Nyamata Church

We just left Nyamata Church. A memorial site of the Rwandan genocide. Over 50,000 people are buried here. I can't form complete sentences about the experience, for there aren't adequate words.  Piles and piles of clothes of the victims left for remembrance. Children's clothes. A small striped t-shirt. Bullet holes in the walls, in the roof. Blood on the brick. Wooden crosses strewn across the floor. Bones. Skulls. Mass graves. They were slaughtered in their place of worship. Where they thought they would be safe. Protected. Beads and rosaries left behind on their bodies. Where was god? How can humans do this to one another? How is there such evil? And how can we possibly act like we are not of one another. Like we do not feel and bleed the same? How horrible those moments must have been. Fear for yourself, your loved ones. Your people. Your faith. How terrifying the aftermath. How can we possibly endure in the face of such horrific tragedy? 

But how can we not? I walked outside to the courtyard after being in the mass grave underground, hardly able to breathe. To know this happened here on this spot. To these people. To know it is happening still to others. As I walked, I looked up and saw a purple budding tree. How can such beauty exist here? How does it dare grow and flower here on this ground? And yet. It does. And yet Rwanda goes on. And yet neighbor embraces neighbor. Yet people still believe. Rwanda forgives. 

There were memorials and flowers in the church that read "never again." Why must we learn such difficult lessons at the expense of others? Why does it take us so long to learn? Why must we continue to repeat and turn a blind eye as if we do not already know? 

We have to learn from the audacity of that purple budding tree. Daring to grow. Daring to find beauty. Daring to forgive and to learn. It sounds so simple and I know it is not. And yet. It is all we have.