Tag: Rwanda

Rwandan Genocide: 15 Years Later

In 1994 I was 16.

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?

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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.

An Interview With Dr. Laurent Mbanda

As the Rwandan genocide unfolded 15 years ago, Dr. Laurent Mbanda followed the fighting lines of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) to help administer aid to those who needed it most.

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

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1. Where were you when the genocide started?

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?

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Rwandan Genocide: Where Was God?

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?

Highly Vulnerable Children: What Special Needs Do They Have?

Highly vulnerable children in our programs are children at greatest risk of physical, psychological or social harm relative to other children in our child sponsorship program.

A Chance to Survive

Hello Compassion Blog readers.

Sorry I haven’t contributed much lately. I’m still here and still handling crisis communications, in case you were wondering. There is something that has been on my mind that I feel compelled to share with you.

I’m gonna step outside my comfort zone for a minute to share this with you. I have Rheumatoid Arthritis. I was diagnosed with it when I was 15, so I’ve had it for half my life, but you’d probably never know it if you met me. I don’t talk about it much. Most people I interact with on a regular basis don’t even know. In the past 10 years, the medical research and pharmaceutical industries have come a long way in treating the disease, and this has allowed me to live to a virtually pain-free, symptom-free life.

But here’s the thing. I have a normal life simply because I happen to have been born in the United States. I have access to powerful drugs. I have insurance to cover the (outrageously high) cost of them. Certainly I am grateful for this, but lately I’ve been thinking about what my life would be like if I were born into poverty in a developing country. What if I was from rural Rwanda? Or a slum in the Philippines? Or a poor community in Nicaragua?

I’d more than likely be totally crippled by now. At 30 years old.

This thought really freaks me out, to be honest with you. I cannot imagine what it would be like to not be able to stand up straight, to walk, or to grip things. To live in constant, life-altering pain. I feel guilty for being happy I was born here. I don’t have to try to live with this disease without the help of drugs. I am not crippled. I assume it’s similar in a way to the guilt a person feels when they survive a car accident where the other passengers died . . . the ugly injustice of it. I understand that God’s ways are higher than our ways, but I struggle to understand why He chooses for some — why He chose ME — to be born into affluence and why He chooses some to be born into poverty. It’s not fair.

Nowhere is this injustice more evident than in the fight against HIV and AIDS. December 1 was World AIDS Day, and Brianne told you about our AIDS Initiative. The amazing thing about this program is that it literally restores justice to an unjust world. Without access to antiretroviral drugs, those battling AIDS in poverty-stricken countries fight an unwinnable war. By providing the antiretroviral therapy, Compassion allows children with death sentences another chance at life. A chance that, had they been born here, they would have had simply by virtue of their nationality.

If anyone is in the position to get this, it’s Godfrey. He understands that he is alive today because Compassion is fighting the injustice of HIV and AIDS in Uganda. His life is his testimony.

Compassion’s AIDS Initiative is more than just drugs. It’s nutritional support. It’s the critical laboratory testing. It’s psychosocial support. It’s treatment of opportunistic infections. It’s transportation assistance. It’s income generation. It’s housing repair. It’s all the opportunities that a person suffering from HIV here in the U.S. would have.

The AIDS Initiative essentially levels the playing field to give every victim of HIV — no matter where they were born — an equal chance to survive this devastating disease.

Give someone a chance to survive by supporting the AIDS Initiative today.

Dear Good Samaritans

I am very proud that I am alive so that I can witness and testify to the love of God through Compassion’s ministry in our area.

Dear Sponsor: A Letter From Rwanda

“Life has meaning when someone touches it at tender age. Someone stood out and shaped my life. I believe in life of fullness. Thank you my sponsor where ever you are.” – Ruzamba Niyomwungeli

A Mosquito Bite Away

One of the things that shocked me when I visited Uganda last month was finding myself scared to death of mosquitoes. It was the strangest feeling to be afraid of something so small — something we usually think of as just a pest. But in Africa mosquito bites don’t just make your arm itch — they kill.

Malaria, which is transmitted by infected mosquitoes, is killing one million people a year. Most of these are children under age 5 in Africa. That’s right. Malaria, which is preventable and treatable, is killing more than 750,000 children a year in Africa.

Before visiting Uganda, I never really understood how mosquitoes managed to claim so many lives. But when I visited homes there, I understood. Many of the houses don’t have doors — just sheets covering the openings. And the windows are usually bare, too. So at night, the mosquitoes help themselves.

Catherine, a single mother I met in Uganda, told me that before Compassion gave her an insecticide-treated mosquito net, she did everything she could to protect her 10-year-old daughter, Irene. But her efforts were in vain.

“Every night, I tried to cover Irene with a blanket, but she would still get bitten all night long,” said Catherine. “I wanted so badly to buy her a net, but I couldn’t afford it.”

And when Irene got malaria, Catherine certainly couldn’t afford doctors’ bills. “Before Compassion, I would go pleading to doctors for help and beg to pay later,” she said.

Thank God that Compassion intervened! Through the ministry’s Complementary Interventions Program, Irene is now getting medicine and sleeps under a quality net. Today, she’s healthy and thriving.

You can make a difference and help protect vulnerable children like Irene! Since today is World Malaria Day, take a minute to learn more about this disease and see how you can join the fight!

Why Me, God?

For about 35 years, once I first heard of such a possibility, I wanted to sponsor a child. But for most of that time, I simply could not afford even $10 per month.

About mid-2001, watching a commercial on TV for another organization, I realized I could finally afford to do something. But through which organization? Who could I really count on to use the money for the child’s benefit? Could I trust any of them, and how would I know? Having no answers, I did nothing.

I spent all of 2002 praying for God to show me what area of ministry He wanted me in. Almost every Sunday, I heard, “Find your passion and use it!” “Hmm…where can I get a ‘passion’?” I couldn’t have found a passion in me with a flashlight or a search warrant. So I prayed, and I waited.

Two weeks before Christmas, I walked out of church on a cold, gray day in a mood to match. I walked down three or four steps into the fellowship area and began to pass a row of ministry tables. Above and behind the first one was a banner saying something about Compassion.

I kept walking, but my inner skeptic wanted to know: “What are we being ‘compassionate’ about, today?”

I turned, looked down at a sea of packets, each with a photo of a child; the world stopped, along with all sound and movement around me. I knew what these packets represented.

I stood there, saying half under my breath, “I can do this! I can do this!” About the fourth time, a Voice inside said, “Yes, you can do this. This is it!”

A warmth started at the top of my head and flowed over me and through me, right down to my feet. I took home two packets, unsure about one child.

That afternoon, I went to Compassion’s website to look at more children. I didn’t realize how many photos they kept on there, and I quickly felt overwhelmed. “God, I can’t sponsor them all!” soon changed to “God, we’ve got to find sponsors for these kids!”

About the fourth time (what is it with four times?!), I heard, “Yes, we do!” Then I realized the “This is it” meant more for me than “merely” sponsoring. And I do not mean to minimize the importance of sponsoring!

So, as is true of so many advocates, if not all, I came into this ministry with a clear calling. There have been times when I have needed to remember that, when church doors refused to open, when people walked by the tables with hardly a glance, and I wanted to use a 2×4 on their heads to get their attention. (Thank God, I’ve grown past that!)

But let me mention some of the things that continually reaffirm the rightness of Compassion in my life, and as a real ministry in this world. (more…)