Today we started our day by paying a visit to Pastor Sam. The joy he had in seeing Pat and myself revealed true friendship. He wasn’t glad because he had to be glad, he was glad because he was glad. His friendship with us shows friendships can be made even over great distances, and these friendships cannot only be started, but they can grow.

Toward Noon, we arrived at the Kigali Genocide Memorial. The memorial was very well done; it’s hard to truly believe this ungodly massacre occurred less than 20 years ago. In the museum, there were many pictures that revealed the vast and personalized horrors of that event. One room contains the human remains and clothing of a few of the victims, this room made the following statement to me “this occurred, and it occurred to human beings like yourself, don’t forgot”. The last room of this memorial had pictures of different children displayed. Under each picture was the name of the child, what their favorite activity was, where and how they died, and how old they were. Two of the children had died in the middle of a church they and they families fled to for sanctuary. For churches to be bulldozed down, had grenades thrown into, or had machine guns fired upon it, all with men, women, and children inside, struck me. At more than one of these churches, the pastors, these people’s shepherds, were partially to blame. May the Lord grant all of His sheep good Shepherds to watch over them.

Written and posted by Otto Zimmermann