“As we forgive…”

Apr 07, 2019 Features / Columnists, Special Person

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Rwanda: Part V: Children of dark shadows and eternal sorrows graced with light

There was the aptly named Cadeaux, who somehow survived the traumas experienced by her fleeing, emotional-wrought mother, Rosaria; and Joy, who endured a desperate punishing struggle with internal flames, before she experienced eventually the meaning of her name. Two children singled out and named amidst the countless nameless ones, who fell before severing machete blades, gang rapes, numerous flights, untreated diseases, and the limitations of refugee camps.

Cadeaux means gift. What a gift! She came into this world, sometime after her mother, Rosaria was left under a pile of bloodied, dead and dying bodies. Forests and reeds, swamps and mud, fear and gunfire, hunters with hate in their hearts and murder on their minds were all part of the months-long prenatal ordeals of Cadeaux’s mother; a mother already severely weakened by a wounded, near-useless arm, loss of her husband and children.

This precious, unborn fetus was what was left for Rosaria, one of the merciful forgivers, daring to hope, willing herself to begin again (refer to Parts I & II). To begin somewhere. She began each day of awakening and living with prayer, she and her precious child. This, too, is fitting, since Cadeaux was also given a Rwanda name. It is Byukusenge, which means “wake up and pray.” So, the dawn of each rising, each breath of renewed life is greeted with this ritual, where both wake up and pray; the joy amidst the pain of a precious sacred gift: daylight and the grace that came with it. Spirituality transcending the earthly.

In the thick, dark gloom of the early days of her almost overwhelming sorrow, Cadeaux came to mean everything to Rosaria. Every step, every childish patter and flutter took on a world of significance, of thanksgiving, and of careful, limited joy. There was great fear, too. How could there not be, in view of what had happened?
But there was trust, also; that followed when what had unfolded in the aftermath is weighed and measured: the Saveris and Mattiases, neighbors and villagers and the totality of reconciliatory efforts. It was a very rough road; but there were smooth and smoothening stones that make the passage encouraging. There was no (could not be) thought of giving up on Rosaria’s part; there was too much to live for: there is Cadeaux: lifeline and life-giver. When she was out of sight too long, there was worrying. When she comes into her mother’s sight, there is joy. Joy for this impossibility; joy before God; joy for the daily miracle of life.

There is a second Joy in the tragedy of Rwanda. Another child, this one already alive and four years old, at the beginning of the massacres, and an eyewitness to the family disasters and dangers, as well as the personal damages wreaked on her own youthful psyche and physical being.
At four, Joy was too young to remember the terrible events, other than through flashes of hazy, scattered memories. It was a time of running and hiding, and then running and hiding again in abject terror, scavenging for scraps, like animals, to survive for months all the way to the Congolese border.
Nelly, a petrified mother and her barely surviving family of three young girls with the youngest only two years old. Joy’s father, Matenga, went untimely to his ancestors: slaughtered during that first night of mayhem by neighbours, of all people; her home and village razed to the ground, while the family cowered in the grass. Neighbours turning upon, and hunting and killing, neighbors is one of the great, inexplicable agonies and evils of the Rwandan genocide.

Joy returns to Rwanda in late 1994 when Tutsi forces under Paul Kagame started recovering ground, and gaining the upper hand militarily. She and her family are concealed and smuggled back to her homeland in a potato truck. Three years later, the terror resumed through a devastating Hutu cross-border raid: her adopted home (an abandoned one) was lost to fire again; two uncles and their wives living in Joy’s home were killed; four out of several scores of more dead Tutsis in the continuing feasting on flesh.
This is the child and family, one of many, who will come to those blessed places called mercy, forgiveness, reconciliation, and healing. How does a Joy, this Joy, get to such a sacred space?

First, there was the hoped-for safety of a less vulnerable, less dangerous, residence. A distant orphanage it would have to be. A little girl in a succession of nightmares: trapped in a war-torn land; traumatized repeatedly; separated now from family; plunged among strangers some of whom were cruel and uncaring. No comfort zone; not enough food sometimes; no peace, not much sleep; no life. There is only this great big hopelessness and fear. Thoughts of revenge surfaced and stayed. Pains came and intensified. Incredibly, Joy’s mother was able to make the grueling journey and visit. The first dews of hope hinted.

Then, around age 10, this child, a veteran of many raging battles and internal conflicts, entered a different place and different phase in her mangled life. The Sonrise School was the brainchild of a man of God (a Bishop to be met next time); a welcoming shelter for both Tutsi and Hutu orphans. Respect and appreciation for each other were emphasized and inculcated. Math and science were hard, but delightful challenges; and so, too, was Joy’s bewildering first introduction to this strange fellow named Jesus. Jesus knows. Jesus cares. Forgiveness? For even enemies? Love one another (even them) as brothers and sisters? Two of the men, now imprisoned, who had murdered her father, had written her mother thrice, begging for forgiveness. Somebody has got to be kidding!

But before that seemingly unscalable mountain could be contemplated, Joy had to get past those crippling pains running wild. Now there was vomiting and blood; the weakness and dangers that are part and parcel. Ulcers. Joy remembered those words: Jesus cares. Reveal yourself then. Harried doctors and nurses cared; teachers and students cared; scarce medicines were found to aid in her care. Slow revelation, painful recovery. Praying and discerning and playing and singing and choir. Choir head and head girl followed. A peculiar peace and growth: learning, beauty, appreciation for God; for the Redeemer’s sacrifice. And at long terrible last, the great epiphany and miracle of forgiveness of others.

Next week: Part VI: The way of church and men: bewilderingly twisted sometimes; singularly inspiring on others

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