Books I've Read - Part 1

When I first started talking to the Koonces about going to Rwanda, they recommended that I read some books about the genocide, to help me understand better. I thought that I would explain a little about each book so that you can understand better too. The first book I read is called "We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families" by Philip Gourevitch.

The title of the book is kind of unusual... it comes from a letter that's in the book. It's a really short letter, so I'll put it on here for you guys to read. It was written by a group of people who were in danger of being killed (the Tutsis). They decided to hide out in a church because they thought that they could be more protected that way.

Our dear leader, Pastor Elizaphan Ntakirutimana,
How are you! We wish you to be strong in all these problems we are facing. We with to inform you that we have heard that tomorrow we will be killed with our families. We therefore request you to intervene on our behalf and talk with the Mayor. We believe that, with the help of God who entrusted you the leadership of this flock, which is going to be destroyed, your intervention will be highly appreciated, the same way as the Jews were saved by Esther.
We give honor to you.

The pastor said that after receiving this letter, he gathered his family and started to drive out of town, stopping only to tell the policemen to give the people a message saying that nothing could be done. Nice, right? But the real story is kind of different. This pastor organized this killing. In his own church. The same story is told not only by the United Nations, but also by the survivors of that horrible day. The pastor instructed Tutsis to take refuge at the church, helped take out the "non-Tutsis" and then helped kill them and many more innocent people in the following months. As of 1997, Pastor Ntakirutimana lived as a free man in Texas. To me, that seems like one of the main problems after the genocide. There are SO many guilty people that you can't punish all of them.

Another thing I read in this book is that this wasn't the only time a pastor or preacher or priest called people into his church so that they could be killed. I can only imagine what kind of permanant damage this does to any kind of church in Rwanda. How can the people ever trust again? If even your preacher tried to kill you, who could you trust? It must be so hard.

This was the first book I read and I'm glad I chose it first. It is a good overall description of everything that happened. It's more of a history book, where the other ones are more about individual personal descriptions of what happened.

Fundraising

Before we left the States, I sent out about 80 fundraising letters (not my favorite thing in the world to do). I figured I would put the letter here in case you didn't get one.

Since I was a small child I have felt a calling to Africa. Something in me has always wanted to go there and help in any way that I could. In the past several months, God has begun to work out the details of a possible mission trip to Africa.

A little over a year ago my parents had another baby. It was about the same time that I was graduating from high school. I really wanted to stay at home one more year and get to know my new little brother better instead of immediately going to college. After talking with some missionary friends of ours from another part of Brasil I also felt convicted to try to go to Africa before I left for college. One of these friends went to Nepal for 8 months before he entered college and he said it was the best thing he could have done.

My parents have some friends who are missionaries in Rwanda, Marty and Louise Koonce. They live in Kigali, the capitol city. They have invited me to come and help with their mission work next year. My plan is to go there and live with them in March and April. Then I will go back home to Brasil for a couple of months before I leave to start college at Abilene Christian University in the fall. Some of the things that I will be doing will vary from serving the orphans of the genocide, helping teach English classes and helping in new women’s ministries. I plan to major in nursing at ACU, so I also hope to be involved helping and observing medical professionals while in Rwanda.

I wanted to share this letter with you for two reasons: The first is to ask you to pray for me and this new ministry that God has opened in my life. I am very excited about it and would appreciate your prayers. The second reason is to let you know about my financial need. It will cost around $5,500 for everything. This will include roundtrip airfare, food, supplies as well as a possible safari at the end of my trip.

I understand that times are tough right now and I also understand if you aren’t able to help financially. One thing God has taught me in my 7+ years in Brasil is that if He wants me to go to Rwanda, He will provide a way. If He doesn’t want me to go I am completely okay with that as well. If you would like to learn a little bit more about where I am going and the ministry of the Koonce family and their team, you can go to rwandaharvest.com or atn-rwanda.org.

I’ll be updating everyone about my trip to Africa through my blog: Thank you in advance for prayerfully considering this request.

If you're interested in helping, leave me a comment and I'll get in touch with you!

About Rwanda

When I first started talking to the Koonces about coming to Rwanda, they told me I should read some books about the genocide that happened there in 1994. I don't really think the word "genocide" registered until I started reading about it. It's so hard to explain unless you read everything that I read, and even then I'm not sure I can explain it very well. There is so much that happened, I can't tell everything so I'm going to tell the things that stood out the most.

- The genocide lasted about 100 days and during that time, about 20% of the population was killed.

- The people who killed were normal people, normally not a part of the military or anything like that. The people responsible for organizing the killings used a radio called RTLM to tell people who to kill. - From the things I've read, the politicians responsible for the killings were called Hutu Power (supposedly representing an ethnic group) and they killed Tutsis (another ethnic group) along with anyone who defended the Tutsis and even those who didn't take sides.

- This genocide got almost no publicity and no help during the times of the killings.

- People were killed mostly with machetes and many people suffered so much before they actually died.

I hope this gives you a little more information about the place I'll be going. This happened 15 years ago, but I know that so many people still suffer because of what happened.