A Christian Who Murdered 300 People
You’ve likely heard of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, when Hutu extremists slaughtered Tutsis and moderate Hutus. In just 100 days, approximately 800,000 people were killed. Ethnic tensions that fueled the violence had been building for nearly a century. By the end, an estimated 75% of Rwanda’s Tutsi population had perished. Needless to say, the scars remain.
Heaven’s Family’s Rwandan ministry partner Venuste Nyirimbabzi is the sole survivor from his immediate family. When he was seven years old, his mother hid him under a blanket as Hutu men entered their home and murdered his parents and siblings with machetes. He was later raised by a surviving aunt.
Today, you would never guess Venuste endured such trauma. He is a vibrant follower of Christ whose ministry is bearing significant fruit in southern Rwanda. His holistic work includes house-church planting through disciple multiplication, community development via Farming God’s Way and safe-water projects, vocational training and kingdom business development, and care for vulnerable and disabled children. Heaven’s Family partners with him in all of these areas.
At Venuste’s vocational training center, I met John Bosco. Three years ago he was released from prison after serving a 26-year sentence for genocidal crimes. He avoided a life sentence because he was classified as a participant rather than a planner, confessed to murdering at least 300 Tutsis (saving the government the cost of a full trial), and agreed to publicly and sincerely seek forgiveness from victims’ relatives. Facing more than 100,000 genocide cases, the Rwandan government made many such arrangements. John told us he had been taught all his life to hate Tutsis.
Upon his release, John returned in shame to his home village. There, a childhood friend—Anaclet Mangwa, a pastor and another of Heaven’s Family’s valued Rwandan partners—reached out. Anaclet invited him to one of the God’s Love Groups in his growing network. John found love, acceptance, and the opportunity to receive forgiveness of sins. He took the offer! Having learned the trade of furniture-making in prison, brother John now teaches that skill to young Rwandans at Venuste’s training center while continuing to rebuild his own life. He told us, “I am a new creation. I helped to destroy this community. Now I am helping to rebuild it.”
(As a poignant aside: traditionally, about 95% of Rwandans have identified as Christians. During the genocide, some Hutu Seventh-day Adventists refrained from killing on the Sabbath in order to keep their day of rest. Other Hutu churchgoers similarly preserved their doctrinal distinctions while murdering their Christian Tutsi neighbors. Is there any lesson there?)
Below are a few photos from the past two days with captions. If you have invested in Heaven’s Family, you share in the credit for all the fruit! — David
Venuste’s training center includes a sewing school and a retail sewing shop staffed with sewing school grads. One of them is Damison (at right), whose parents divorced when he was 10 years old, forcing him to drop out of school. Things got worse when he began hanging around the wrong crowd. Venuste won him to the Lord, and Damison attended his sewing school. Now he is gainfully employed at the ministry’s retail sewing shop and is teaching vulnerable women at the sewing school
Felicity Urayaneza proudly purchased her own treadle sewing machine using profits from selling vegetables that she grows by Farming God’s Way. She is a former student of Venuste’s vocational training school
Furniture manufacturing requires that rough-cut planks be planed into usable lumber. That’s John Bosco on the far end of the planer on the left photo. The furniture that the students manufacture generates profits that benefit the training center
In the same compound as his vocational training center, Venuste has a center to support disabled children and their parents. Such children are often hidden by their parents in their homes due to the cultural belief that God’s curse is on parents of disabled children. As I interacted with this mother (with the challenge of not speaking each other’s languages), she pulled out her Bible and pointed me to Jesus’ words in John 9:3; “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”
Metal fabrication and flour milling are two other components of Venuste’s industrial/business complex. I won’t be surprised if, when I return next time, he is manufacturing parts for SpaceX!