Rwanda Musings: Where is the Church?
Note: This post was written after my first trip to Rwanda in July 2015. For some reason, I never posted it. I returned to Rwanda in June 2017 and have been asked to share about my trip for church. The thoughts from this blog post continue to swirl in my head as I reflect on my time in that beautiful country, so I felt it was time to finally send these thoughts into the world!
I can't get the image of Nyamata out of my head. The church doors still have the hole from where grenades were thrown. The walls are filled with holes from bullets and stained from people's blood. Small rivulets of light flow in through the tin roof because of holes left from shrapnel. The cloth covering the altar is almost completely a reddish-brown color--not colored by age or the red dirt Rwanda is known for, but rather by the blood of its people.
Around one million Rwandans were killed during the 1994 genocide. No place was safe. Not even the church.
As we entered the church, it felt like you were seeing the one million who had been massacred. The wooden benches that once acted as church pews, and the floor between and behind, were stacked with the clothing of Nyamata victims. Dirty, torn and bloody--these were the ones the church did not protect. In fact, the priest was the one to call the Hutu extremists and alert then of the masses who had sought refuge within the church walls.
The church not only failed to protect, it actually gave them over to the enemy.
As we walked through the church, past the mass graves behind the church building, and into a crypt that held what was left of those killed, I felt overwhelmed by two emotions: Anger and Conviction.
Anger at the church. As the body of Christ, we have been tasked with a sacred responsibility--to welcome all, offer a safe haven, stand up for justice, to overcome evil with good.
The church at Nyamata definitely failed to do so. We were seeing the evidence of that. But here's where the conviction came in...
Is The Church (the people, not the building) doing much better today? How often do we fail to offer a safe haven when those who are different or who we don't agree with see it? How often do our words, our actions, or worse lack of action, pushing people from the One who can save? How often do we allow the enemy easy access to those we should be protecting?
You and I, we are this church, this body of Christ. So I can't help but ask: How can we be less like the church in Nyamata and more like Him?
I can't get the image of Nyamata out of my head. The church doors still have the hole from where grenades were thrown. The walls are filled with holes from bullets and stained from people's blood. Small rivulets of light flow in through the tin roof because of holes left from shrapnel. The cloth covering the altar is almost completely a reddish-brown color--not colored by age or the red dirt Rwanda is known for, but rather by the blood of its people.
Around one million Rwandans were killed during the 1994 genocide. No place was safe. Not even the church.
As we entered the church, it felt like you were seeing the one million who had been massacred. The wooden benches that once acted as church pews, and the floor between and behind, were stacked with the clothing of Nyamata victims. Dirty, torn and bloody--these were the ones the church did not protect. In fact, the priest was the one to call the Hutu extremists and alert then of the masses who had sought refuge within the church walls.
The church not only failed to protect, it actually gave them over to the enemy.
As we walked through the church, past the mass graves behind the church building, and into a crypt that held what was left of those killed, I felt overwhelmed by two emotions: Anger and Conviction.
Anger at the church. As the body of Christ, we have been tasked with a sacred responsibility--to welcome all, offer a safe haven, stand up for justice, to overcome evil with good.
The church at Nyamata definitely failed to do so. We were seeing the evidence of that. But here's where the conviction came in...
Is The Church (the people, not the building) doing much better today? How often do we fail to offer a safe haven when those who are different or who we don't agree with see it? How often do our words, our actions, or worse lack of action, pushing people from the One who can save? How often do we allow the enemy easy access to those we should be protecting?
You and I, we are this church, this body of Christ. So I can't help but ask: How can we be less like the church in Nyamata and more like Him?
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