Genocide Survivor Shares Jesus With Killer

so we came back to our house and we close all the doors then all of a sudden we had footsteps around the house but then knocks on the door and they say all of you if you're in there come out and we didn't say a thing then they broke the door off the kicked the door off the house and then they came inside and said all of you get outside and lie down they Y at me and my brother and my sister to go back inside the house Alex and jam and his two siblings survived the Rwandan Genocide nearly 1 million ion other people did not you're going to hear Alex tell how he escaped death and discovered life on this episode of GPS God people stories it's an Outreach Of The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association I'm Jim Kirkland after we hear Alex's story we'll hear comments Franklin Graham made while the Rwandan Genocide was still going on at the time he was part of a Samaritan's Purse team that was caring for people during the violence you'd go through Villages there was no people not even a chicken not even a goat not even a bird The Villages were there the people were gone but God was there and God is with you no matter what you're going through if you'd like to know more here's a website to visit find peacewithgod.net that's find peacewithgod.net just before we get started we want to let you know that Alex's story may be troubling for young listeners we will be sharing some raw moments from the Rwandan Genocide listener discretion is advised GPS God people stories Alex sjam was born in the African nation of Rwanda he his older brother and his younger sister were raised by a loving grandmother in a small village there they grew a variety of crops from bananas and guavas to mangoes and potatoes although they didn't have any Modern conveniences Life was good for young Alex until an April morning in 1994 I remembered it very well as a little boys I loved watching the sunrise as a little kid I loved playing in the dirt in the sunrise so our grandmother we didn't have watches our grandmother told Time by Shadows knowing where the sun is so I remember very specifically that morning we woke up me and my brother were playing outside you know we live in a small little dirt flow houses no electricity no running water it's just in you know it's in a village I woke up that morning specifically and I heard noise from a distance boom boom boom that boom boom boom was a sound of bombs going off in a distant City tribal unrest had been simmering in Rwanda for nearly a hundred years that morning it finally blew up the tribal unrest goes back to 1800s when Rwanda was colonized and it was during the colonial time that the people of Rwanda were divided in three tribes and those three tribes were the hutus the tootsies and the twah people Alex was identified as a tootsie they would measure the length of your nose to figure out what Tri you were and it was just so absurd the way they made this up they would say if you're very tall and you're slim you and you have a poting knows you're a tootsy and if you're short and muscular be you're a Hutu and the TW tribe was kind of in between so this initial separating of the people of Rwanda is created and then hatred is created between the hutus and the tutis and that hatred Contin to grow in families in children's lives the hatred grew to the point that parents would forbid their children from playing with their friends just across the street if those friends were of a different tribe but the hate would grow far worse the Rwandan president was assassinated at that time and that became the spark of this genocide again where it went on for 3 months 3 months a million people were killed and over 400,000 orans were left in a country how that many people could be massacred in such a short period of time is hard to Fathom until you have a better understanding of the tribal division that had been in place since the 1800s and that division was so INR in people's lives to the point where a neighbor would not see their own neighbor as human beings to the point where ideologies names such as cockroaches were abused so much so that even in the newspapers you would it was easy to find on Headline News saying there's going to be a day cockroaches are going to be crushed the assassination of the Rwandan president served as a type of cue for young HW adults they were being told through all media that it was time to crush a cockroach or in other words it was time to kill the tootsies what's come to be known as the Rwandan Genocide started that morning of April 7th 1994 when Alex heard those boom boom booms in the distance and I remember this is so bizarre that I still remember to this day I counted those those bombs those things going off until 21 then that's when our neighbor came to us and interrupted us our neighbor came out of breath to tell us what was happening theyve started to kill the toties do not go anywhere Alex and his family had been planning to walk a few miles to tend to their Garden but that was no longer an option the region was filled with tribal unrest we were scared our grandmother was way more scared than we were because all these years she had survived all this constant bullying constant mistreatment in the village because of the tribe that we were immediately it's like a dark cloud came to our grandmother's face because she knew all of a sudden we looked at the grandmother so what do you want you know what do we do so immediately we went and hid in our coffee plantation that was very close to our house Alex and his family weren't sure if someone was going to come to their house and attack them they waited and waited and everything remained quiet so we came back to our house and we close all the doors then all of a sudden we had footsteps around the house but then knocks on the door and I say all of you if you're in there come out and we didn't say a thing then they kicked the door off the house and then they came inside and said all of you get outside and lie down they Y at me and my brother and my sister to go back inside the house and that's when they would beat our grandmother to death the attackers used machetes to kill Alex his grandmother machetes were the weapon of choice during the genocide me and my brother and my sister we literally in shock because we could not fathom that our own neighbor our own friend people we considered friends that all of a sudden do this to our family members they had bought so many machetes the government had been years and years of preparing these machetes and buying machetes and they this distribute him sticks clubs you name it Alex and his family were literally being hunted down after the group of men who killed their grandmother left nearly a hundred others came looking for their uncle they couldn't find him we hid him under the bed and so when they were looking everywhere and throwing their weapons under the bed it couldn't get to him so they left but 3 Days Later three men came back he said he is under the bed let him get out and he hesitate to come outside for a little bit and the last words he said was please do not destroy the house because my kids need a place to live outside the home the men looked at Alex's uncle's identity card which stated he was a tootsie then they shot him and beat him to death it was a scene that would give Alex nightmares for years again me and my brother my sister thinking why are these people doing this to us just because we're different trouble than they were it was hard to Fathom this but again it was also a miracle that I was not seeing at that time they had no reason to spare Our Lives we were at the M of God because if they had a bad day they could have killed all of us Alex and his siblings were left with one uncle that Uncle managed to bribe the milicias for a week until he had no money left to use to bribe them then he told Alex and his siblings to leave the village and make the hour and a half walk to the city to stay with an aunt as we walk to the Village we come to roadblocks roadblocks have militias they call us over and they would say turn around they have guns in their hands and we thought they were going to take our lives so we would start crying and crying and then they would say just keep walking miracle that they would never bother touching us eventually we make it to our aunt's house and at our aunt's house it got better a little bit but it was also getting worse because a lot of the genocide started in the outskirts and so everybody was running towards the cities in fact at his aunt's house Alex lived with 19 family members who were seeking Refuge to survive and protect their family Alex's aunt and her husband sold local beer made from bananas one day a man who came for a drink snuck into the backyard and saw Alex and his family he has different intentions he takes his gun and in that process of loading his gun his magazine fell out of the weapon so when he was bent over trying to reload my aunt husband came in the backyard and he asked the guy what are you trying to do with my family and the guy said I was just playing with him he was not there to joke around because if his weapon would been loaded instantly I would not be on this podcast the tribal unrest got worse in the city and Alex and his family were forced to run for their lives along with thousands of other people everybody's running because the people who came to stop the genocide are chasing out the militias we refugees are caught in the middle GS all over the place place so we get into this Valley and I hear a noise from a distance and this noise was getting louder and it's getting closer and all of a sudden I slipped and fell down to the ground when I fell that noise missed my head by an inch and that was a bullet that missed my head because I had slipped and fell in a cowpie now that is just nasty because uh I never thought i' would be telling people that guy used a cowpie to save my life but he did he can use anything the randan Gen side officially ended on July 19th 1994 nearly 100 days after it began the next year Alex's Aunt placed him and his brother in an orphanage because her health was failing and her husband had died Alex's sister was too old for an orphanage so she went to live with friends it was at the orphanage where Alex received a shoe box I would never forget as I opened my shoe box gift seeing um a haircomb that would keep for the next 3 years now the other item that was such a favorite item of mine was an item that can no longer go in a shoe boxes a candy cane I had no idea what a candy cane was so I ate the candy cane with a wrapper on it the shoe box was from Operation Christmas Child an Outreach of Samaritan's Purse the sister Ministry of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association receiving those gifts in the shoe box helped Alex be a young boy again even as he and the other 250 children in the orphanage tried to process the trauma they've experienced one day the orphanage director would give us a piece of paper as a form of therapy and I would say all of you guys you need to draw this is an art time so we would draw kids would draw people without legs people without arms because that's what they remember seeing through the genocide all these horrific images so we get this rubach gift from Operation Christmas Child and we get that carrying book that water paint so we're carrying with our carried pencils we're tracing that little Mickey Mouse Minnie Mouse little little elephant and the Animals the fun it was that process was taking all those horrific images replacing it with the fun items from my carrying books it was so powerful that it reminded us to be kids and then it didn't stop there though the orphanage director used that opportunity to share with us about Jesus Christ the greatest gift of all and personally a seed was planted although Alex didn't accept Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior that day the Lord was working in his life another organization came to the orphanage called the African Children's Choir they chose 12 of the kids to go to yuganda to learn English and Alex was one of them he was 9 years old I'm so vulnerable that if any kind of religion would have come to give me hope I would have grubbed on it I was searching for Hope and I'm in Uganda and I'm they're starting to teach us about Jesus Christ about the Bible Alex already knew about God because his grandmother regularly took him and his siblings to church but when she was killed right in front of his eyes Alex's Faith was shattered and so I'm asking does God love me so I I was reading the Bible it would say that we all created in the image of God God loves us so much so that he would send his son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for us then in my mind I'm thinking how can a God who loved me that much watch what my grandmother and my uncle being killed I never knew my father and my mother passed away of HIV AIDS when I was very little why would he take away the most important people in my life and if he loved everybody in this world send his son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for all the kids all his children that he created in this world why would he then watch what a million of his children are being literally butchered to death that I could not fathom that I could not understand Alex became bitter and angry at God on one hand he wanted nothing to do with him but on the other he was so desperate for hope that he kept reading his Bible anyway eventually Alex came across the Bible verse Jeremiah 29: 11-13 which says this for I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord plans of welfare and not of evil to give you a future and a hope then you'll call upon me and come and pray to me and I will hear you you'll seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart for the very first time I started to realize that he has to have a plan for my life as my faith Journey was Contin to grow I started to study about the Journey of the Israelites and I looked back and I saw countless Miracles that God did for the Israelites and how countless times they forgot the Miracles I looked at my own life I said to process the Miracles that God did I was born to an HIV mother but I didn't get the virus grandmother and Uncle murdered in right in front of me they never bother touching us ran for two months hiding nothing happened to us a man's gun didn't work when he went to pull the trigger slipped and fell down in a cowpie and a bullet missed my head got to an orphanage I got to receive an operation Christmas at sh's gift a gift I planted the seed of the Gospel in my life for the first time in his life Alex felt God's presence he realized God had always been with him and he put his faith in Jesus Christ but it wasn't easy for Alex to fully surrender to God the reason I was struggling is because he was starting to go into a place in my heart that I did not want him to go that place was full of bitterness it was full of anger it was full of Hest still trama that time and I didn't want him to go there because I was thinking if I saw the people who killed my grandmother I would kill them I would do exactly the same thing that they did to my uncle and my grandmother at that same time Alex visited the United States with the African Children's Choir they went as to host homes sing Christian music and read the Bible I knew that I wanted to be in a Ministry and talk about the Miracles that he has done even as a 9-year-old when you would ask me what would you like to be when you grow up say I want to be a pastor and I want to travel the world and share the gospel there was another question though that was much harder for Alex to answer one of the choir chaperons asked him to share his story Alex had never been asked to share about the genocide before later that same chaperon asked him another hard question what if You' sit with a person who has caused you the most pain what would you do the those moments helped me realize how angry I was and how bitter I was so I decided to pray Lord help me help me to heal so that I can be able to see those people that cause me so much pain while Alex continued to pray for God to heal his heart the choir finished their 42 State US tour they went for nearly two years from 1998 to 2000 after the tour they returned to the orphanage in Rwanda in 2003 God connected Alex with a family that hosted the choir in the US the family wanted to adopt Alex and his friend at 15 years old Alex was Again part of a family he moved to their home in Minnesota 10 years later God worked through Alex in a powerful way 2013 was a big year because in that year I got to go back to Rwanda to deliver shoe boxes in the same orphanage I grew up in in that year that's when God took my hitting process at different level when I got to meet that man who had caused me so much pain that meeting wasn't something Alex had planned it was something he decided at the last minute so we went to the prison and they said you cannot just walk into the prison and say that I want meet so and so when you don't have a personal relationship or a biological relationship the process usually takes about 3 weeks of getting permission and paperwork where we kept going to the next person the next person by the end of 3 hours we had all the paper work that were needed upon arriving at the prison Alex learned that the man who killed his grandmother had escaped but the man who killed his uncle was still there that was a tough day I was hot I was cold I was so nerv I've never been so nervous in my life and as we walk to the prison we get to meet it with him and we get to sit across from him and I asked the guy do you remember me no not specifically he said but he did recall seeing three children there there especially an older girl Alex's sister that was the confirmation Alex needed this man before him was part of the team that had killed 30 people in his village and I asked him why did you guys do what you did he's like well some of us were just following orders we don't even remember some of the things that we did ourselves and it goes to show you that they were brainwashed so much so that they just they had something they went and did it Alex listened to the man's explanation and that helped him get more closure but Alex didn't stop the conversation there as we talk to him I actually specifically told him that I'm here to share with you what Jesus Christ did in my life and then I also just because I'm ready in my heart to forgive doesn't mean that that's the same case for everybody in my family so I also shared with him asking him for forgiveness on behalf of my family because not all of us are ready but again it's like I'm Shing with him on my personal behalf but also asking him to forgive us for the bitterness that is still there within my family towards him this man who had helped kill Alex's Uncle now let Alex pray with him the man didn't accept Jesus as his Lord and Savior but Alex knows that a gospel seed was planted in his life before Alex left he assured the man that God can forgive him as tough as it was he was so healing to the point where I'm able to say thank you Jesus for allowing me that opportunity to be able to heal and process the bitterness and realized that that bitterness was gone there's no way in my human nature I would ever want to see that man cuz I wanted to kill him I thought about it I planned it and if I had the opportunity in the right time I would have done it and that scared me that that kind of hatred was in my life but every time I share my testimony of how God saved me is to give him thanks for what he's done ((music playing)) if you're harboring bitterness in your heart the way Alex sjam was or if you've done something for which you don't think you can be forgiven I have good news Jesus Christ can fill your heart with peace and joy and give you an eternal home we can tell you more at our website find peacewithgod.net that's find peacewithgod.net if you'd rather talk and pray with someone call the 24-hour Billy Graham prayer line the number is 855255 pray that's 855255 pray in a moment Alex will share one final word about forgiveness you're listening to GPS God people stories a podcast production of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association you'd go through Villages there was no people not even a chicken not even a goat not even a bird The Villages were there the people were gone Franklin Graham in 1994 shortly after returning from Rwanda where he had assisted in setting up medical and spiritual care for victims of the genocide they need doctors they need nurses they need food medicine they need all of those things but what Rwanda needs more than anything else is is they need the Gospel of Jesus Christ these people have suffered these people have been butchered but there needs to be healing in this country because there are hundreds of thousands of people that are guilty of murder that have the blood of their neighbor on their hands and those people need to be forgiven and my friends God will forgive them if they're willing to come to him through Jesus Christ you see Jesus Christ is God's son who died on a cross for our sins and if we're willing to confess our sins and turn from our sins and by faith receive Christ into our heart God will forgive us and my friends if you don't know Christ as your savior I pray tonight that you'll give your heart to him if you want to learn more about what it means to give your heart to Jesus we can tell you visit us at fine peacewithgod.net our guest in this episode of GPS God people stories is Alex sjam he was only six when he witnessed the atrocities of the Rwandan genocide in 1994 since then he has forgiven the people who killed his grandmother and uncle and he challenges us to forgive Whoever has caused us pain and to see them the way God does all of our Lives we have people who cause us pain and maybe as you even listen that pain is being caused to you Even In This Moment In My bitterness I did not want to accept that God loved the man who killed my grandmother and the man who killed my uncle and in my bitterness I wanted to kill him I wanted to do exactly the same things in my Journey of Faith is God come into my life challenging me because he forgave me of my sins he forgave me when he hung on the cross the man who killed my uncle was the one who actually caused me the most horrific pain because it's the trauma that I faced even into my adulthood I'm thinking I'm grateful that God allow me to heal that I share this with you to encourage you in your own Journey that even the person who has caused you pain God loves that person and God loves you as well but God does not want you to be defined by that pain it's what Jesus Christ did on the cross because he forgave us he freed us and bu bitterness is destroying us from the inside out and we miss out and so I hope and pray that you hearing this that you can be encouraged that there's freedom in Christ we're grateful Alex sjim was willing to share his story with us on this episode today he lives in the United States and shares his story with people all over the country as part of the Operation Christmas Child team he and his wife are expecting their first baby in March they would appreciate your prayers we're excited to see how God will continue to use Alex and his family in the future speaking of the future make sure you subscribe to GPS if you haven't already that way you will catch every single episode we post a new one every other Wednesday I'm Jim Kirkland and this is GPS God people stories it's an Outreach Of The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association always good news oh ((music playing)) ((music playing))