Reverend Pastor Antoine Rutayisire is a clergy whose life and practices go beyond just church calling.

Having witness two waves of the Rwandan Genocide against the Tutsis, he takes pride in the new Rwanda of healing and reconciliation.

Hailing from Gatsibo District, by the shores of Lake Muhazi, Rev Rutayisire was born 63 years ago, among a modest, but well-to-do family of four.

With blurry memory of his father, Rutayisire recalls him as a diverse Businessman, who dealt in fishing, herding, and an active Agronomist and model farmer, during King Rudahigwa’s reign.

Though life had started smoother, this didn’t last longer; for tragedy hit in when his father was killed in the first Genocide against the Tutsis in the early 1960s, “I remember houses being burnt, people trekking past our home to Uganda, hiding in the house at night, helicopters flying over, just the murmuring quietly so as not to be heard as we hid,” said Rutayisire.

Rutayisire, who was aged five, recalls how children and women weren’t targeted, but men were brutalised. Left behind with their 25-year old mother, with most of their property destroyed, she picked up the remaining pieces and took care of the four children, “She was hardworking and delegated us into working too,” said Rutayisire.

Joining the school in 1965, Rutayisire scaled faster through Nyabisindu Primary school, then later joined St Kizito Zaza Seminary School in Ngoma district. But his dream of priesthood fell short after his graduation, when he opted out to join university at 19, hence graduating in languages, and was assigned the position of an assistant lecturer, which motivated him of becoming a full university professor.

His path to his dream was cut short by a letter from the Ministry of Higher Education, which deployed him to secondary school. Disheartened, he relocated to secondary, where he taught for close to eight years till 1990. In 1985, he got a UK scholarship, where he accomplished a masters degree in teaching English Language

“While there, I wrote to the Ministry of Education and informed them of this development in studies, hoping to be offered at least a post in curriculum development, but there was no reply,” he said.

Rutayisire discovered the segregative government system, he learned to embrace it, as he returned as a secondary teacher in 1986, he taught, alongside being a visiting lecturer at the university, which he started enjoying, “I learnt resilience, that is when I got saved and decided to enjoy what I did, despite the payment,” he recalls. “Some of my colleagues mocked me about the fact that I had a masters degree, yet I was at a teaching Secondary school, which I ignored since it was all serving my country,” he said.

In 1990, Rutayisire got married, left teaching, and joined full-time church ministry with Groupe Biblique Universitaires (GBU), where he served as the first General Secretary till 1994, when he joined African Evangelist Enterprise (AEE) as a Team Leader till 2008. In 2007 he was ordained as a Reverend Pastor and has been serving till today at the Anglican Church Remera Parish in Kigali.

Rev Rutayisire describes period between 1990 and 1994 as hell as the political turmoil left a lot of distress and misery. “1994 was an outburst of a human tragedy we had seen coming,” he said.

With most holding relatives in Uganda, they had assured them how they were returning to bring change, “We knew a war was coming but didn’t know how it would turn out,” he added, “If I hadn’t got married then I would have joined the fight since I had been dreaming of liberation,” he recalls.

Rev Rutayisire states that when one lives as a second class citizen in their own country, they either accept it and become passive, or challenge it, “I never accepted it, I couldn’t live with it, but always wondered how long we could live under such situation,” he states.

Surviving with his family was a miracle that came unexpectedly when in 1994 the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) captured Remera, closer to the national stadium, hence offering them protection together with other survivors.

To this day, Pastor Rutayisire affirmed how he was a sympathiser and supporter of RPF, but not a member, “Others were being sworn in as party members, but mine was support for the cause of what they were and are doing,” he explains.

“Most of us survived the 1960s the first wave of genocide because of the strong culture, which was further broken in 1994,” he states.

Rutayisire admits how most people have overtime told him not joining the party will make him lose out on big positions and opportunities, but he thinks otherwise, “I love what we have achieved due to the cause, which still goes on, but not politics,” he states.