A letter from Kay Day serving in Rwanda
February 2015 - Moving Beyond the Pain
Dear Family and Friends,
Greetings from sunny and warm Rwanda. My garden is in bloom with roses and impatiens and bougainvillea and hibiscus. While I am enjoying my flowers, many of you are battling snow. My prayers are with those of you who are struggling with the ravages of winter weather. I read of the storms that blanket the northern U.S. and I pray for your safety.
These contrasts of life are present in so many aspects of our lives. I experienced one as a fresh reminder last week. Two German pastors are visiting lecturers at PIASS at present, and last Thursday they invited me to accompany them to the Murambi Genocide Memorial in southern Rwanda, about an hour’s drive from Butare. This is a genocide site where 40,000 Tutsis were killed at a school where they had taken refuge during that dark period in 1994. It is a solemn place. As we approached the town where the turnoff is to the memorial, we encountered large groups of fans on their way to a soccer match. They were cheering, some blowing long, plastic horns, one in full body paint of his team’s colors. It rivaled any pre-football gathering in the States. Our driver, Bosco, carefully wove his way through the crowd on its way to the stadium. Once past them, we proceeded to the memorial. The genocide site is on a hill, isolated from the town, intentionally chosen by the perpetrators because it is isolated. The site is horrific to view: school classrooms that contain preserved bodies, multiple mass graves marked—graves that held 6,000–7,000 bodies at once, dumped together. As we walked among the remains and listened to the account of our guide, off in the distance we became aware that on the nearest hill, easily visible from the memorial, was the stadium for the soccer match. The game had begun and we could hear cheers as a goal was scored.
This was an eerie contrast—the silence of the gravesites and the cheers of the soccer crowd—and at the same time it was a comforting sound, because it clearly indicated that life had moved on, beyond the horror of the past. This spot of memorial assured that the past would not be forgotten, but it did not control the present. There were sporting events and other activities of normal life that were happening all around. After touring the site, we stopped in the town at a café for a cup of tea and enjoyed hearing the laughter and joking of a group of young people at a nearby table. All of this juxtaposing seemed to indicate life as it should be. The past is not forgotten; it is marked and remembered, but life moves, in the shadow of the past, and in a very real sense shaped by the past, but it moves on all the same and resumes regular, normal activity once again. After horror, there can be laughter and fun again. We are not caught forever in the storms of life. That is the message of the resurrection for Christians. Praise God that we are enabled to move beyond the pain and losses and sins of our pasts by Christ’s grace and mercy. That is the witness of life in Rwanda these days, and for that I rejoice.
Thanks to so many of you who have sent notes of greetings and encouragement with the New Year. Thank you for all of your support—financial, social and prayer. You sustain me and I thank you. My prayer is that as we are 1/12 of the way into this year, we all have a sense of God’s leading into the future of 2015. I ask for your prayers for the work that continues here as we work through the academic year. There is a temptation to get “bogged down” in the routine. Please pray for energy and vision for students and faculty. I pray for you to work through the challenges of winter in the Northern Hemisphere.
In Christ’s love,
Kay (Cathie to the family)
The 2015 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 152
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Blog: Day's Diary
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