How do you shake hands with a killer?

As you know, tons of Hutus killed tons of Tutsis during the genocide here. It’s something like 1.5 million people that played a role in the genocide. So when they had to figure out what to do with all these prisoners they decided that work camps would benefit both the country and the prisoners. So they built work camps all over Rwanda and those who have admitted to killing Tutsis are allowed to leave prison to do manual labor for a few years in order to shorten their sentence. It’s been working extremely well and helped reconciliation.

After a day full of interviews in the small town of Kibaga (pronounced chibaga), Audrey and I were standing on the road with a ton of the local kids waiting for our bus. We had seen one of the camps on our drive to Kibaga and had been told that all the prisoners work around the area and wear navy blue uniforms. Sure enough about 50 men in navy blue uniforms strolled past us. A couple of the first ones braved it and ventured over to shake our hands. I’ve actually been curious about what I’d do if I met one of the killers. Or how they would look and act.

Well I found out today as I greeted about 40 men convicted of killing...

They smile, I smile, I say maraho, and they ask Amakuru? Etc. And we shake hands politely (politely means you put your left hand on your right forearm while shaking). I would have thought that I’d have all this hatred toward them. Yeah hatred is obviously not a Godly feeling, but it’s okay to hate killers’ right? I hate them when I read about their actions so why should it be different when I meet them? I’m not sure what made it different but I had zero hatred in me. I felt pure pity. That they were tempted into something as horrible as murder. And that they had to live under the knowledge that they ended a life - maybe it was a child, a woman, ten women.

But they were so human. I would have thought there would be something about them that screamed “KILLER.” But there wasn’t anything. They were just human. Very human.

I guess this a little example of how God sees me. He's able to look at me with all my ugliness and with all my problems and with everything that I've ever done wrong. Yet he doesn't hate me. If I were Him I'd be pretty pissed at how bad I've messed up. But He isn't. He looks me in the eye, smiles and asks me how I am.