First Rwanda Citizen Baptized Enters MTC - Elder Paul

Meet Elders Paul and Nsengiyumva.  They are from Rwanda and entered the MTC today.

Elder Theodore Nsengiyumva (left) and Elder Hakizimana Dady Paul (right)

Elder Nsengiyumva was baptized a year ago and his parents are not members.  Elder Paul lost his parents when he was a baby.  They were killed in the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda in 1994 by the Hutu Tribe.  A soldier picked him up and dropped him off at an orphanage.  In 2006 a security worker at the American Embassy named Eric Hyde came to Elder Paul's orphanage and wanted to teach the children to play.  He invited Elder Paul to Church where he met with missionaries and was baptized in 2007.  Elder Hakizimana Dady Paul was the first Rwanda citizen to be baptized in Rwanda.

Here is a little bit about the history of the Rwandan tragedy:  

The Rwandan Genocide was a genocidal mass slaughter of Tutsi and moderate Hutu in Rwanda by members of the Hutu majority. During the approximate 100-day period from April 7, 1994 to mid-July, an estimated 500,000–1,000,000 Rwandans were killed, constituting as much as 20% of the country's total population and 70% of the Tutsi then living in Rwanda. The genocide was planned by members of the core political elite known as the akazu, many of whom occupied positions at top levels of the national government. Perpetrators came from the ranks of the Rwandan army, the National Police (gendarmerie), government-backed militias including the Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi, and the Hutu civilian population.
The genocide took place in the context of the Rwanda Civil War, an ongoing conflict beginning in 1990 between the Hutu-led government and the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), which was largely composed of Tutsi refugees whose families had fled to Uganda following earlier waves of Hutu violence against the Tutsi.