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This year’s William Wilberforce Award has gone to a Rwandan bishop whose nationwide program prepares perpetrators and victims of Rwanda’s infamous genocide for face-to-face meetings.
"Bishop John [Rucyahana] believes that if the Rwandan situation can be amended by repentance and forgiveness, and the people there can be reconciled to live together again, forgiveness can happen anywhere," said Prison Fellowship and BreakPoint President Mark Earley, whose ministry honored Rucyahana with the 2009 Wilberforce award on Saturday.
"We recognize that reconciliation is a key to achieving restoration and criminal justice worldwide, and we applaud Bishop John for his monumental efforts in Rwanda," he added.
Forgiveness is a poignant issue in Rwanda, a country still struggling to reconcile after the 1994 genocide that killed as many as 1 million people in as few as 100 days. The genocide, the worst in the 1990s, was primarily the action of Hutu extremists against Rwanda’s Tutsi minority and moderate Hutus.
As chairman of Prison Fellowship Rwanda, Bishop Rucyahana organized the Umuvumu Tree Project to provide genocide perpetrators the opportunity to meet victims to admit their crimes, ask for forgiveness, and take steps toward restoration.
“We must forgive now, like Jesus did while He was on the cross," says Rucyahana, who lost many members of his family in the genocide.
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"Without God, I would hate such killers with all of my heart," the bishop admits. "But with God, I can truly say that I love them.”
In addition to the Umuvumu Tree Project, Rucyahana has also founded the Blessed Mustard Seed Babies Home orphanage and the Sonrise School for children orphaned by the genocide and AIDS.
The William Wilberforce Award, presented annually to a distinguished Christian leader who has confronted formidable societal problems and injustices, is named in honor of William Wilberforce, the English statesman who waged a 40-year campaign against the slave trade in Britain.
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