as we forgive
as we forgive documents the attempts of two Rwandan women to forgive the men who murdered their families during the genocide of 1994. Filmmaker Laura Waters Hinson sought to portray the reconciliation that is going on in communities still rebuilding from the conflict:
One balmy Rwandan afternoon in August of 2005, Laura Waters, then a master’s film student at American University, met Anglican Bishop John Rucyahana. Bishop John, a leading advocate of reconciliation in Rwanda, described a reconciliation project he had established that seemed radical and, frankly, unreal. Ex-prisoners were building homes for those who not only survived the genocide, but the family members of those they killed. Laura’s interest was peaked as she imagined a film that could capture for Western viewers the profound message communicated by genocide survivors and perpetrators who are reconciling and living together again as neighbors. Laura spent the next ten months raising money from family and friends, and the following summer, she returned with a small crew of student filmmakers to accomplish one goal: to test the claim that genuine reconciliation was occurring in Rwanda.
To say that this film is powerful is an understatement. I saw it a few weeks ago at The Falls Church and was hit with a range of emotions: anger, shock, pity, humility, regret.
You see not only the pain that the surviving family members are living with, but also the desperation and shame of the men who destroyed their families and are asking to be forgiven.
There is a short trailer and list of upcoming screenings on the website.
What We Sang Today - Rock of Ages
Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee;
Let the water and the blood, from thy riven side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure, cleanse me from its guilt and pow’r.
Not the labors of my hands can fulfill thy law’s demands;
Could my zeal no respite know, could my tears forever flow,
All for sin could not atone; thou must save, and thou alone.
Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling;
Naked, come to thee for dress; helpless, look to thee for grace;
Foul, I to the Fountain fly; wash me, Savior, or I die.
While I draw this fleeting breath, when mine eyelids close in death,
When I soar to worlds unknown, see thee on thy judgement throne,
Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee.
- Augustus M. Toplady, 1776
Toplady is said to have written the hymn while seeking shelter from a thunderstorm:
Sir William Henry Wills, in a letter to Dean Lefroy, published in the [London] Times in June, 1898, says ‘Toplady was one day overtaken by a thunderstorm in Burrington Coombe, on the edge of my property, Blagdon, a rocky glen running up into the heart of the Mendip range, and there, taking shelter between two massive piers of our native limestone rock, he penned the hymn,
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee.There is a precipitous crag of limestone a hundred feet high, and right down its centre is the deep recess in which Toplady sheltered.’
What did you sing today?