Andrea and I rented Hotel Rwanda this past weekend. It had everything that a good movie should have...entertainment value, plus the ability to cause the viewer to think and examine life. For those who haven't...Hotel Rwanda takes place in 1994 as the horrible genocide of the Tutsi people by the whuto people. It is a story of hope in the midst of destruction as Don Cheadle character tries to save as many people as possible, including his own family.
I was around 14 or 15 when the genocide took place in Rwanda. I can remember that UN Peacekeepers were not authorized to fire their weapons (why did they have them then?). What really should be a black eye on America is our unwillingness to go to bat for Rwanda. Maybe because there was no oil there? Who knows? While I don't like the idea of America being the World's police force, I hurts to think that we really didn't do much of anything to save the million people who were slaughtered.
James 1:27 says this..."Religion that God the Father accepts as pure and faultless is this; to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."
I have been wrestling with how we respond to something like this as Christian Americans. Do we sit idly by and say, "Aw...that's terrible," and then turn the TV off and go to bed? Do we write our Congressman and Senators? Do we help raise awareness? How do we respond?
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