I wanted to tell a little more.

As you enter the church compound. You gaze upon a well manicured lawn and a rustic brick building. Things change immediately as you reach the porch of the entrance. You enter through the original gate that had to be pried open by the militia to reach the thousands of people huddled inside this small church. You immediately notice the clothes piled on the benches. At first I was amazed by how tattered and dirty they were. Then upon thinking about it, realized that these people had died in these clothes and the stains I was seeing were from the dried blood that was shed as they were massacred. All of the childrens’ clothes are piled at the front of the building. Most of them were killed by being swung against the walls. You then notice the discoloration on the interior of the ceiling and the various holes surrounding it. These splatterings were the result of grenades tossed in among the people there. On the table used for communion lie various weapons used by the killers. Ironic, huh? At this point I was overwhelmed to the point of despair at what I had already seen. Then we descended a set of stairs to go into the first of three crypts containing the bodies of many. One of these is that of a woman who died holding her baby. Her killers were suitors that she had rejected. It was personal. They impaled her and her baby. I stopped there and wept. Ironically I was being comforted by one with us who had lost his entire family. He stood there patting me on the back telling me that it was going to be alright. I responded with telling him how thankful I was that he had made it. We excited the building and then visited the other two crypts that resembled underground cellars. The first one contained the bodies of those they could identify. The second one contained the thousands of those that were never identified potentially because they contained entire families who had been wiped out. I stood there with Charles among the skulls and other bones and told him thank you for running away. He said, how could he not. Bizarrely, we laughed an uncomfortable but legitimate laugh originating from our thanksgiving for life.

After we walked out of the crypt for the unknowns, Charles turned to me and said, “If we will only remember what happened here, we will not continue on in hatred.” Oh that we can replace that hatred with the love of Christ!

John 13:34 says: “A new command I give you. Love one another. As I have loved you , so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.