At the end of September 1994, I found myself on a plane flying into Rwanda. This was 12 weeks post-genocide and I had been invited there by Medair, a Christian relief organisation with whom I had worked in Liberia in 1992. The invitation had come unexpectedly 2 weeks previously and without much thought I had accepted. They said they were doing the humanitarian work, giving out foods and medicines and burying the bodies, but the pastors in the churches were asking if forgiveness and reconciliation could ever be possible in their situation, where up to a million people had been brutally massacred in a hundred days. The vast majority had been from the Tutsi group in an attempted genocide against the whole group. They knew I had been working with the churches in Liberia during their civil war, drawing on my medical and psychiatric training as well as on my Christian faith.

Flying in over this beautiful country, I cried out to God, and felt he was saying that the only thing that was powerful enough to heal this country was the cross of his Son. Jesus had already accomplished all that was necessary on the cross. Our task as believers was to appropriate that for that situation. Somehow both sides would have to find each other at the cross.

This book is the story of what unfolded, much to my amazement. After that initial 2 week visit when in fear and trembling I shared about God’s healing power, I was urged by rural pastors to return. ‘All of Rwanda needs to hear this!’ they said. I returned in April 1995, and began to witness miracles of healing and forgiveness that I had never dreamed were possible. Thereafter I visited many times, travelling around the country working with churches of all denominations, and eventually training local teams in 1997 in each town to run a 3 day workshop called Healing the Wounds of Ethnic Conflict.

Other countries started to hear about the blessing in Rwanda and invitations started coming from D R Congo, South Africa, Kenya and eventually much further afield, where there was a history of conflict, division and injustice. The workshop is now called the Healing Hearts, Transforming Nations encounter. National and international teams have been trained, and millions have encountered God’s healing and been able to forgive and reconcile in the most shocking ways. No-one is more surprised than me.

This book not only tells that story, but also looks at how, unknown to me, God had prepared me over many years for this very ministry. He used painful family experiences where I struggled to believe in God’s goodness and love, and struggles growing up in Wales as a native Welsh-speaker where I questioned his justice. A life-changing season with Youth with a Mission (YWAM) contributed greatly to me healing, and many other experiences along life’s path taught me some vital lessons, especially in helping me to get to know God’s character. It was these very lessons that he used as I began to seek to help the victims and perpetrators of conflict.

Currently new doors are opening to north and south America, where there are many divisions and challenges. I had no intention of writing a book, but my advisors urged me to do so, as the message it contains is very relevant to our broken, divided world today.

Rhiannon Lloyd, January 2022