Rwanda - church experiences

The Lord is risen! Peace with you! Happy Easter!

Ýesterday, Easter Sunday, we had our first church experiences in Rwanda. In the morning we walked past a church on our very pagan way to the shopping center - we ran out of drinking water the night before ;-). The dusty roads to the church were unusually crowded, and when we turned around the corner we saw why. You can see on the picture to your right: The church was packed! A church that, I would guess, fits at least 2000 people seeted, had so many people visiting that there was a huge overflow on the streets. Quite a stark contrast to the picture of German churches. But could be that this is only because it is Easter, right!?

In the later afternoon a new friend of ours, Christin, who is a Rwandan, took us to church. I was not sure what to expect. Yet it turned out to be a great experience of simple but passionate and devoute Christian faith. The independent but fairly charismatic church is only 8 years old but has already more then 2000 attenders in a fairly modern building with quite modern technical equippment. But could be that this is only because it is Easter, right!?

Well, as we learned from Christin later, the numbers are not only because of Easter. She shared with us that the genocide, that took place about 13 years ago, drew people even closer to God. There were some bad experiences about churches too, though: Some priests took refugees (so called "Tutsis") into their churches whith the promise to hide and protect them - and then went to get the Hutus to kill everybody. You can only cry about those incidents. I can so understand why some are done with church, hearing and reading these stories, some of them well documented in a Genocide Memorial Center.

Despite and because of these bad past experiences, Christin said, Rwanda people are more drawn to new churches then old ones. Here is a reason for church planting in Rwanda!

I feel I have to touch on the choir before ending this post: It was excellent and as you imagine African worship: Very lively, involving, rythmic, passionate. I look forward to the heavenly choir and hope that there are lots of Africans in it ... ;-)