By Craig Brown (Australia)

How do you describe an “Amahoro” experience?  Do you simply focus on the mouth dropping moments, when reconciliation and healing take place in front of you?  The moments when a phrase of truth is uttered and it releases in you a new way of seeing (“suffering that is not transformed is transmitted”, for example)?  Or do you simply revel in the hospitality that is extended to you and, even though you felt you had nothing to offer, unprompted you are told that your mere presence is a ministry?  And, suddenly, you feel welcomed and at one with everyone else. 

So, as you can see, I could probably write a series of reflections on Amahoro, drenched in moments of clarity, tears and laughter.

Perhaps I am a narcissistic Westerner…but what I want to talk about is what Amahoro did to me.  I could dwell on the fantastic moments I mentioned above, but I can’t guarantee I’ll do them justice, and they won’t be replicated in the same way at next year’s Amahoro.  It’ll have its own unique feel, so let’s look forward to that.

It is a cliché but a salient truth: I came back from Amahoro different to when I arrived, bug eyed and grasping my first fistful of African soil.  I had long said I had a “heart” for Africa, going back to when I first found Christ and I was called to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  A series of civil wars got in the way of that call, and slowly the idea of ministering in the Congo dwindled to having a “heart” for Africa. 

Listening, participating and reflecting at Amahoro, it struck me pretty hard one night that it is easy to have a heart for Africa.  It is harder, more sacrificial, and so much more beneficial to Africa, to be a friend to Africa.  A friend means to be a listener, it means doing my bit to wind back outdated and colonial attitudes, it means being a partner in ministry, in prayer, and in advocacy.  It means instead of going and doing it over there, you find ways of supporting those who are already equipping the church and transforming their communities.

I realised that I had not been that kind of friend. 

So now, thanks to Amahoro, I am wrestling with how to be that friend.  What does that mean? What does that look like? Where does it incarnate? But I am comfortable with the questions because once raised, they are hard to silence…and as it was said at Amahoro, “statements lead to states, questions lead to quests”.

I am on a quest to find my place in the bigger story of Africa, and the bigger story of the Kingdom of God.  And that wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t gone to Amahoro.