I met a woman from Burundi

Florence Ntakarutimana is doing astounding and courageous work in Rwanda with the program Healing and Rebuilding Our Communities, sponsored by Quaker groups including the African Great Lakes Initiative. I missed her talk to our whole Illinois Yearly Meeting but learned from her in worship sharing. HROC brings together Hutus and Tutsis to acknowledge the trauma that the Rwandan genocide of the 1990s brought to so many, mourn it, find appropriate ways to express anger and rebuild trust. Forgiveness is not necessary, though it could happen. Florence speaks four languages: Kinyarwandan (the language of Rwanda), French, English and Swahili. The theme of our annual yearly meeting, and hence of the worship sharing, was reconciliation. Florence prays and she listens. That's how she does her work. Her faith impressed me.