Over the past few weeks the world has been watching the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. A man made problem with massive consequences. Visible on the surface of the water and now on the shoreline, the oil is wreaking havoc wherever the wind and ocean currents take it. While massive efforts are undertaken to try and contain impact on the surface level, the truth is that the damage will continue to multiply until the army of technicians is able to overcome incredibly difficult problems and deal with the source of all of this damage over 1 kilometer into the deep water.

One night in 1997, “John”, a young Rwandan Hutu, was in his family home not far from Ruhengeri in Northern Rwanda. Unlike many others John’s family did not leave Rwanda when the Rwanda Patriotic Front fought their way into the country and ended the horrific genocide against the Tutsi in 1994. Those cold Ruhengeri nights were troubled nights and all of John’s family was together. All of a sudden a group of men stormed into the house and opened fire on the family killing every single family member except for John who escaped the murderers notice because the bodies of his family members fell on top of him. The “Abacengezi” (Hutu extremists from the FDLR who were trying to infiltrate back into Rwanda in 97-98) murdered these innocent people simply because they suspected them of collaborating with the new government. John was found and taken in by his uncle. John’s uncle was murdered by the Abacengezi a few weeks later.

John grew up and became a teacher.

U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen’s description of what is happening in the Gulf of Mexico right now could well be a description of what happens when hurting people who have never had a chance for healing grow up and become a country’s businessmen, lawyers, politicians and teachers. “as I’ve stated many, many times, this is not a huge, monolithic oil slick. This is a bunch of smaller oil slicks, some very large, here – 15 miles in length and a couple miles in width – and scattered over a 200-mile radius. So it’s a very, very large perimeter. And the reason we have this aggregation of smaller spills is that as the oil comes to the surface, there have been different conditions regarding current, wind and tide, and it’s moved in different directions.” June 1, 2010. The oil slick of hurting people’s pain inevitably kills the vibrancy of the marine life of their spirits, spoiling the beaches where they would seek peace and rest, and gumming up their sea-bird wings so they cannot fly. Wherever the wind and currents push them, they unintentionally take their damage with them and spread it around to others.

Last week John went to a three day workshop on “bereavement”. Organized and facilitated by 4 ACT Rwanda leaders and sponsored by World Vision Rwanda, this is the first of three healing and reconciliation workshops for 30 ACT members from across the country. John didn’t say much over the first couple of days apart from the fact that he didn’t believe that there are any good people in this world. The severed pipe deep down in John’s soul desperately needs to be repaired.

Later this month, teacher John who works with dozens of Rwandan children every day, will go through the second workshop of the personal development workshops: “controlling emotions”. Hopefully in July he will go through another workshop on “forgiveness”. Perhaps by the end of this year John may be able to accept what happened, control his emotions, and find a way to forgive. Maybe some day John will have a story like Valarie Uwizeye from Rwanda’s Western Province who completed the Personal Development Workshops (PDWs) earlier this year:

“Before personal development workshop, I had a big problem of a child of my sister who died when she was delivering. The whole family did not like the child because my sister was raped and none of us wanted to associate with the (parental) family of the child. I took the child to my home not because I love the child but because of my sister and I hated the (parental) family of the child to the extent of not telling the child (about) his family. The child knew (that i) am his Mum. After going through Personal Development Workshops, I realized that I am not being good to the child. I sat with the child and revealed the truth to him, introduced him to the (parental) family as a way of giving the child his rights to the family. I realized it wasn’t the fault of the child and he is not the one who killed my sister. I thought neither should I condemn the child because of his fathers evil act, I forgave the family and forgave myself, now the child is happy and I am happy because I felt I did what I am supposed to do. Thanks to ACT Leaders, thanks to trainers, thanks to World Vision for course.”

Later this year, Wellspring would like to undertake a special initiative to train about 40 ACT teachers from across the country to become facilitators of this “deep water” healing program. World Vision Rwanda is committed to partnering with us to provide the technical (training) support, but we will need to raise about $6,000 USD above and beyond our commitment to ACT this year to fund this special “training of trainers”. This initiative will multiply from 8 to 48 the number of ACT members equipped to help their fellow teachers through a journey of healing.

Although it is clear that healing and reconciliation is an enormous task which will likely span generations, it is also clear that when capacity is multiplied substantially, healing for many individuals can begin more rapidly. In a similar way, the people in the Gulf of Mexico would sure be a lot better off if BP had 6 times their current capacity to deal with the “deepwater horizon”.

“So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the only has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.” ~ 2 Corinthians 5: 16- 20