God’s Love and Hope

Chapter seven: The genocide Three days before the genocide occurred in Rwanda, on Easter Sunday, April 3, 1994, I had a strange dream. It was extremely terrifying. I saw Jesus crucified on the cross and crying tears of blood. The following morning on Monday, April 4, 1994, I told my roommate who was a Jehovah witness about my dream. “Easter is the remembrance of Jesus’s resurrection,” I thought. According to my beliefs as a Roman Catholic Christian at the time, I wondered why my Savior was suffering in my dream right after Easter Sunday celebration. Troubled and frightened, I waited to understand its meaning. Without any doubt, I expected to see something that would make Jesus extremely sad. He saw that my country was about to go through mass killings, pain, and sorrow. In fact, when we go through pain, Jesus feels it as well because He loves us. Whatever breaks our hearts, breaks Jesus’ heart, too. Definitely, I understood my dream when three days later, on April 6, 1994, the President’s plane crashed. The chaos began in capital city at around 8:30 PM and had spread and continued throughout the entire country ever since. I lived in an apartment with other coworkers about 200 km away from my home province. It happened at night, yet I knew about it when I tuned in to the radio early in the morning. We talked about what had happened. I expected a new President to be nominated, but we were all scared. Weeks before the crash, Interahamwe (supporters of deceased President) organized many riots. They killed some political leaders from the opposition political parties. We expected that the situation would get even worse than before. People were being killed all over the country including even in our workplace district, a coworker had said. He was terrified and did not know where to go, since he was born and raised in that province. A week after the crash, on Thursday, April 14, 1994, around 4 PM, my roommate and I sat outside our apartment, we were cooking. We heard people shouting, and we saw them running in front of our apartment. At this point, we did not know what was going on in our workplace neighborhood. One person ran in front of us, and he saw that we were sitting not knowing that our workplace was being attacked. He told us that the former president's supporters were killing people in our workplace. They were coming toward our location, from approximately five hundred meters away, he said. People ran and we merged with them, scattering in different directions. Without knowing where to go, we tried to use every possible way to escape these killers. I arrived at the district office and saw a huge number of Tutsi refugees gathered there. They hoped to get protection from the authorities. Overwhelmed, they told me to stay with them. It was more secure to be together than to run away alone, they said. It was a wise proposition, but I did not have time to think. The killers were coming after us with firearms, machetes, and all kinds of harmful weapons as the person who told us to flee had said. I ran and jumped over the district fence. From about two hundred meters away, I heard several explosions. I was wearing a mini skirt and could not run fast. Therefore, I decided to take the garment off and throw it away. In my underwear, I wrapped a cloth around my hips, and wore my jacket over it. Without having any idea about where to go, I kept running. I headed downhill and hid in a banana plantation for a short time. Unfortunately, two young men found me. They asked me many questions about my tribe, and I showed them my identity card. They seemed to doubt about it, and I begged them not to kill me. I asked them to hide me in their homes, but they refused. They asked me to give them some money. I was fortunate to have two thousand Rwanda Francs in the pocket of my jacket. Then, they took the money and left me there in that ditch. Years later, I thank God that the men did not take me to their homes. Can you imagine what would have happened to me? They would have raped and killed me. God knew what was best. The men could come back to kill me anytime, I thought. Thus, I wandered downward toward a small river, and I wanted to hide in it. I would not be able to breathe. I began my journey in the banana plantation. I found a big fig tree and hid under it. Few minutes later, teenage boys armed with machetes discovered me. Their leader was a young man in his late twenties. When they saw me, I apologized for my sins and mistakes unknown to me. They had no pity at all, and didn’t ask for my identification card. I showed it to them anyway. My tribe ‘Hutu’ was written on it. As the boys looked at it, they said that I had changed the name of my tribe. “She is a small cockroach”, they called me in Kinyarwanda language. These hateful words meant that the Tutsi had to be eliminated because no one would like to live with cockroaches. In fact, when legally married on August 22, 1993, I was given a brand new identity card with my husband’s name on it. My religious wedding was expected to take place on April 16, 1994. After denying my identity card, the boys hit me on my forehead close to the brain area with something sharp. I felt the shock like coins scattering around in my brain, and I fell down. My ability to think faded away from my body. The beating continued, and I could not feel any pain. As if in a deep sleep, this attack seemed to be happening to someone else. During this horrific event, I felt pity for my fiancé, Mom, and younger brother. I could had thought about my father, brother and sister, but I was unconscious. I wanted to say, “I love you, bye, and I’m leaving.” Now, I know that when people are dying, they wish to talk to their loved ones and friends. The time they have left is limited except for the loved ones who suffer for months and years. Let us dare to say, “I love you” to those we love and care about before taking our last breath. Let us repent our sins and forgive others just to be ready to meet the Lord. Still groaning in the banana plantation, the attackers left me because they thought I was dead. They went to a nearby house and told the owner to come to bury me to avoid any odors of decomposition. Two men came to put me in the hole. They realized that I was waking up from coma. They found that I was bleeding and shaking, for I felt extremely cold. There was no way for me to believe that I could survive. In my heart, I prayed to God to let me die, for the suffering was so intense. I knew that no one would take care of me, since it was time to kill, not to rescue people. Remembering that I had a small Good News Bible inside my jacket pocket, I took it out, and I opened to the gospel of John. I found and read the following, “Verily, Verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation , but is passed from death unto life.” John 5:24KJV That was the right verse to read at that moment. My fear was gone, and I found the strength to leave this temporary body, and go to eternal life. On the contrary, God had sent two people to save me. I believe that Jesus saw that I was not ready to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. His divine purpose for me on earth was not yet complete. I thank God for finding a way when none seemed to exist. Now, I declare the following: “When hope seems to be gone, there is still hope in God. When no one cares, Jesus does.”