Tag Archives: Peace

Rwandan genocide anniversary: A Thursday at the pool in Kigali

Posted on April 6, 2013 by Tom Costanza in Stories

A Thursday at the pool in Kigali | World Vision Blog

Today marks the 19-year anniversary of the beginning of the Rwandan genocide that took the lives of almost 800,000 people in 1994. World Vision’s Tom Costanza visited the “Hotel Rwanda” in February, and recalls his trip and the tragedy 19 years before....

The power of one person’s obedience

Posted on January 14, 2012 by Rich Stearns in Christian Witness

Honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. | World Vision blog

I am continually astounded by the power of individual people to make a difference. After The Hole in Our Gospel was published, readers started sending me letters, telling me how God has used them to do remarkable things. Sometimes they took in foster children or became adoptive parents. Others changed careers or sold vacation property so they could be more useful to the kingdom of God. All of them are changing lives, spreading hope, and making the Gospel tangible to people in need. The power of individuals to change the world has been a theme in our culture over the last year. It was a single person who launched what became the Arab Spring. Protesting corruption and inequality, a street...

The ‘salt’ in a modern-day Jericho

Posted on August 22, 2011 by Renee Stearns, guest blogger in Stories

For five days, we listened as the women of the Congo shared with us the unspeakable horrors they had experienced — personal stories of abduction, rape, and mayhem at the hands of men who use violence against women as a weapon of war. But harder still for me to hear were their accounts of a second round of abuse at the hands of those from whom they should have expected comfort and compassion — parents who rejected their own daughters after they had been impregnated in violent attacks by local militias; in-laws who laid claim to land and possessions from widows forced to watch as their husbands were killed in front of them. More than a decade of fear and...

Four days old: Many hopes, many challenges in new South Sudan

Posted on July 13, 2011 by Joyce Mulama in Stories

4 days old: South Sudan | World Vision Blog

Chants of “Republic of South Sudan Oyee” will forever be etched in the minds of many South Sudanese as they reminisce over their independence — today, only four days old. An overflowing crowd of people, both young and old, showed up at the John Garang Memorial to mark the historic event on July 9. Tens of thousands of South Sudanese endured the blistering sun, all along energized, as they erupted into song and dance when the country became the world’s 193rd country and Africa’s 54th. I saw men and women faint as the declaration was made. Others openly broke into tears as the new flag was hoisted....

A new hope through independence

Posted on July 5, 2011 by Nate Jones, World Vision U.S. in Conversations

Southern Sudan preliminary results announcement celebration in Juba, South Sudan on January 30, 2011. ©2011 Abraham Nhial/World Vision

It’s a long journey from the backyard barbecues and fireworks of our own Fourth of July festivities to the Republic of South Sudan, a new country that will be born in just days from today on July 9. I’m willing to bet, though, that our traditional summer celebration will seem downright routine compared to the life-changing nature of South Sudan’s first birthday. At first glance, it may seem as though future citizens of South Sudan don’t have much to be grateful for or much to celebrate. They will be receiving the poorest corner of one of the poorest countries on earth — a place beset by hunger, disease, and war. According to a 2007 government study (pdf), mothers in Southern...