Post-genocide Rwanda

Julia Cameron of IFESworld talks with Phocas Ngendahayo, General Secretary of the IFES student ministry in Rwanda.

JC: Phocas, tell us first about yourself.

PN: I have completed two terms at the Cornhill Training Course. One of my main activities in Rwanda is to teach the Bible in student Christian Unions. I'm a physiotherapist, so since I had no formal training in how to teach the Bible, I needed to be equipped in this way.

JC: And your family?

PN: I'm married to Jackie, who is a gift from God to me, and we have three children. Our four year-old daughter is named Jisca Azabe. Then we have twins of three, called Eben and Ezer. We chose the name Ebenezer to show our thankfulness for the way the Lord has helped us - but as he gave us twins, they share the name.

JC: Rwanda is called 'the land of a thousand hills'. It must have been a beautiful country before the tragedy of genocide in 1994. What was the effect of the genocide on family life and on the student movement?

PN: It was bad. Very bad! Try to imagine it. About one million people perished in only 100 days. That means 10,000 people were killed in a day. Even babies and pregnant ladies were killed in a horrible way. If I take myself as an example - all my family who were in Rwanda during the tragic events perished. Nobody survived except one uncle who was away from his locality at the time.

Evil was everywhere. Christians were urged to run into churches for refuge but they were betrayed and murdered by burning. It was a ploy to get people together in one place. Can you imagine that a church became the site of genocide, and now people can never go there to pray again?

There are painful scars everywhere in the society. My family suffers the same consequences of genocide as all other Rwandans. Physical wounds have healed, but inside most Rwandans are still bleeding. We have to care for the widows and orphans in our towns too. Families did not only lose people; they lost property and cattle and are still in need of support. There are many vulnerable cases.

JC: You told me Christmas was very important for you. Can you share that with us?

PN: In a miraculous way God provided for me to visit my family during the Christmas holidays. I didn't know I was going to take part in a special family event - to bury in a proper way my family members who were victims of the genocide. Now every year thousands of victims are found from toilets and mass graves. They are then buried in a proper way. It is a moving but also a psychologically-relieving experience. The government sees it as a social duty and even encourages it.

We never knew where the bodies of our parents and relatives had been thrown. Just recently we got informed where they were. So, on December 16 we were able to bury 21 bodies, all from my close family. Among them was my grandfather who gave me the name of Ngendahayo which means 'someone who walks with God', or 'a messenger of God'. You can understand how important it was for me to be take part at this last ceremony for my parents and relatives.

JC: These things are so far beyond our experience. But we can try.

PN: Rwanda now has 350,000 orphans; many are street kids now. There are thousands of widows, and relatively few men. As so many women were raped in the genocide, they and thousands of children born afterwards have the AIDS virus and are dying.

If you saw the BBC programme on Rwanda by 'Comic Relief', there is no exaggeration in that.

The prisons are full with 125,000 awaiting trial. The government is now setting up traditional courts (or Gacaca) to help the Ministry of Justice get through the cases. Here older reliable people are acting as judges to resolve conflicts. Otherwise it would take about 200 years to hear all the cases.

JC: How have you been rebuilding the student ministry?

PN: During these tragic events, most of our students died and others fled the country. After the genocide we had to re-start the ministry with a new generation of students and leaders.

It was not easy. We had to bring together students coming from the two main groups (Hutu and Tutsi) for prayer and Bible studies. Both were traumatised and suspicious, hating one another. We had no trained leaders, no structure, very little finance, and no material for training. We had our Bible, the Holy Spirit and the will to obey to the commission of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's all.

It is a great help that the former General Secretary is now Chairman of our Board. Working with graduates who survived, we have now built over 50 student Bible study groups. With this growth I could not manage alone. God gave us a second staff worker last year, Dusabumuremyi Syldio, who was converted through the student work.

JC: Bringing Hutus and Tutsis together in these groups is an astonishing work of God's grace. You have an important conference in August. Tell us about that.

PN: We are preparing for the first GBEER (IFES-Rwanda) National Conference after the genocide, and we hope 320 students and graduates will come - Hutus and Tutsis.

Our main sessions are Bible studies on leadership and on unity and reconciliation. This is a starting point: we have a long journey ahead to help this generation to make a difference by bringing a biblical perspective.

JC: Your students are learning deeper lessons about the gospel of reconciliation than most of us here will ever learn.

PN: We are raising a generation of Christian intellectuals to help rebuild society. This enterprise is God's mission for the sake of our nation. Last month I heard that one of our graduates, Mr. Kanamugire Silas, is now a government minister for Transportation and Communications. Others, too, are making significant contributions in our ill society.

JC: Tell us about the church

PN: The church is recovering from its loss of credibility because of the role played by certain religious leaders during the genocide.

It is a paradox that this happened in a country with a century of Christian presence, where 80% of the population called themselves Christians. You will know God worked through British missionaries like Joe Church, Algie Stanley Smith, Harold Guillebaud and others to cause the great revival in the 1930s which spread like fire across East Africa. Most people inherited their faith and when the time of trial came, they were not able to stand. There are some stories of heroism, but sadly most compromised their faith.

Public opinion says the gospel failed to unite Rwandans, and people should return to their ancestral cults or other religions. But true Christians know this is a naked lie of Satan to bring people away from Jesus Christ.

JC: You were in Burundi when the dreadful 100 days started. Some who were away at that time have spoken of their 'guilt' at not being there, and how hard it has been to be spared.

PN: When genocide happens the first persons to be slaughtered are always the intellectuals or the famous, or those who can labour for their families. The good and able people die first. Those who are left, in the country and outside it, wish they had been there to help to fight, so to be with their families, in dying or in living. We have a deep longing for that sense of solidarity. We feel we don't deserve to live when the others have had to die. The guilt you mention is too deep for words. We have an expression in our language 'living like a tree' - that is, a tree all on its own, with nothing around it. That is how it can feel.

JC: How are Christians coping with the question 'Why?'

PN: Everyone is asking it. We do not understand how such evil could be unleashed. It showed the most horrific consequences of sin in human nature. People were taken to the point of no return. They murdered their neighbours, and husbands even murdered their wives because of their ethnic background. Only Jesus Christ can bring together the parties in conflict for lasting unity and reconciliation without hate. A Christian heritage is not enough. We need personal commitment, daily submission to Jesus Christ. We need another revival in our generation. And we need the help of the church in other countries to pray with us for that.

JC: Phocas, thank you for your openness.

If you would like to pray for the August conference, send a blank email to rwanda@ifesworld.org or write to Julia Cameron at IFES, 321 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 7JZ.

An interview with Phocas Ngendahayo, General Secretary of the IFES student ministry in Rwanda

JC: Phocas, tell us first about yourself.

JC: And your family?

JC: Tell us about the church

JC: Phocas, thank you for your openness.

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