Day Three (Tuesday) was an extremely long and trying day for the entire team. We had the honor of being invited as special guests to a funeral. A woman currently in Parliament has had her husband remains identified after all these years since the genocide. The couple was very close friends with the two men who run Solace Ministries. They even wanted us to perform a song during the ceremony, which considering the language barrier, not sure how much they understood. It was intimidating being in front of a large group of people that are already staring at you because you are different (whites are the minority in Africa), but I found some peace in looking out into the audiance and seeing one white woman sitting in one of the front benches and just worshipping along with us. In Rwanda, English is going to be replacing French as the second native language, but that transition has really affected the adults, so it was a great feeling to see that, if nothing else, we had one person who truly understood what we were singing ("How Great Is Our God").

After the funeral, we proceeded to Merambe, which is another genocide site, but didn't have a clue what we were walking into. We all thought that we were going to see the memorial (like you would go to see a museum), and then maybe sit in on another small gathering. We drove up to thousands of people cramming into what ended up being the burial service!!! Imagine 14 white Americans trying to make their way thru a very dense crowd and everyone keeping it all together considering that at this point, we had not eaten anything in over 10 hours!

After all the speeches, we were able to get away from the crowd and actually see the memorial. Up to this point, I had not really cried or got emotional, but after seeing several rooms of calcified remains, I lost it. I felt saddened by the terror that these people must have experienced and intense anger at the United States and the United Nations for not stepping in to stop the killings. Even to this day, the United States is not admitting the true number of people that were killed during this time in Rwanda. The people were also tricked into coming here thinking that it was a safe place and then were slaughtered in mass numbers. Over 50,000 bodies in 24 rooms remain as a reminder of the horrific events that happened here.

Despite the long day, the highlight had to come during the bus rides because we were traveling with the Solace Choir. The choir consists of mostly orphans from the genocide. I was sitting next to a few member that were able to teach me some of the words in their language. Their English is getting really good, so a few times we were able to praise the Lord altogether. What an amaxing presence the Holy Spirit had on us during those bus rides!