Brandon Stanton’s Twitter account is called Humans of New York (@humansofny). Recently, he has been interviewing various people from Africa and telling their stories on his feed. This is one of them:
This gentleman is a pastor living in Kigali, Rwanda. When the genocide began in the spring of 1994, many locals fled to this man’s home
for protection. Despite the many threats against himself and his wife, they were prepared to give their lives in protecting others.
They saved over 300 people by hiding them in their church.
Below are a few excerpts from his amazing story:
“That very first evening the militia came to my gate. Some were carrying guns. Others were carrying machetes. They’d been told that I was hiding people. They demanded to come inside and search the property. I stood in the doorway and told them they’d have to kill me first. ‘We’ll be back,’ they said. ‘And thanks for gathering all the cockroaches in one place.’…All of our friends abandoned us. They pretended not to know us. Only one pastor stood by our side. He came to me one night and warned me there was a plan to attack the 
church. I told the news to my wife and we both agreed we were ready to die.
“The next time the killers came, there were fifty of them. All of them had guns or machetes. They pushed straight past me and entered the pastor’s residence. They began pulling people out of the ceiling. They were kicking us and dragging us along the floor. I knew this was the end…We were put in three lines. We began to say our last prayers. I scanned the mob of killers for recognizable faces. Many of them were Christians. Some were even from my congregation. Every time I recognized a face, I called to him by name. I said, ‘When I die I am going to heaven. Where will you go?’ I then pointed to the next man…and the next…and the next…They began to argue among themselves. Nobody wanted to be the first to kill…And they began to leave, one by one, until all of them had run off.
“…When I look back, I believe the genocide could have been stopped had more pastors taken a stand. We were the ones with influence. The killers belonged to 
our congregations. And we could have held them back. But instead we did nothing. And every pastor had a different excuse. Some said they didn’t know things would get so bad. Some said they were too afraid. Some said the government was too powerful to oppose. But when you’re standing aside while people die, every excuse is a lame one.” (emphasis mine)
Naturally, we all love heroic stories. This man’s actions were truly heroic, though I suspect that he would simply say that he was only doing what Jesus wanted him to do.
I hope that I would be as faithful were I ever to encounter a similar situation. But I honestly don’t know what I would do.
There were other pastors and priests who tried to hide people inside their
churches, and they were regularly massacred. But what about his claim that the genocide could have been stopped if at least a majority of Christian leaders had spoken out in protest, refused to follow tribal orders, disobeyed government demands, and boldly confronted fellow church-goers with Jesus’ radical demands to love everyone and to only do good to our neighbors?
The majority of church-goers in Rwanda, like the majority of church-goers in Nazi Germany, were a part of the problem, not the solution to Rwandan racism and tribalism.
Given the many despicable things we are witnessing in the United States today, why should anyone imagine that the majority of church-goers in America are any different?
