Being a peacemaker in your community

Do you live in a community where there’s turmoil and rivalry – but long to see forgiveness and peace? Forgiveness isn’t easy – whether it’s between individuals, families or neighbours. But forgiveness is needed before people can move forward in their lives.

Here’s a story of incredible pain – and an attitude of forgiveness that will move you deeply. It will inspire you to be a peacemaker in your community – and possibly in your church, too…

In 1994, Lesley Bilinda’s husband Charles was one of the victims of the Rwandan genocide. Ten years later, Lesley returned to Rwanda to discover the truth about his death. When she met the men who may have been involved in his murder, Lesley had to make the difficult choice of whether to forgive them.

Here, Lesley looks at whether forgiveness is really possible…

“I was in a taxi driving through Belfast. The driver was having a rant about some programmes with which he strongly disagreed – the BBC2 series ‘Facing the Truth’. I was back in Northern Ireland for the broadcast of these groundbreaking programmes in which victims and perpetrators from all sides of the Northern Ireland conflict faced each other for the first time across a table. I had been closely involved in their making, but my driver didn’t know that.

“‘I mean, if your husband had been murdered, would you want to sit down with those who’d done it?’ he asked me angrily. I hesitated for a moment. ‘He was,’ I replied. ‘And I did.’ The remainder of the journey to the airport was very different from the first part. The driver slowed down, began to tell me of the pain in his own family, and we talked about whether forgiveness can ever be possible in such a situation.”

Triggers

“Perhaps my response to him was not entirely accurate in that I have not yet discovered who was directly responsible for my husband’s death. But on a return visit to the country ten years later, at the suggestion of a media production company making a documentary about my search for his killers, I did get close to the truth. In a cramped, dusty room in one of Rwanda’s overflowing prisons, I interviewed a number of prisoners, two of whom I had been assured would be able to give me specific information as they had both been closely involved.

“Both however denied it outright.

“Is it possible to forgive in such circumstances? Perhaps they were not responsible at all, in which case there is nothing to forgive. But what if they were? Was I to spend the rest of my life furious at their actions and their patronising, demeaning attitude towards me, fearful of any triggers that might remind me of my meeting with them because of the shiver that sent down my spine each time? If they were in some way responsible, they had already almost destroyed my life once. Was I going to allow them to continue to ruin my life for the years ahead too?”

Freedom

“Archbishop Tutu has described forgiveness as “giving up the right to pay back the perpetrator in his own coin. But it is a loss that liberates the victim.”1 When we have been badly wronged, our anger and our desire for revenge are understandable, and indeed right. But they will never right the wrong, and will serve no long term purpose. It is in choosing ultimately to let go of them that we find freedom and the strength to carry on.

“Forgiveness is never easy. We may think we’ve forgiven, but then something triggers the memory and the pain comes flooding back. This does not necessarily mean we have not forgiven, nor that our faith is weak (Oh, how much damage we Christians can do to one another by this suggestion). Perhaps it simply tells us that we need to forgive again ... and again ... and again ...  “How many times should I forgive someone who sins against me?” Peter asks Jesus.  “Up to seven times?” “Not seven times,” Jesus replies, “but seventy times seven.” Are these all separate incidents, or could he be referring to the same incident that we have to revisit again and again?

“Thirteen years after the genocide, I am still learning what it means to forgive. It’s a long, slow process, but without it I could not have begun to understand the common humanity that binds together both victim and perpetrator, all of us in need of God’s grace. Nor would I have discovered the reality of God’s lavish forgiveness, even for me.”

Lesley Bilinda’s story is retold in her book ‘With What Remains’ (Hodder & Stoughton 2006) and on DVD ‘Hunting My Husband’s Killers’ (available from www.purpleflame.com). Lesley now works for the Tutu Foundation UK – www.tutufoundationuk.org

1.    From Tutu, Desmond; ‘No Future Without Forgiveness’, London, Rider 1999

Last Updated 27 July 2009