Reflection on Amahoro by Richard Twiss
I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to have participated in the Amahoro-Africa Gathering in Rwanda. It was a beautiful time of friendship making with some really fun and amazing people from around the world. I was inspired at so many levels to hear their stories of engagement in local and global endeavors addressing situations of injustice, human rights, AIDS, micro-financing and community development as followers of Jesus. I now have friends who are actively involved in peace-making efforts in the conflicts in Kenya, Mozambique and South Africa. Lila Pilamaya (thank you very much) Claude and Kelley for being invited to the party!
The story of the past twenty years of Rwanda was heartbreaking, tragic beyond comprehension, confusing and inspiring. The horrors of colonization are evident globally. The genocide that ultimately happened as the direct result of social engineering attempts on the part of the Belgian regime to scientifically classify the Tutsi tribe as being superior to the Hutu (size of head, wideness of nose, set of eyes, height, etc.) and thus preferring them in assigning roles of power in the colonial system of government established. This created the environment which led to animosity between these tribes who share the same language and have a long-standing history of shared living and relationship between them.
Visiting the mass grave sites where 200,000 people were buried along with the 2 catholic churches that were massacre sites of 5000 in one and 20,000 in another was numbing. Seeing the blood stained and dirt covered clothes from all the victims scattered in the churches along with hundreds of unclaimed skeletal remains, including skulls carefully lined up in rows on shelves, seemed so unreal as to be staged.
I had taken tobacco ties with me (small cloth pouches filled with tobacco) thinking I may need them. Among many of our tribes tobacco is considered a sacred herb and used for prayer, blessing and truth-telling. At a church, I felt deeply compelled to sing a song of remembrance and put tobacco on the shelf with the rows of skulls. The skeletal remains were not enclosed in any way. If you wanted you could touch them. I asked two men from Africa to stand with me as our group had moved away from this spot. I sang a traditional style native song of mourning and remembrance for these people. Many in the building began to weep as the Spirit of the Lord visited with us. After I finished I wept too.
Listening to Hutu believers confess their stories of shame, guilt and sorrow for what they had done and saw the forgiveness that was exhibited by the Tutsi believers toward them inspired hope in me. I was completely blown away! I cannot relate to that depth of forgiveness. Listening to Freda tell how the attackers lined her entire family up in a pit and murdering her mother, caved her brothers and sisters heads in with clubs and finally clubbed her and buried them all, then to see her so clothed in the love and mercy of God was beyond my ability to “get.”
As a First Nations Christ-follower in the United States, I too am confronted with 400 years of genocide, colonial oppression and the devastation of American imperialism among our tribal people. We are still here. Christianity is considered the “white man’s religion” and still attempts to assimilate us culturally as part of its evangelization efforts.
Jesus is amazing! His love for us in the midst of our brokenness is way too good to be true and calls me to be conformed to his likeness and image! I am reminded of the Father’s grace and goodness in my life and challenged again to love and walk as Jesus walked among his followers, critiques, opponents and enemies.
Peace, as you walk in the Jesus Way!
Richard Twiss, Rosebud Lakota/Sioux Tribe
Wiconi International (www.wiconi.com)
