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Andy Stanley's summer actually began about two years ago. He tells us about his "summer vacation at http://www.northpoint.org/messages. His wife, Sandra, and his daughter, Ally, began an email dialogue with a woman in Rwanda named Shantel. Years after Rwandan the genocide, this woman had taken kids off the street to help raise them with some other hired adults. She ended up later adding 3 houses, more kids and more staff. One year, Ally received $50 for Christmas and wanted to give it to "New Hope Home", run by Shantel. Then Ally wanted raise $200 more for them. As it happened, Andy preached a message on "Praying Big" one Sunday and used Ally's desire as an example. Well, when Andy finished and went to the break room, people began walking up to Ally and giving her money!! When he got home that afternoon, there was a stack of money on the table. What's more, in the days that followed, money continued to pour in!! Over $5,000 came in and Ally sent it to Shantel. Ally said if they ever returned to Africa, she wanted to go to Rwanda. So, a couple of weeks ago, Andy loaded up his family and four other families and they went to visit New Hope Homes. Having sponsored a child in the Compassion program, the Stanley's stopped by Tanzania to visit their child and then moved on to Rwanda. Andy shows pictures of his kids and the kids of these areas. Total orphans are what they call the kids who are basically street kids with no place to go. "When you travel like this...it kind of rattles your categories." Andy says that he often prays to see the world the way God sees it and he prays to respond the way God would respond. "It's massively emotional." So, Andy wanted to share his takeaways from the trip. But in order to understand, he had to explain some history. Rwanda is less than half the size of Georgia. After the first World War, it was determined that Belgium would run Rwanda. When the Belgians came in, they discovered the Hutus and Tutsis as two basic kind of people. The Rwandans were generally a peaceful people, but the Belgians, in their Western way of thinking, decided to empower the minority, the Tutsis, by educating them and helping them run the country. But this immediately created conflict between people who, before then, had never been in conflict. Well, in 1933, the Belgians required everyone to carry and identification card and people had to register as a Hutu or Tutsi. So, a majority was ruled by the minority, which was ruled by the Belgians. As Europe began to relinquish control of some of these countries, Rwanda, in the late 1950's had an opportunity to hold their own elections, have their own Parliament and elect their own President. Naturally, two parties developed; the Hutus and Tutsis. The Party of Hutu Emancipation (which means "we are coming back") took over and some of the despised Tutsis began leaving the country. Through the 60's, 70's and 80's, the Hutus maintained control and came to look down on the Tutsis, calling them "cockroaches". In 1986, President Arimana, a military dictator, announced a law that, if a Tutsi had left the country, they would not be able to return, so you had refugees all along the borders trying to get back in! An effort emerged by a group of Tutsis who effectively decided they would retake Rwanda. A civil war began and the person who is now the current ruler, a Tutsi, marched an army, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), from the North to the South in order to retake the country. The Rwandan president, in response, began to organize his own army and youth militias, armed with machetes and clubs. They were trained to butcher people in horrific ways. These militias would attack villages while their army waited outside the villages and protected the youths! To try and end the violence, Parliament introduced the Arutia (spelling?) Accord to establish the idea of a government that would be ruled by both the Hutus and the Tutsis. This was to be a compromised government to end the war. But then in 1994, the moderate Hutu president was flying in to the country and his plane was shot down. No one knows, to this day, who shot it down. That is when violence erupted in the country. Chaos and war exploded. A state run Hutu radio station would daily spew out hatred of the Tutsis. Then, on April 29, 1994, the Hutu radio announced that on May 5th, all "cockroach" Tutsis must be exterminated. Surprisingly, the Hutus responded and planned to kill all Tutsis and Tutsi sympathizers. Along with this proclamation came the 10 Commandments of the Hutus. The 8th commandment said that no mercy or compassion was to be shown. Road blocks were set up, churches were burned and neighborhood slaughters took place. In the hundred days that followed, nearly 1 million people were killed, 500,000 were raped and 300,000 children were homeless. Almost 20% of the population was put to death. The RPF, which had decided to continue their advance, actually began to win the war! They reached the capital and forced the Hutus to flee. Suddenly, Tutsis were rushing to get into the country and Hutus were rushing to get out. Violence began erupting at the refugee camps and it was absolute hysteria. Andy spoke to a woman who came back with the RPF and she said bodies were everywhere; behind buildings, in the river and stacked in mounds. Once the Tutsis finally retook control, everyone expected the new regime to exact justifiable revenge and drive out the Hutus, but that didn't happen. Andy visited the genocide museum, looking at pictures and videos. How could this happen? Andy said, because "ideas are powerful!" But a big question was then, how could the Tutsis not respond to the slaughter of their people once they were finally back in control? Why didn't it happen? When the RPF retook the country and brought some order back in to the government, the new president, Paul Kagame, had two choices, revenge or peace. He decided that they would not take revenge. He called a halt to the violence and he did something that was unprecedented. They decided, as a nation, to forgive the perpetrators! They rounded up all the killers, nearly 100,000 men in prison, in Rwanda and in neighboring countries. Despite all the witnesses, the ability to easily convict or put to death most of these men and despite the screams of many Tutsis for justice, the Tutsi government decided to release these men back into their own communities, under armed guard, to be tried for community service by their own peers!! As part of the trials, time and time again, these communities extended mercy. In fact, these trials only recently finally ended. Right before Andy left, a CNN reporter went to Rwanda who interviewed a woman who was sitting beside a woman whose husband was had killed her husband and 5 of her children. The reporter asked how they could be friends!?! The man is actually in the interview as well. The widow watched as men were buried alive, woman were raped and children were clubbed. But these men were required to publicly apologize and to ask for forgiveness, usually in a circle of the families who they had violated. The Rwandan woman didn't speak to her neighbor for 4 years, but she opened her heart and accepted his pleas. She then said, "I am a Christian and I pray a lot." Paul Kagame was in charge of the RPF!! He personally saw the worst of the worst. He lost friends and family. He is the one who was the halting force of forgiveness. Racism is powerful, communism is powerful and predjudice is powerful. But a display of forgiveness is the MOST powerful. Reconciliation is the most powerful. In 2 Corinthians 5:17-19, Paul says, "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation." Forgiveness gives dignity to every single man, woman and child. We are the characters, as Christians, of forgiveness and reconciliation. In the presence of these people in Rwanda, Andy saw that he had no excuse to not forgive. Ideas are powerful. Forgiveness can change a family, a community, a nation and the world. This is what Andy learned on his summer vacation. This was an amazing and touching message.