On
Saturday 16th December 2023, three of us visited a group of Seventh-day
Adventist believers in prison in Rwanda.
I
am writing for Seventh-day Adventist believers especially those who have not seen Rome’s modern-day persecution against people of faith and conscience.
I
am not writing to invoke your sympathy for believers in Rwanda but to remind you to
prepare for times of trouble that must come to you also.
Let
me first make it plain: persecution for God’s faithful people has started and
we all should be already prepared to meet our Lord in peace.
Background
for the current persecution
In
Rwanda, prisons are called correction facilities. Sounds like a good place to
be adored but I will call it prison in my story because it’s what the Bible can
call a place with prison wardens, watch towers, and high walls to keep
criminals away from people.
Sabbath
is the prison visitation day in Rwanda, just like the mandatory community work
on the last Saturday of every month.
Much
of the "common good" work in this Central African country takes place
on Saturdays apart from the Car-free Sundays.
Seventh-day
Adventists who can get confirmation from the Church institution authorities can
be given an exception.
It
means that civil authorities in Rwanda cannot recognize freedom of conscience unless someone's beliefs have been justified by the authorized church authorities.
It
was a trap the SDA institution fell into when they accepted to assume the
authority to justify a believer's convictions from the Holy Spirit working with
the conscience.
Not
once or twice when Elder Ted Wilson and other General Conference officials
thank civil authorities in Rwanda for allowing the church institution to work
with the state to decide the fate of the conscience of men.
The
result is taking many believers to prison when their actions are not justified
by the church.
The
group of people I am visiting was arrested in late September 2023 in East
Rwanda.
Like
many similar groups, they were arrested on Friday evening praying at the
beginning of Sabbath in a believers' home.
There
were more than a dozen men and women who were taken to several places of
custody before a first-instance court in their area remanded them for thirty
days.
Since
the colonial Roman Catholic Belgians took over Rwanda after World War I, the
number of prisons and sizes has always been greater than that of higher
education institutes.
Today,
there are about a dozen higher education institutes in a country with 13
prisons and 28 purgatory prisons called transit centers.
A
transit center is harsher than a prison and police cell. One can spend any span
of time in a transit center without appearing before courts of law or any evidence of his or her arrest.
Some
believers have died in transit centers.
To
my knowledge, Ntinda Prison or Rwamagana Correction Facility has received about
20 Seventh-day Adventists on remand as of now.
All
of them were arrested while praying on Sabbath in families and the church
authorities have always explained that they don’t support such congregations, condemning them to any action by civil authorities.
Authorities rarely publicly confirm that people are arrested for not going to authorized
Seventh-day Adventist church structures to pray but the place where arrests
take place confirms it.
Due
to the church authorities’ collaboration with the civil authorities to enforce Deception-19 directives, many SDAs fled and lost interest in church structures.
The
civil authorities use the church pulpits to advertise programs including road
traffic campaigns and other concocted reasons that can lead a combat uniform to a pulpit.
Group
gatherings are freer than in authorized church structures to deep Bible
studies, especially on current events and preparation for Jesus’ Second Advent.
At
the Prison
At
around 10am, we arrived at Ntinda Prison (called Rwamagana Correction Facility)
in East Central Rwanda, an hour's drive from the capital Kigali (at less than
60km/hr).
At
the first entrance into the barbed-wire fence, the Deception-19 religion is
highly reverenced and one has to buy a face mask and show a vaxsin card.
God
helped that the guard did not ask us to show the Deception-19 vaxsin card.
We
knew our brethren obey temperance, that they could not take animal products,
processed sugars, oils, etc so we looked at the fruits available in the prison
canteen courtyard.
There
were damaged finger-size yellow bananas, fist-size pineapples, and sugarcanes
the size of broom handles, all laid down on trampled dirty grass.
At the
meeting site
After
about an hour, we were through with registrations, and waiting for our
visitors.
We
stood in a vast waiting tent with about 1000 people waiting.
On
our left was that high perimeter wall surrounding the unknown prison houses and
on the right was an administration bloc that joined the prison perimeter wall
in a stone-throw distance.
The prison wall and the administration bloc formed a triangle with the tent we
were in on the base of that triangle.
The
prison wall chocolate gate was at the far end of the tip of triangle on the left such that one could not easily identify someone at the entrance.
The
prisoners came in groups about a dozen each group, appearing tiny at the gate
in comparison to the high wall that stood behind them.
Every
visitor had to look keenly to identify the prisoner he/she came to visit,
considering pink for those on remand and orange for the sentenced.
At
around 4pm, we met only three of them.
It
took some minutes before we sat down with them, going through processes.
“Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her
ways, and be wise:” Proverbs 6:6
We
sat on a bench face to face with a red wire mesh between us, three of us with
our three prisoners.
They
were happy people.
It
was emotional praying with them and of course, we could not hold back our
tears.
They
first thanked us for not buying food for them on Sabbath, telling us that it
would be heartbreaking to refuse it.
“We
know we’re not criminals here. We’re here because we did not take the
authorized version of God and beliefs” they said.
As
we sat with these prisoners, we contemplated the coming danger, certain that
someday we too will be in prison for our conscience.
They
told us they ate only in the evenings, once in 24 hours.
“But
we don’t eat on Sabbaths because we can’t eat food that was prepared though violating the
Sabbath with labor,” they said boldly.
This
means, these brothers of ours last eat on Friday and will eat again on Sunday evening.
Everything
at the prison is over three times more expensive than the prices outside and no one
is allowed to bring something from outside.
We
promised to send some money to the prison authorities to help them buy some
fruits on Fridays to eat on Sabbath.
We
were expecting to share a word of strength with them but they rather
strengthened us.
They
told us to be strong and that there is always a way of remaining faithful to
God in prison, giving us an example of how they don’t take unboiled water and
food with untrusted cooking oil in prison as a way of maintaining their temperance.
“We
were first beaten to accept taking food with their cooking oil. There are other
prisoners with medical reports who don’t take food with cooking oil. The prison
authorities allowed us as well to eat the food for the group that doesn’t take
cooking oil”
Most
cooking oils contain animal fats especially pork and are refined poorly. Careful Adventists buy unrefined sunseed cooking oil which is more expensive. Those who cannot afford, try avocadoes to
balance the amount of fats in the body.
It
was a great summon for me, to see people who are not free being able to stand
still in the Word of God which some of us who are free outside prison may not
be able to.
We
don’t know how short we were with them but it seems it was 3-5 minutes when a
command was given for them to leave.
They
told us to buy them Bibles, hymnbooks, and spirit of prophesy books which we
promised we would deliver the following time we would visit.
We
left endlessly waving bye-bye.
The writer is Kelly Rwamapera
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