“A LAND FAIRER THAN DAY”

“A Land Fairer Than Day”

He knew what was coming.

IN RWANDA Reverend Yona Kanamuzeyi was a Tutsi pastor who had established a network of twenty-four village churches that ministered to some six thousand people. In 1963 the Hutu, determined to rid their country of the hated Tutsi minority, drove Kanamuzeyi and thousands of other Tutsi still in Rwanda into refugee camps.

For a thousand years the central African territory known as Ruanda-Urundi was a feudal monarchy ruled by the Tutsi, a tall, proud people who had reduced the shorter Hutu to serfdom. Germany claimed the country in 1890; then the League of Nations awarded it to Belgium after World War I. Although the governments changed, the political system did not. The Tutsi, though just 15 percent of the population, continued to rule the Hutu majority as they had for centuries.

Missionaries began arriving in the late 1920s. By 1968 Rwanda in the north had 85,000 Anglicans, and in Burundi in the south, Swedish Pentecostals had won 160,000 to Christ.

Belgium was willing to grant independence, but in 1959 centuries of repression boiled over in Rwanda. The Hutu majority rebelled, massacring thousands of Tutsi and taking over the government. Belgium and the United Nations granted the Hutu rule of Rwanda in 1962 with the Tutsi retaining control of Burundi on Rwanda’s southern border.

In the face of political and ethnic turmoil, many missionaries fled or were recalled to the safety of their homelands. But faithful native pastors, both Hutu and Tutsi, remained, ministering the gospel of peace.

On the morning of January 24, 1964, a jeep pulled up in front of Reverend Kanamuzeyi’s home in the refugee camp. Armed Hutu soldiers ordered the pastor and his friend, Andrew Kayumba, into the jeep. Kanamuzeyi told his friend, “Let us surrender our lives into God’s hands.” The men were driven to a military camp, where Kanamuzeyi asked permission to write in his pocket diary. Then he handed the diary to the soldier in charge and asked him to deliver the little book to his wife. The soldier answered, “You had better pray to your God.”

So Kanamuzeyi prayed aloud in front of the soldiers, “Lord God, you know we have not sinned against the government, and now I pray you, in your mercy, accept our lives. And we pray you to avenge our innocent blood and to help these soldiers who do not know what they are doing.”

Both men were tied up, and as Kanamuzeyi was led away, he turned to ask Andrew one last question. “Do you believe, Brother?”

“Yes,” Andrew replied.

Kanamuzeyi was taken to a bridge over a river and as he walked, Andrew heard him sing:

There’s a land that is fairer than day,

And by faith we can see it afar:

For the Father waits over the way,

To prepare us a dwelling place there.

The crack of a gunshot ended the hymn. The soldiers picked up Kanamuzeyi’s body and threw it into the river.

The soldiers put Andrew back into the jeep, their double message of murder and intimidation seemingly accomplished. “We’re taking you home,” they said. “But remember, if you tell anyone about the killing of the pastor, you, too, will be killed.”

Pastor Kanamuzeyi’s diary did reach his wife. In it he had inscribed, “We are going to Heaven.”

Reflection

If you had been Yona Kanamuzeyi, do you think you would have been singing a hymn as you were led away to be killed? God provides peace to his children as they need it.

Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. If you do this, you will experience God’s peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6-7