Finding God’s Purpose for My Life

By Alex Nsengimana

A native of Rwanda, Alex Nsengimana (pronounced singe-eh-mah-nah) has seen more in his 31 years than most people have seen in a lifetime. Alex left Rwanda in 2003 to live with a family in Minnesota. Since then, he has grown to love almost everything about life in America, with the exception of ice and snow. After receiving a degree in Pastoral Leadership from Crossroads College in Rochester, Minnesota, Alex now works for Operation Christmas Child in Boone, NC, an organization he has strong personal ties to.

Genocide

Sometimes, when I look back on my life, I can’t believe everything that God has brought me through. Before the age of ten, I watched my home, many dear relatives, and life as I knew it disappeared before my eyes.

In 1994, I was six years old and living in Kigali, Rwanda. My mother had died of AIDS two years before, and I never knew my father. I lived with my grandmother and my uncle. When the Rwandan President, Juvénal Habyarimana, was assassinated on April 6, 1994, I had no idea how much the resulting violence would affect me.

The morning of April 7, genocide began in my country. There were two tribes, the Hutus and the Tutsis. My family belonged to the Tutsi tribe. Because President Habyarimana had been Hutu, the Hutus began waging war on the Tutsis, and were ordered to kill all Tutsi children so that the population would be wiped out.

When the Hutu militia came to our house, they shot my grandmother, pointed their guns at the rest of us, and threatened to kill us. They looted the house and left.

A week later, the militia came looking for my uncle and killed him, too. It was a miracle that they didn’t shoot me and my brother. We later found out that our other uncle was bribing the soldiers by buying them beer, as a way to keep them away from us.

Forced to Flee

Not long after all of this happened, that same uncle came and told us we had to run away. My siblings and I fled to my aunt’s house in Kigali, which had been destroyed by all the violence. Despite this, many of our relatives sought shelter there. I remember that the roof of the house was so thin that we had to sleep under our beds to protect ourselves from all the debris that would rain down on us.

Despite the conditions, my aunt and uncle were innovative, and they came up with the idea to sell beer to soldiers in the living room. It supported us for a while, and I started to feel safe again. That was all over one afternoon when one of the soldiers broke into our backyard and screamed, “Everyone lie down!” As he loaded his gun and threatened to kill us, mysteriously, the bullets fell out of his magazine and onto the ground. Though at the time I had no knowledge of God, he had protected me and my family once again.

Eventually, life in the city became too dangerous and we had to start running again. Even something as trivial as being able to cook and eat was a blessing. I was focused on survival. I had no faith in God. My faith had been in my grandmother, because she had always protected and loved me. Now that she was gone, that faith vanished and everything that happened was, in my eyes, a coincidence.

God’s Provision

Not long after, I was reunited with my family and we were taken to a refugee camp by soldiers from the Rwandan Patriotic Front. After two weeks at the camp, one of my relatives and I went to our house in Kigali to see if we could go back home. We found that Hutu soldiers had occupied our home, but the majority of our belongings were safe because we had locked them up and they had never found our key, which was hidden in plain sight!

We heard our neighbors outside and went to see them, excited that they had survived! We celebrated with them for a little while, and returned to our house before dark. Little did we know that those neighbors, people we considered friends, were part of the Hutu militia.

That night, I begged my relative to take me outside to the bathroom. She tried to talk me out of it, but I insisted. After we stepped outside, the neighbors broke into our house, and we heard them shouting, “Where are they? We want to finish their family off!” because they thought we were the only survivors. We hid in the bathroom, and returned to the camp safely the next morning.

Once again, though I was unaware of His presence, God had saved my life!

Hope in a Shoebox

My family remained at the camp for a week, and then it shut down and everyone was sent home. Though most of my life returned to normal, the city was still deserted, and my aunt and uncle fell ill due to a lack of nutrition. My uncle passed away not too long after, and my aunt began to take a turn for the worse. In the spring of 1995, when I was 7 years old, my brother and I entered a nearby orphanage, Gisimba Memorial Center. Shortly after we joined the orphanage, we received word that our aunt had passed away. We were devastated.

This orphanage was built to care for 60-70 children, and yet 250 lived there. These children were survivors of genocide, and dealt with horrific nightmares because of what they had seen. The people who ran the orphanage loved us, but the need was so great!

In 1996, we received gifts from America. When we opened them, we realized they were from Operation Christmas Child. We were told about that greatest gift that was ever given, the gift of grace through Jesus Christ. The gift filled me with hope, and distracted me from my circumstances. It was wonderful to feel hopeful, for the first time in a few years, but at the time, I did not accept Christ as my Savior.

A year after receiving the shoeboxes, my brother and I joined the African Children’s Choir. They took 12 of us from the orphanage to Uganda, where we learned English. 

Seeing God’s Presence

While I was in Uganda, I began to question everything that happened to me. A million people lost their lives during the three months of genocide. Why did I survive? I was no different from any of the children who had died. Why me? And, most of all, why would He take away the two people who cared most for me, my grandmother and my uncle?

I began looking for answers in the Bible, and grasping for a reason to hope. I read the Bible in English, and in my language, trying to make cross-references. At the time, I didn’t know the full history of the Israelites and the context of this verse, but I came across Jeremiah 29:11:

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

That verse stopped me in my tracks, and I thought about everything that had happened over the course of the past few years.

My mother had AIDS, and yet I never contracted it. I could have been shot many times: the times when my grandmother and uncle were killed, when the soldier at my aunt’s house threatened us but the bullets fell out of his gun, when I was running through a field and slipped, and at our house in Kigali when our neighbors came looking for us.

Instead, God had sent me to an orphanage where I was loved and cared for, and where I was given a gift that reminded me to have hope.

I started to see that all of these things that happened were steps in the path that God had for my life and that His presence was with me from the day I was born. That presence was overwhelming, and I couldn’t ignore it anymore! I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior, and was filled with a desire to find the purpose He saved me for. I was filled with love, and prayed for God to help me share that love with other people.

Healing

Over the next two and a half years, my brother and I came to the United States with the African Children’s Choir and toured the country. During those years, so many people continued to show us unconditional love, but I continue to feel incredibly angry with the people who killed my family.

One of the choir chaperones asked me to tell her about my life, and how I came to be at the orphanage. I shared my story with her, and it felt good to tell it. She asked me a question that I wasn’t prepared for: what would I do if I met the person who caused me the most pain?

I knew that the man who killed my uncle and the man who killed my grandmother were those people. I was still so angry, and I searched the Bible for answers. The Bible said we were created in God’s image, and that meant that the people who killed my family were created in His image also. How could that be? The thought of that made me even angrier. I asked the choir chaperones to pray with me and asked God to help me heal. For 12 years after that, I came back to this prayer.

We finished the choir tour and went back to the orphanage. In 2003, God connected me with a family I had stayed with in Minnesota, and I traveled there to attend high school. Wonderful things were happening in my life, but I was still angry.

I traveled to Rwanda in 2008, and one of my missions was to meet with the men who killed my family. Neither of those men came to the meeting, and I was frustrated and confused. Why wouldn’t God let me meet them after I had prayed for this opportunity? I know now that I wasn’t ready to meet them.

The Power of Forgiveness

Finally, in 2013, I traveled to Rwanda with Operation Christmas Child and God answered my prayer.

I went to the prison where the man who killed my uncle was held, and waited. Emotions flooded me. When he walked into the room, I explained who I was and why I was there. As I listened, Niyoneza Anastase told me the story of how he killed my uncle.

I took a deep breath and said, “I’m not here to accuse you, though you wronged me, but I’m here to do something else.” I began to cry as I told him, “I am here because I saw how God’s power works through forgiveness. I received that power. I really want to forgive you, so you that can have peace of mind and build a relationship with God. He wants you to come to Him, in spite of what you did.”

I knelt with this man, and began to speak to my Savior. My tears flowed freely as I said, “I pray your Spirit will be with him and protect him, and he’ll have the peace that comes through You.”

The man told me, “I don’t know what came over us,” he said. “We killed everybody. Please forgive us. When I think of what I did, I always get sick.” Then he asked me to bring the families of the other people he had killed to the prison so he could ask forgiveness of them.

I told him, “I have forgiven you because of the grace of God. I don’t have any hate in my heart toward you. You should also ask God’s forgiveness.”

As I walked out of the prison, I felt that a burden had been lifted off my chest. For years, I had prayed to my Heavenly Father for healing, and He gave it to me in his timing. 

Ambassador for Christ

On that same trip to Rwanda, I got to go to the orphanage where I grew up, and hand out shoeboxes. It was a tremendous blessing to stand where I stood as a child, and watch these children receive their own shoeboxes. That trip was one of the hardest things I ever did, but God used it to heal me. I now work full-time for Operation Christmas Child, the organization that aided me in finding God.

My dream is to lead a church in Rwanda because there are so many people there still living in bondage. I am deeply honored and blessed to be an ambassador for so many children who need to hear of the hope of love given to us through Jesus Christ.

This article was originally written for the Winter 2014 Edition of The Journey magazine.

To find out more about Alex Nsengimana, please contact Samaritan’s Purse at samaritanspurse.org.