The two men grew up on separate continents, speaking their own languages. One was not yet 20; the other was bearing down on 100.

Yet within half an hour of meeting each other this week for the first time, Henry Kabiyona and Sol Rosenkranz knew each other’s stories before the words reached their lips.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • History • Religion & Culture • Violence • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Rwanda • Europe • Poland • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Judaism

Clerics have urged Rwandans to renew their commitment to God in the New Year.

They delivered the message at different churches during prayers to usher in the New Year.

During the church service at St Etienne Anglican Cathedral in Giporoso yesterday, Pastor Antoine Rutayisire urged Christians to walk with God this year and to make it a priority among their commitments.

He said this was the only way that would save them from many of life's troubles.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of Rwanda • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Rwanda

While addressing over 50 religious leaders at the Democracy and Peace Week dialogue, Rwaje said some members of the public shun going to church due to disappointment of messages relayed.

"Religious leadership is a calling from God and it is about teaching the word of God, but not looking for money from the faithful. There are biblical principles urging churchgoers to give offerings and tithes, but it should not be used as a platform to squeeze money out of believers," Rwaje advised.

He added: "Religious leaders are allowed to have their personal business ventures besides performing their church duties; therefore, they should act faithfully and please God by keeping the two positions independent of each other. They must separate God's work from their personal work".

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There are several scales used, recently I have been following the CIA Factbook. No peaking, phoning a friend, googling etc.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Globalization • * Economics, Politics • Economy • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Rwanda • America/U.S.A.

Archbishop elect, Onesphore Rwaje, who is set to succeed Anglican Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini in January, 2011, has vowed to follow in his predecessor's footsteps by taking a firm stand against homosexuality.

"Anything that is contrary to God's family set-up is not acceptable; there is nowhere in the Bible where same-sex marriage is encouraged. God created a man and woman to be the basis of a family," the Archbishop-elect told The New Times, a week after he was elected to succeed Kolini.

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A draft UN report says crimes by the Rwandan army and allied rebels in Democratic Republic of Congo could be classified as genocide.

The report, seen by the BBC, details the investigation into the conflict in DR Congo from 1993 to 2003.

It says tens of thousands of ethnic Hutus, including women, children and the elderly, were killed by the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan army.

Rwanda's justice minister has dismissed the claims as "rubbish".

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Rosaria Bankundiye and Saveri Nemeye are neighbors in the tiny village of Mbyo, south of Kigali. On a steamy morning, they sit in the cool living area of the clay house Saveri helped build for Rosaria just a few years ago. Two of his sons roll around on the floor while the adults talk. At one point, Saveri leans over to say something to Rosaria and she starts laughing, her smile wide. They have known each other for a long time.

Nearly 16 years ago, during the genocide that wracked this African country of 10 million people for 100 days in 1994, Saveri murdered Rosaria's sister, along with her nieces and nephews. Genocidaires also attacked Rosaria, her husband and their four children with machetes and left them for dead. Only Rosaria survived. Yet when Saveri came to beg her forgiveness after he was released from prison in 2004, Rosaria considered his request and then granted it. "How can I refuse to forgive when I'm a forgiven sinner, too?" she asks.

Nearly every religion preaches the value of forgiveness. To most of us, however, such an act of mercy after so much pain seems unthinkable — maybe even unnatural. Scientists have long suspected that we are born with an instinct to seek revenge against those who hurt us. When someone like Rosaria overrides that vengeance instinct with an act of radical forgiveness, it can only be a miracle from God.

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Filed under: * International News & Commentary • Africa • Rwanda • * Theology • Pastoral Theology

It's almost unimaginable.

Fifteen years ago, Rwandans killed nearly 1 million of their own.

Today, the country's economy is starting to pick up steam. Tourism has become the top industry. Residents acknowledge the genocide, but go about their business. Some live doors away from the person who killed their family members.

Contradictions pervade Rwanda as the government tries to pull off ambitious plans to modernize the nation with an eco-friendly economy. This country, where a collection of Iowans is investing expertise, money and passion, appears poised to become one of Africa's great success stories, but the view on the ground shows it won't be easy.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Violence • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Rwanda

Today Rwanda is a much different place thanks, in part, to this man—Anglican Bishop John Rucyahana

Bishop JOHN RUCYAHANA (Chairman, Prison Fellowship Rwanda): People are smiling because they have the hope, but the wounds and the healing is a process that we’ll continue to engage deliberately to tell people that they just can’t cover it up. We need to be able to unearth it and deal with it head on.

[LUCKY] SEVERSON: That’s what the bishop has been preaching from the pulpit of his beautiful church in northern Rwanda since the killing stopped: deal with it head on. And it was personal for him. How could it not be after so many members of his extended family were murdered, including his niece?

Bishop RUCYAHANA: I have forgiven those who killed my niece, and they peeled off the flesh off her arms to the wrist, and they left bare bones, and they gang-raped her, and I forgive them because forgiving is not only benefiting the criminal, it benefits me.

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This month, as Rwanda marks the 15th anniversary of its genocide, an Anglican church in the Triangle is trying to glean lessons from the aftermath of the mass killings.

All Saints Church has good formal reasons to undertake the study. From a denominational standpoint, it is part of the Anglican Mission in America, which is overseen by the Anglican Church of Rwanda.

The congregation, formed in 2005, also has a sister parish relationship with a church in the southern Rwandan city of Butare.

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(ACNS) The Archbishop of Burundi, the Most Revd Bernard Ntahoturi, recently led a 5-strong ecumenical delegation of church leaders from Burundi, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo that met with the presidents of the D.R. Congo and Rwanda in order to convey to them a strong message advocating for peace. "People are tired and want an end to the war," they said, "and dialogue costs much less than armed confrontation".

More than 250,000 people fled their homes in the eastern part of the D.R. Congo in order to escape the fighting that broke out between the army and rebels in August. The delegation that was initiated by the AACC added their support to Churches in the D.R. Congo who are working with other agencies to alleviate the suffering of people, especially the displaced; and trying to encourage the disarmament and repatriation of armed Rwandan groups living in eastern DRC.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Primates • * Culture-Watch • Violence • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Republic of Congo • Rwanda

On the last day of spring, Tom Wheeler left home in Southern California with his wife, his two kids and two audacious dreams.

As a civil engineer, he hopes to bring standard, nicely paved sidewalks to a city with almost none.

As a follower of Rick Warren, the evangelist who wrote the bestseller The Purpose Driven Life, Wheeler dreams of making Rwanda the world's first "purpose-driven nation." That means spreading the Gospel and helping this tiny African country, which 14 years ago endured the worst genocide since the Holocaust, continue its unlikely journey toward peace and prosperity.

"Rick challenged us all to go out," Wheeler says. He and his wife, Lori, "wanted to serve God, and we wanted to be part of something big."

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This is a terrific piece, and do watch it all but be forewarned the content involves quite upsetting material.

Filed under: * International News & Commentary • Africa • Rwanda