Nathan E. Lewis

During Passion Week 2008 I met Jeremy, National Director of Good Samaritan Ministries in Burundi. I dropped by the international headquarters of Good Samaritan Ministries in Beaverton, within walking distance of my office at Evergreen Presbyterian Church, to visit with founder/director, Bettie Mitchell. She introduced me to Jeremy. He told me his story, the loss of his four sisters murdered during the genocide of 1993. The night before I watched “Beyond the Gates,” a BBC movie about the genocide in Rwanda. Last year I had watched “Hotel Rwanda,” and then read as much news archives as I could to remind me of what I and so many others in the safe and peaceful west had forgotten - over one million people brutally hacked to death by machete. Most of Jeremy’s counseling ministry is a ministry of reconciliation and the caring/healing of people in long-term shock as survivors of genocide.
Jeremy educated me: The same two warring tribes of Rwanda, the Tutsi and the Hutu, also live in Burundi, and have carried out their tribal warfare in both nations. Though Burundi is statistically smaller in most respects than Rwanda, the devastating effects of genocide are greater in Burundi than in Rwanda. All I could say in response was, “I will pray for your people as I have prayed for the people of Rwanda.
As national director of Good Samaritan Ministries in Burundi, Jeremy, has trained over 1,000 men to be Good Samaritans, to emulate the behavior of the Samaritan in the story Jesus told. He has used Good Samaritan Training materials to train 50+ Burundi politicians holding office. Twice he has been a dinner guest of the President of Burundi who has acknowledged his significant role in reconciliation between the people of Burundi.
On Good Friday, accompanied by my two sons, I attended the annual Good Friday Lunch and Worship hosted by Good Samaritan Ministries at the World Forestry Center in Portland. Jeremy had to sit at the head table on a five-foot high platform in front of 300 people. Bettie Mitchell had invited him to pray for the children present and for the children around the world. Jeremy graciously prayed, simply and powerfully without much show and with appropriate volume. He prayed for the children of the world, continent by continent. At the conclusion of his prayer, Bettie Mitchell said, “You forgot Australia. You forgot to pray for the children of Australia.” The first images racing through my mind were of American politicians who don’t know their geography committing gaffs publicly. Then I though how embarrassed I would be were I publicly exposed in such a mistake. (Bettie Mitchell was in no way trying to embarrass Jeremy, whom she loves and trusts; she simply desired prayer for the children of Australia!) And Jeremy humbly offered a second prayer for the children of Australia! He showed no embarrassment. His only reaction was to immediately bow his head a second time and offer a simple prayer for the children of Australia. The rest of us humbly joined him.
Each day since, I have thought about this one humble moment and I have thought that Jeremy’s response may have been a direct result of his personal experience as a survivor of genocide. What would be an occasion for embarrassment for me was an opportunity for further prayer for him. So what if I forgot Australia. This mistake can be rectified immediately by returning to prayer. Do you know what a real problem is, Nathan? Genocide is a real problem. Do you know what our only immediate response beyond shock can be to such a problem? Prayer, a return to God, the God of peace, begging his intervention at the lowest point in human endeavor. So let us pray for the children of Australia. Let us pray for the people of Burundi and Rwanda (15 years have passed since the genocide and that is barely enough time for healing, reparations, reconciliation, and the raising of a new generation in peace). Let us pray for each other, that we might be Good Samaritans where God has placed us.