Not quite sure what to make of this book. The dramatic story of a peasant farmer boy from a remote region of Rwanda who had visions of Jesus. Jesus gives this boy messages to share with the world, similar to some girls from the same region having visions of Mary (a modern equivalent to the Marian apparitions in Lourdes, France - 1858, or Fátima, Portugal - 1917). These visitations happened in 1982 in the small village of Kibeho, Rwanda. The account is fascinating, but I'm not sure why God would use such a method to proclaim a message that is (for the most part) already recorded in the Gospels. That being said, I still found it hard to put down, and some of the unexplained aspects of the story make me curious - for one thing, how would an illiterate boy from a pagan family, who had never been in school, never set foot in a church, never seen a Bible, how could such a person be able to speak so skillfully about theological matters? Those who were sent by the Roman Catholic church to investigate the verity of the apparitions concluded that they were real, that the children, including Segatashya, were telling the truth - something miraculous was taking place.
Perhaps the most forceful impact of the book is its cautionary tale of what happens when people do not love others has God has commanded. In a little more than a decade after Segatashya had his visions and shared Jesus' message with a wide audience (his messages were broadcast on radio and crowds of 30,000 would crowd into Kibeho when the visitations were to occur), the lack of love and understanding led to the genocide for which Rwanda is infamous today. In the end the message delivered by Segatashya was a simple one, so simple that a child could understand it - we are to love God and each other, to return to living the way God intended, to pray constantly and in this way prepare for the last days.
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