Mike Watt
Theology
Mr. Sciuto
A Man of Faith: Paul Rusesabagina
Paul
Rusesabagina was born in the Central- South region of
Initially, Paul only cared about his family at the beginning of the conflict but then went through spiritual growth and tried to protect all Rwandans. Paul turned the hotel Mille Collines into a refugee camp and saved the lives of over 1,200 people. “He spent his days buying lives of Tutsis with liquor, reasoning, and persuading so that the bands of killers outside the hotel would go away.” “He would then stay up until four in the morning using the one phone line which the Hutu Power authorities did not cut as they did not know its number, sending faxes to Bill Clinton, the French Foreign ministry, the King of Belgium, telling them what was going on.”
Paul’s faith was an intellectual ascent to a loving God and His revelation. Paul’s faith was a grace. In an interview, Paul says that in spite of his hardships, he is a happy and blessed man. When Paul was threatened to be killed and also had lives of his wife and family threatened, he was able to negotiate with the Hutus to let his family go to the hotel.
Paul’s faith is certain. Often he needed to use his influence and connections as manager of the hotel to convince others to use their power to pressure the militia to leave them unharmed. His faith was a free human response. He himself was relatively safe from the Interahamwe due to his prior work as a diplomat and his business connections with important Hutu military leaders, but his wife was a Tutsi and his children were mixed so he needed to protect them. It would have been easier for Paul to only defend his wife and children but he took the risk of sheltering his neighbors and then decided to open his hotel up as a place for refugees. This shows the growth of his faith even when it further endangered himself. When Paul had a chance to leave with his family, he felt the responsibility to stay and care for the people at the hotel.
Paul
has still not given up. Now he has recently set up a foundation to help Rwandan
women and orphans, and he has been speaking to audiences across the
