As We Forgive: Stories of Reconciliation from Rwanda

There are many reasons to read As We Forgive by Catherine Claire Larson. We read it to learn about the events of the horrific 1994 Rwandan genocide and the incredible human capacity for brutality to others. We need to examine how such evil could possibly come to be, and in recognizing it learn to resist its pervasiveness in our own lives and culture. Do we always discern and avoid compromise with evil? We read it to learn extraordinary stories of individuals whose lives were shattered by that intolerable trauma. What is the secret to their recovery? We are engaged by learning of their dramatic struggle when perpetrators are released from prison to once again live as neighbors. Imagine dealing with the consuming emotions of hatred, rage, vengeance, bitterness, hopelessness, and fear. We need to ask ourselves how we would face such an ordeal. As unimaginably great as the horrors have been, their discovery of the pathway to forgiveness and reconciliation is showing the way to renewed life. So we come to the most compelling reason to read this book: to discover the amazing truth about genuine forgiveness which we can personally experience, and the enabling that gives us to forgive others. This is powerful, life-giving, peace-offering, too-good-to-be-true stuff. How could we not want to gain it's life-changing message? There are additional reasons to read this book. The book's interludes are rich for reflecting on personal attitudes and improving human relationships, with special emphasis on aspects of forgiveness and reconciliation. It is eloquently and artistically written. And even though factual details are definitely gruesome at times, the entire narrative is written with sensitivity. We should be grateful to the author for what must have been emotionally exhausting work. It is a gift to all, for everyone who reads this book has something invaluable to gain.

Catherine has taken a brave journey that few of us would wish to take, but that all of us will be the better for joining her on--a journey into the evil and terror of genocide...and back out again, on the other side, into the grace and unfathomable hope of forgiveness. Writing beautifully with the heart of a storyteller, Catherine introduces us to genocide survivors and perpetrators, ordinary men and women, boys and girls whose lives were never the same after the awful events that took place during 100 days in 1994. The stories are heartbreakingly, unutterably sad. How could neighbors wield machetes against their neighbors, their friends, children? And yet, as Catherine shows us, the madness that consumed the nation of Rwanda is the same madness that invades our own hearts when we hold a grudge, turn a back on a friend, curse that driver in front of us. The small petty grievances that we allow to pile up day after day have the same root as the unspeakable, unthinkable horror of a national genocide. This book is not easy to read, but it is necessary to read. We all need to know that we are forgiven and that we are capable of forgiving even the most heinous and outrageous of offenses. The awful history of Rwanda can teach us all the profound truth of our own guilt and the almost unbearable grace of forgiveness.

As We Forgive by Catherine Claire Larson is one of those life-changing books that will linger with you the rest of your life. It's not for the fainthearted. It's not for the hard-hearted or those bent toward stubborn unforgiveness. It's primarily a story of hope. During 100 days of 1994 800,000 people were brutally murdered in Rwanda--a genocide swifter in execution than Nazi gas chambers. Imagine Denver and Colorado Springs--every man, woman and child--suddenly gone from our population and you'll appreciate the scope of the horror. (And go look on a map of Africa. Trace your finger due South of Uganda, due West of the Congo and you'll appreciate how little this country is.) As We Forgive shares the stories of genocide survivors, recounting the unspeakable. But it does not stop there. Larson pulls back the curtain of the most ostentatious acts of forgiveness I've witnessed, where genocide survivors choose to forgive those who perpetrated such violence. Together, through reconciliation practices and restorative justice, they are rebuilding their country from the ruins of hatred--all on the back of the One who still bears the scars for our sins today. I came away from this book changed, deeply moved, and inspired. Having seen the power of God to help people forgive the seeming unforgiveable, it gave me hope that my own wrestling with forgiveness would end in hope. I also appreciated that none of the forgiveness modeled was simple or easy or quickly won, nor does the book purport that reconciliation is merely forgiveness while forgetting. For true restoration to occur, the person perpetrating the atrocity must first fully own his/her own sin and grieve it as such. And for the person who was sinned against to heal, he/she must revisit the place of grief in order to heal. All this dovetails beautifully into the message God's been birthing in me--to help people who suffer silently to tell the truth about their pasts, to choose the difficult path of forgiveness, in order to heal. If God can reach into a genocide victim's heart and offer peace; if He can transform a murderer into a productive member of a reconciled society; then surely He can transform your pain today. That's the patent hope this book gives. It's a gift to all of us. And I pray it's a gift all open.

The prospect of reading Catherine Claire Larson's As We Forgive both repelled me and attracted me. I've got little stomach for stories of humans torturing, maiming and killing others; I want to look away. Yet the title told me that something uncommon had happened-- that victims had forgiven their brutalizers. Larson does tell the stories of suffering in detail. Her friendship with victims and knowledge of their stories, narrated in vivid prose, is heart-breaking. Rwandans did vicious, awful things to one another. Larson does not look away. What was so surprising, after learning of the brutality in detail, is how Larson's subjects slowly came to forgive their enemies. It's hard to believe. I think of the slights and shuns and petty avengement in my docile suburban world, and how friends will say, "I'm not speaking to him," and it all seems so silly when those who were repeatedly tormented and had their loved ones slain can forgive ultimate horror. Larson provoked me to think about my relationships at a deeper level, but also how collectives and institutions might also contemplate forgiveness of wrongs done to them. Through it all Larson writes with verve and wisdom that makes for enlivened reading, and she points to a depth and richness of HOPE that I've rarely experienced. This is a great book.

[...] Inspired by and building upon the two documentaries As We Forgive (Laura Waters Hinson) and We Are All Rwandans (Debs Gardner-Patterson), Catherine Claire Larson explores the dark hours of the Rwandan genocide of 1994 in even greater depth and power by retelling not only the harrowing stories of survival, but the miraculous accounts of forgiveness. The stories she recounts are heart-wrenching, stomach-turning experiences of the absolute worst of human sinfulness matched only by the awe-inspiring moments of forgiveness made possible through the grace of God in Christ. The effect of this book is to put one's own life in new perspective. When the stories of terror are met with the miracles of forgiveness, one's own experiences of grief, trial and guilt pale in comparison. This is not only a book for those interested in the horror of the Rwandan genocide and afterward; this is a book for anyone who has ever been wronged or has ever wronged another. Larson leads the reader through seven different accounts of personal experiences. It is difficult to find words to sum these experiences up, except to say that the reader is asked to share with the victims in the horrors of rape, dismemberment, burnings and abandonments. Relatives are killed in the sight of loved ones, fathers in the plain view of their children. Even clergy and officials participate in mass killings of Tutsi people, who they have categorized as "cockroaches." The absolute worst in human nature is on display here. With each story of horror and survival, an accompanying miracle emerges: forgiveness. What struck me in reading was the fundamental truth that forgiveness is unnatural; forgiveness cannot naturally follow what these victims endured. It is not natural for a girl who has been mauled, raped, and left for dead to grow to offer forgiveness to her terrorizers. It is not natural for a boy who watched his father and family killed by neighbors he knew to turn to them with grace and favor. Forgiveness is an intervention. It is some sort of divine intervention that must enter from another plane of existence. In these stories, it is brought in by Christ himself, who has borne the stripes, the suffering and the death, the worst of all that human sinfulness can bring to bear, and has looked with compassion on us and called for forgiveness from the cross. And forgiveness heals the heart. Larson provides the reader with interludes between accounts to discuss the meaning of forgiveness. These interludes engage the reader immediately with the challenge to practice forgiveness in his or her own life. They are rich in theological and psychological resource, but their real power is in their juxtaposition to the astounding accounts of Rwandan Christian faith. The reader is transformed by the application of these testimonies in his or her own life. It's not just about Rwanda, its about being a Christian and being forgiven by God "as we forgive those who sin against us."