By GEORGIA WESTGARTH
AUTHOR, World Vision consultant and mentor to hundreds of people from around the globe, John Steward, from Junction Village, has put pen to paper in an uplifting and educational tale of healing.
Settling down for many months in the warmth of the Tooradin Anglican Church, John wrote his Rwandan story ‘From Genocide to Generosity’ – now available to purchase.
Telling his own story as well as that of the many people he met along the way, John along with his wife Sandi devoted many years to helping the people of Rwanda heal after the 1994 genocide.
Some 800,000 men, women and children perished in the slaughter and beginning to heal the hate and bitterness was something John, Sandi and friends compared to “trying to drink from a waterfall”.
“When I got to Rwanda I thought, far out, everyone was a victim, they were either a perpetrator, related to a killer, related to someone who was killed or participated in looting – you could feel the hate in the room,” John said.
At 50 years of age John took on the role of peace and reconciliation for World Vision to mend the broken, post-genocide Rwanda – a landlocked country in east Africa.
After living in Rwanda with Sandi for a year, the duo returned home but John flew back to Rwanda 18 times over nine years.
Implementing numerous self-empowerment programs for the wounded country, John said over the nine years “thousands of people were helped and were then able to pass on the healing techniques they had learned”.
John has written four books in his time and dedicates his most recent prose to all the people who are still healing.
