All Things Supercinski

Last week, we watched the movie Hotel Rwanda from the safety and comfort of our own bed. The movie documents the horror of the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 while also portraying a story of hope through telling of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager who housed and protected over a thousand Tutsis during the massacres. This movie is a must-see as it tastefully presents what happened without overwhelming you with too much gore. After we finished watching the movie, it was about midnight so we went to bed. I had difficulting falling asleep because I kept having to remind myself that while the movie was true and it did happen, it wasn’t happening at that moment, in my backyard or the city I live in.

This thought process is frustrating. How can I become so overwhelmed and moved by what I see, but then the next morning, its Saturday donuts and fun? This reminds me of a wonderful book: Good News about Injustice by Gary Haugen, who works for the International Justice Commission. Haugen investigated the Rwandan genocide for the U.N. by digging-up mass graves and interviewing survivors. His book gives practical advice about how to take atrocities we see on the news and not forget them as soon as we turn the page, how to see injustice biblically, and what to do when we see it. In discussing the investigation of the mass graves, he says that he was doing his job, looking at them as just masses of body parts, but that, “in truth each body, now dull and limp in the mud, was actually a unique bearer of the very image of God, a unique creation of the divine Maker, individually knit within a mother’s womb by the Lord of the universe… We would never number all the mother’s children in these mass graves, but their Father in heaven had numbered even the very hairs of their heads.” If only I could take images I see on the news and think of them that way!

Good News about Injustice demonstrates how to cope with what we see without just forgetting about it. I highly recommend it. It gives great insight into the world around us and how we, as insignificant as one of us is, can do something about injustice. Did you know that each year, according to Mr. Haugen, OVER ONE MILLION children are forced into prositution? Hard to imagine from the comfort of our American existence. Thankfully, we (and they) have a God that knows them and has spoken, “Take heart! For I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

O LORD, You have heard the desire of the humble; You will strengthen their heart, You will incline Your ear to vindicate the orphan and the oppressed, so that man who is of the earth will no longer cause terror. ~Psalm 10:17-19