You will Fall in Love with this Child – Guaranteed!
Judah’s funny, full of life, joyful and silly. And you are going to fall in love with him — guaranteed!
Rwandan Genocide: Where Were God’s People?
At the time of the Rwandan genocide in 1994, Gary Haugen, a senior trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, was given an assignment to serve as the Officer in Charge of the U.N.’s genocide investigation in Rwanda.
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.
Photo by Phoebe Graves
We originally published this post on April 6, 2009, the 15th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda.
Break Through the Fog
As we prepare for the Easter season, there may be some of you who are in a place of fog. You can’t see clearly what’s ahead of you. You might even be wondering if God is with you at all because the fog has been with you for so long.
#BestDecisionEVER
Hashtags are a cultural phenomenon. And today we are having a little fun with our friend, the hashtag.
What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?
Children all around the world have dreams about their futures. We asked some of the children in our program what they want to be when they grow up.
How Should We Handle Fear?
The world tells us to simply show no fear; pretend it doesn’t exist or exhibit behavior that displays calm or confidence in your abilities. But how far will this mindset take us?
Spread the Word About the Son of God Movie
Jimmy Mellado, our President and CEO, shares what we have in common with the Son of God movie project.
My Walk With Jesus
In this chapel message, President and CEO Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado explores the four stages of spiritual development through his own walk with Jesus, from his simple faith as a boy through his broken times which have enabled him to reach a point of “just love.”
The Cost of Child Labor [INFOGRAPHIC]
Child laborers are not simply working an after-school job. They are children who have had their safety, education and childhoods taken from them.
The Locust Effect: How Violence Plagues the Poor
The locusts of everyday violence have been allowed to swarm unabated in the developing world. And they are laying waste to the hope of the poor. – Gary Haugen and Victor Boutros
The Love of Literacy
When a church in Bolivia discovered many of the mothers enrolled its Child Survival Program couldn’t read or write the official language of the country, it acted. This is what the church did.
Human Trafficking Awareness Day: What is a Child’s Life Worth?
Today is Human Trafficking Awareness Day. By learning the facts about this terrible crime against humanity, you can be the change for exploited children around the world.
