From: deogratias gashagaza gashfr@yahoo.fr
Dear Larry, Hope you are doing well! Thank you so much for welcoming me and giving time for sharing my story with your Pastors. I'm very happy to know you and be connected to your pastors. Hope you will continue to be in touch. May God bless you. Pastor Deo
Like everyone, I become preoccupied with my own world and the problems within. It’s easy to lose perspective.
This week, meeting Pastor Deo helped to restore my perspective.
For those that couldn’t make the clergy meeting, Pastor Deo from Rwanda was our guest and told his story. Many of his family were killed in the atrocities that occurred but Pastor Deo felt moved by God to visit one of the prisons and be a pastor to the tribe involved with the murders. For years, he has been a part of the miracle of Rwanda: A country at first known for violence, now known for reconciliation.
I ran across a letter about Pastor Deo on Facebook:
Pastor Deo is a tall thin man and he works with the prisoners and the victims. In a room of over 50 people, killers and victims, he asked them to face each other and to look into each other’s eyes… ‘look deeply’ he said ‘…and tell me what you see!’
I noticed one woman look into the eyes of her family’s killer… He then asked the question, what do you see?
The answer was that she saw a reflection of herself… then he asked the man what he saw… he too replied that he saw his own reflection. Immediately my heart filled with love and compassion…. I understood in that very moment that in order to have compassion… in order to forgive… to feel love for one’s self and for another is to see yourself in everyone and everyone in yourself.
He then asked… if you could see yourself in another person… could you hurt that person? To kill another is to kill your self. When you kill someone, you have killed a part of yourself!!!
I sat with tears flowing!
My mind is constantly expanding with all that I see and experience. I never imagined that I’d be in a prison somewhere in the middle of Rwanda, walking with no protection through a passage way made by 4,000 genocide killers. I walked through and I felt no fear. I made eye contact and felt the presence of God so big here. Maybe that sounds strange to many, but there is something far greater happening than I could even begin to express.
…Yesterday, I bought a peace basket that was made by the hands of a victim as well as the one who killed her family. Together, they weaved the fibers of love, compassion and forgiveness and what became was a beautiful basket of peace. Blessings and Love, Tina
Would it surprise you to know that in the midst of the miracle of reconciliation, Christianity is spreading like wildfire throughout the country? It shouldn’t. No one teaches and demonstrates reconciliation better than our Savior, Jesus Christ.
God blesses you when people mock you and persecute you and lie about you and say all sorts of evil things against you because you are my followers. Be happy about it! Be very glad! For a great reward awaits you in heaven. And remember, the ancient prophets were persecuted in the same way. (Matthew 5:3-12)
I can only speak for myself but I saw a model of reconciliation this week. The best way I can be a Christian and a pastor is to model reconciliation and peace.
This morning I will be praying for you to be a model of reconciliation among those you have been given the honor to serve. I will be stepping into the pulpit today, just like you. I pray that I can practice what I learned this week.
May you feel the peace of God’s Holy Spirit within you and may you model the grace of Jesus Christ.
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