hotel rwanda

We stood huddled around outside the movie theater trying to find the words to speak.  I remember it was cold that night and dark, and I'm pretty sure it was raining, which is why we stood under the brightly lit marquee trying to find the words to say to each other.  Somehow trying to articulate thoughts after the horrors we had just witnessed on screen.  As the movie finished and the credits rolled, we had filed out not saying a word to each other.  I don't really know what I was expecting when I decided to go to the movie that night, but I definitely was not prepared for what I saw.  Not your typical double-date movie.  No comedic laughs and cutesy typical romantic comedy material that a lot of movie dates are made of.  It was almost 10 years ago, and I was still in physical therapy school.  Some friends and I had just walked out of the movie Hotel Rwanda.  I remember the common thought among us that night was... This is a true story.  This is not just a movie.  This really happened!?!  How did we not know this was happening?  Why have I never heard of this?  Why was this not bombarding our television news stories and front page newspaper articles at the time?  I mean I had been a student in high school when the genocide was ongoing.  Why didn't we learn about it in school?  Or had I heard of it, and I just never paid attention?  How could something of this magnitude and something this atrocious have happened just 10 years before and none of us had ever heard of it?  During the movie I thought maybe it was just me.  Then after talking with my friends after the movie, I realized we all had these same feelings and thoughts.  One of the guys in our group that night said that he'd heard of it because he had been serving in the military at that time and knew of the crisis in Rwanda.  He quickly brought us up to speed and gave us a little history lesson on the conflict.

That movie affected me in a way that no movie had ever affected me previously.  It shook me to the core.  It was brutal violence and it was graphic and it was up close and personal.  Not just a group targeting another unfamiliar group from afar, but neighbors murdering neighbors.  I don't even remember now the complete and exact plot line and the characters names and details, but I will forever have etched in my memory certain scenes of violence and suffering from the movie I saw that night.  It was a picture of extreme human suffering and human depravity at it's deepest levels.  It was about people I had never met and who lived on a continent I'd never set foot on, but the story drew me in.  Their suffering drew me in and I let it.  Normally I would have shut it out.  Tuned it out.  Looked the other way.  It's too hard to deal with the truth that things like this really happen and that this event in history really did take place.  For the first time, I began to not look away...and it was hard!!  I had never seen such brutal violence, such hatred, such disregard for human life displayed.  And this was just on the big screen.  To think that people actually lived through this nightmare and witnessed these things first hand!  It was almost too much to bear, but I watched and I listened and I learned.  And then I learned some more.  I tried to find out more about this horrible genocide that I was just now hearing about.  I watched other documentaries.  I became fascinated with the country and with the people.

Looking back now, if I had to pinpoint it, I would say this is one of the first times my heart was pricked to stand up for injustices on a large scale.  To stand up for the rights of human beings who are made in the image of God.  Until that point I would've agreed that justice was a noble thing and something worthy of pursuing, but I guess I never realized how much injustice there actually was.  How much oppression and violence there was in the world.  I began to see the need to actively pursue justice for those who can't pursue it for themselves.  I began to become more and more passionate about the need to speak up for the oppressed.  To be a voice for the voiceless.

 

I tucked those images of Rwanda and the story I'd heard away in my mind and heart.  I never imagined that in some tiny way Rwanda would resurface almost 10 years later and my story would somehow be connected in a small way with men and women who lived through that nightmare (more on this to come in posts that will follow about Noonday and International Justice Mission and the Style For Justice trip happening now).  Over the next few years, I began to pursue learning about other injustices as well.  This would begin to look different ways in my life over the years that followed that night outside the movie theater.  Sometimes learning and increasing my own awareness.  Sometimes educating others.  Sometimes advocating.  Sometimes full of hope and sometimes in complete despair thinking the problem is too big to ever be overcome.  I would become aware of sex trafficking and just how far-reaching it is.  From every far corner of the world to literally within 2 miles of where I sit here typing this.  I would hear of the evils of forced labor/bonded labor and how my clothing and accessory purchases were actually fueling it.  I would begin to see corruption in governments and failures in justice systems in countries I've traveled too and would hear firsthand accounts from people living under the weight of it daily.  Later, I would read about "honor killings" and land grabbing of widows and young girls being denied access to education.  I would follow news stories of whole schools of girls being kidnapped in the night while they sleep.  I would find myself taking an online course on international women's health and human rights.  It has led me to be an active participant in some of these areas and a supporter of those who are fighting the battle in areas where I'm not hands-on.

I think that one of the most important things I've learned along the way is to never give up! Continue the fight however feeble you think you are.  We must continue to speak out against injustice whether we feel like we're making progress or not.  We cannot look away.  For their sake!  Looking the other way does not make the injustice go away.  We must continue to shine a light into the darkness, however dark it may be.  Light always wins!  No matter how much darkness there is in the world, it never has the power to put out the light.  In fact, even a tiny light shines the brightest in the darkest parts.  So, if you're wondering what you can do here are a few things:

1.  Educate yourself.  Read articles and books.  Watch documentaries.

Half the Sky (book and documentary)

 The Locust Effect (book) and

Trading Innocents (film)

are good places to start

2.  Educate others.  Share what you are learning with others.  Talk to your friends and family about these issues.

3.  Since you can't physically be in all of these places and may not have the qualified skills to do something effective at preventing specific injustices support those who do.

The Exodus Road

International Justice Mission

4.  Find a group locally to get involved with or start your own.  This non-profit in my town was formed to help target human trafficking/sex trafficking on a local level

I'm Aware