Rwanda (MNN) — Fourteen years ago, angry voices in Rwanda urged people to take up arms and destroy friends and family if they belonged to a rival clan.
"It was the radio that told us to go out and kill our neighbor," said Colombe, a villager old enough to remember the killing frenzies of the mid-90's.
Now there is a "radio" that tells villagers to love their neighbors and forgive others.
Faith Comes by Hearing developed the Proclaimer, a self-powered audio player that comes pre-loaded with the New Testament. The device doesn't emit or receive radio waves, but it does transmit the Word of God into hearts left hopeless by slaughter and mass destruction.
Messages traveling across air waves in 1994 spewed hate and prompted mobs of teenage boys to go on killing sprees. One million people were slain as a result of the violent clash between two rival clans armed with machetes and machine guns.
"I was a killer," said Fidele, one of the boys in the murderous mobs. He was riddled with guilt and struggled with forgiveness. Then someone invited him to one of the Proclaimer listening groups. As he listened to the Word in his own language – Kinyarwanda – and discussed what he heard with the group, Fidele found forgiveness for his sins and forgiveness from other people for the murders he committed. He found and accepted Christ.
Emmanuel, the director of Campus Crusade for Christ in Rwanda, was working in a neighboring country at the time of the massacres. His family belonged to the minority clan, and although many of his family members were murdered, Emmanuel chose to return and minister to the rival clan. Now he travels throughout the country showing the JESUS film and forming listening groups after the film's showing.
"Through stories like these, you can see how God is healing this land," said Morgan Jackson, international director of Faith Comes By Hearing.
