the midst of all of this?’ But I could sense, at least from Scripture, what I knew of my heavenly Father, was that I knew where God was: He was right in the midst of all that incredible suffering. The more relevant question for me was, ‘Where are God’s people?’

“… What I also saw so clearly was the biblical mandate, because when you go through Scripture with an eye for that, all of a sudden there are these very clear commands: Micah 6:8, ‘He has told you, O man what is good and what the Lord requires of you, but to do justice, to love mercy, to walk humbly with your God,’ or Isaiah 1:17, ‘Seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.’” (Excerpted from RELEVANT magazine, “A Call to Justice,” March/April 2007 with permission.) 

Rather than raging at God, like I sometimes feel tempted to do, Haugen knew that this was a matter for the church. It was our responsibility to do justice, to rescue the oppressed, to plead for the widows and orphans.

Laurent Mbanda is the Vice President of the Africa region for Compassion and also a native Rwandan. He wrote the book, Committed to Conflict: The Destruction of the Church in Rwanda, about the church in Rwanda and how it was involved in the genocide. “Rwandans had a common saying: ‘God spends the day somewhere else, but spends the night in Rwanda.’ To many, God left Rwanda on 6 April 1994 and did not come back until the final defeat of the Rwandan army by the RPF soldiers.” 

But not only did God seem to have left, some church leaders seemed to have allowed, blessed and even participated in the slaughter. According to Mbanda, a history of prejudice and political involvement in the Rwandan church, dating back to Belgian colonial times and early Christian missionaries, set the stage for the unthinkable. Where were God’s people in the Rwandan genocide? Unbelievably, some were right there, supporting it.  

What did Haugen do in response to what he saw? I would have despaired. But fueled by what he saw, Haugen knew what he must do. He knew it was the church’s responsibility, our responsibility, not to wink at the injustices of the world, but to stop them. He founded the International Justice Mission, an organization that secures justice for victims of slavery, sexual exploitation and violent oppression in 12 countries around the world. This organization partners with us to help protect children who might not otherwise have someone to speak up for them. 

What is your response when you read about the ugliness of the world? Do you want to close your eyes or just despair? It sure is tempting. But rather than giving up, Haugen went to the Scriptures to see what God’s call was on him, and he obeyed. He is now mobilizing the Church to be the ones who don’t look away, but who show up when the world needs it most.

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On April 6, 1994, in a country the size of Maryland, but with New York City’s population stuffed into it, friends and business associates began killing one another indiscriminately. Neighbor butchered neighbor. More than 1 million people were exterminated in 100 days and another 2 million fled the country.

In a country identified as 90 percent Christian, Christ-like behavior essentially vanished as children and babies were hacked apart with machetes. What happened to God? Where was He?

In pre-colonial times, Rwanda’s three ethnic groups established a system of exchanged labor, which was exploited by the Belgian colonial administration. When Rwanda gained independence in 1962, the colonial legacy of division led the Hutu and Tutsi, the two main ethnic groups, to periodically kill each other for the next four decades, fueled a diaspora, and culminated in the genocide.

In 2006, 12 years after the Rwandan president’s plane was shot down on approach and setting off the killings, a quiet tarmac greets me at the Kigali airport. The sun is bright and the sky is clear, but the air seems mournfully still.

A rush of passengers arrives at Customs, disrupting my perception of Rwandan life like dust swept into the air. I’m not ready for the bustle. I want a moment to grieve what happened, to honor the pain and ask forgiveness for my indifference. So I withdraw toward the wall to watch the crowd swarm about.

Conversations buzz the room, and a group of Rwandans begin to queue. I stare at them with a glazed mind, lost in my thoughts.

A few days later, a copy of The Purpose Driven Life sits on Mayor Vianney Murego’s desk, tempting me to ask a question about it, to turn the conversation to why I’m in Rwanda, which is precisely why I ignore it.

I came to Rwanda to savor God’s love. Like coffee, which the country’s volcanic soil produces, God’s love can be found in other places, and given its past, Rwanda may seem an unlikely place to experience God. However, soil infuses its fruit with a distinctive flavor, and Rwanda’s sorrow-laced soil, watered with innocent blood, produces a grateful love in its people – a love rich with overtones of mercy and grace.

I learn that life after Hotel Rwanda – after the genocide – is about chronic water and power shortages. A lack of industry and a decimated infrastructure combine with an overpopulated, overworked land, leading most observers to conclude that there is no hope for the future.

But Mayor Murego disagrees.

With carefully chosen English and a survivor’s conviction, Mayor Murego explains that only forgiveness promotes healing; hanging onto pain doesn’t. And his weary country wants to move forward.

He mentions the gacaca courts, traditional community courts set up to speed the genocide trials along and reduce the burden on the conventional court system.

Suspects with nonleadership roles in the planning and commission of atrocities are tried in their communities, which helps foster healing by addressing the remaining fears on both sides of the process and helping dress the lingering emotional wounds.

The open, community-rendered justice helps cleanse the soul, allowing forgiveness to take root, which means Rwanda’s future is brighter than even the most optimistic foreigner may imagine.

The government expects the country to be a leader in Africa someday, and not in the distant future, but soon. They’re planting their hope and building their future on the rock of faith. Faith in God, and faith that only Rwandans live today, that the distinction between Hutu and Tutsi died 15 years ago, and Rwanda is a nation forgiven and redeemed.

Where was God during the Rwandan genocide?

He was there. But not only there, He is wherever the question is asked, whenever it is asked.

I recognize the genocide as an atrocity – as wrong, unjust and devastating – because the light of Christ illuminates the darkness.

Without Christ, Rwanda, Sept. 11 and Darfur are unrecognizable. Christ shares His sorrow on the cross,

“Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”

“My God, my God, why have your forsaken me?”

Then He shares His joy, and asks us, “Where were you? Where ARE you now? Here I AM. Come to me.”

Where was I?

During the 100 days of slaughter, I was immersed in myself. I had not a glimmer of Christ. Eleven years passed before I became aware of the Rwandan genocide, and the question now is “Where is my hope?”

It’s where it’s always been, even when I didn’t know it.

“Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation.” – Colossians 1:21-22 (NIV)

This post was inspired by my time in Rwanda in October 2006. I traveled to Nyabikiri, a community in the Gatsibo District of Rwanda, while on a mission trip.

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