young god

Ceramics ist Krieg, Helena Hauss

“My father was a talented engineer.  He could fix any type of truck, and he used his income to help the poor.  Our neighbors’ school fees and hospital bills were always paid.  My mother would bring needy people to our table, and order us to give them the best portions of meat.  She’d explain that these people rarely had the chance to eat well.  Both my parents were very religious.  But they always taught us: ‘Humanity first.  Everything else comes after.’  When the genocide began, they invited our Tutsi neighbors to hide in our house.  There were seven of them.  Some lived under the beds.  Others lived in the cupboards.  I was a teenager back then and my job was to change the waste buckets.  It was a miserable existence, and it went on for months.  But we prayed with them.  We tried to give them hope.  We told them that God was in control.  At night we’d give them Muslim dress so they could go in the backyard and get fresh air.  Our neighbors suspected us because our curtains were always closed.  We never slept because we knew the penalty for hiding Tutsis was death.  But all seven people in our house survived.  Unfortunately my mother and father died a few years ago, so I must tell their story for them.  Their names were Mukamunosi Adha and Gasano Juma.  They saved seven lives.  And they valued love and humanity more than anything.”   (Kigali, Rwanda)