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In an unusual event at St James Dandenong on November 6, a visiting Rwandan bishop and 40 Chollo-speaking Sudanese refugees discussed and debated reconciliation from a Christian point of view.
The Shilluk people, who live in the Nile valley and speak Chollo language, are the third largest ethnic minority group in Southern Sudan, and suffered targeted military action from 2004 prior to Independence earlier this year. Most Sudanese refugees in Melbourne are Dinkas, others are Nuer and Bari. The congregation at Dandenong are the only Anglican congregation who speak Chollo.
Bishop Alexis Bilindabagabo, Bishop of Gahini in Rwanda, was visiting the Diocese of Gippsland as part of a ten year partnership between the two dioceses. He also made contact with Melbourne parishes and individuals who have supported projects in Gahini.
He also called on Archbishop Philip Freier, and invited him to visit Rwanda during the East African Revival Movement celebrations in 2012. He also called on AngliCORD CEO Misha Coleman to say thanks for 15 years of financial support for the Barakabaho Foundation.
At St James Dandenong Bishop Alexis preached on the 2 Corinthians 5 passage on reconciliation, and spoke of his own escape from the 1994 genocide. He lost his parents and was made a refugee for the third time. “I know what it means to be a refugee. I was recently asked how do you reconcile yourself to those who killed members of your family? I don’t know for other people, I said. But I get my power from the Cross. I don’t know how I got the strength to forgive unless it comes from the Christ on the Cross.
“It is God who makes the first step. You become a reconciled personality, then you reconcile with neighbours, you reconcile with nature and the environment, then we become messengers of reconciliation.”
The congregation applauded when he said, about the Belgian colonial army starting conflict, “you have to solve your own problems.” Then he spoke about current programs in his diocese of social transformation, children’s literacy, and a church planting team from Gahini across the Tanzanian border in the diocese of Victoria Nyanza.
At the end of the sermon, he stepped down from the pulpit and invited a Question and Answer session. The first question was from a young man who said he believed he was called to ministry, but the way was being blocked. “Try try again” was the bishop’s response. “Do ministry even before getting into ordained ministry.”
The second question was about national consciousness over ethnic consciousness. Bishop Alexis explained: “It is actually illegal in Rwanda to call yourself a Hutu or a Tutsi these days. If you are a civil servant and call yourself one or the other, you will be sacked. Our President has united the country, so that when thirteen years ago people were calling us a banana republic, now we are the No. 3 country in the world for investment. Developing national consciousness has been essential for this.”
Third question was “How can you forgive? Do you want to see remorse first?” Bishop Alexis explained the national program of unity and reconciliation, how local village courts tried many of the militia soldiers involved in the genocide, and how there was a National Fund for the Survivors of the Genocide (of which he was on the National Board) to compensate victims and their families. “There has to be remorse shown. Forgiveness becomes more powerful when the offended takes the first step. If you read in the Bible, it is the offended God who takes the first step. The offender is often ashamed or in hiding.”
The final question was astonishing. A man aged in his 60s asked: “My parents were killed in 1965 when I was just a boy. I dived into the river to escape. I have never been back. Now I am thinking perhaps I should go back home next year, visit the gravesite where my parents with many others were thrown into a pit, and build a memorial of some sort, maybe a church.”
Bishop Alexis said “This is one way of reducing the sorrow in your heart.” He explained how several years ago he was offering his children a holiday somewhere nice, and one of them said, “We want to see our grandparents’ grave.” He was surprised. So they went as a family, found the place where they had died, and clearly it was very important to the children.”