Teachers have an essential role in overcoming ethnic differences.

For the past month I have moved between inspiration and agony. In Rwanda, our new teacher trainers have bonded together, despite ethnic and cultural differences, through our Peace and Reconciliation training. Meanwhile, in Kenya, my beloved homeland, a formerly peaceful nation explodes with hatred, frustration, and ethnic based violence. The comparison could not be more chilling, especially considering the scenes of violent young men wielding machetes which dominate new headlines in Kenya were the dominant scenes of the Rwandan genocide nearly fourteen years ago.

Tribalism plagues Africa and too many power hungry politicians are seemingly happy to exploit these differences, even if it means the loss of innocent lives. Teachers play an essential role in raising the next generation of young people in Africa with an entirely different mentality and unless teachers are healed and reconciled themselves, they can never hope to be a healing agent in their classrooms. We take our responsibility to help teachers heal extremely seriously at Wellspring. We have the opportunity to work in schools where ethnic differences and ideology previously created the seeds of violence. We have the opportunity to speak an entirely different message and to model an entirely different reality.

One of my favorite Wellspring trainers is a man from Northwestern Rwanda named Ernest. Ernest is quick to laugh and has a wonderful sense of humour despite the hardships he has faced in life. He hams it up in staff pictures and constantly refers to his "beauty gap" (gap in his teeth) as his greatest asset. Prior to the December 2007 holidays, Ernest began peace and reconciliation training with Wellspring, and then returned home for his holidays. He was dramatically impacted and said for the first time he began to understand fully that the week of mourning in Rwanda was a week of mourning for everyone, not just those who had seen their families killed in the genocide.

Ernest was so impacted by the difference this realization made that he spoke to hundreds of people about it, including the provincial governor, during his Christmas holidays. He said people came up to him afterwards and thanked him for being willing to boldly approach such a difficult subject. In a short period of time, Ernest went from sitting on the sidelines, to addressing some of the root causes of hatred and violence in his society. Imagine what type of impact Ernest and his colleagues will make as they mentor other teachers and school leaders!
We need to pray for teachers like Ernest in Rwanda, Kenya, and other places which experience ethnic division. Their role is essential and they will either breed division and hatred or unity, forgiveness, and openness. The people who promote violence in the streets of Nairobi, Naivasha, Nakuru, Eldoret, and Kisumu today needed teachers who modeled an entirely different way. If the cycle of hatred is ever going to end, teacher must help change the way an entire society thinks about itself.

So I sit here praying for violence to end in Kenya and thankful God has given us a serious role to play in combatting ethnic division in Rwanda. My hope is that God will raise up thousands of teacher like Ernest to be "salt and light" in their communities. One day I pray we will look back on these years as the ones when Africa finally turned the corner and ethnic violence became a thing of the past.