I want to share this from Faith and Leadership about Marguerite Maggy Barankitse: Love made me an inventor. I feel in my heart many of you have yet to tell yours stories. I think it would be wonderful to have a forum of Healing and Love to address these issues look at them remember them, but dont them be the last chapter in your book of life! Article: Christian Leadership » Marguerite Maggy Barankitse: Love made me an inventor After surviving the horrors of the Burundian genocide, Maggy Barankitse established a complex set of institutions to help war orphans survive and thrive. Her project is built on her faith in God’s love and the belief that raising a new generation in hope will disrupt the cycle of violence. Marguerite “Maggy” Barankitse tells her story over and over -- in interviews, in gatherings, to donors, to individuals. It’s a story so horrific one can hardly reconcile it with the joyful, brightly dressed woman who recounts it. On Oct. 24, 1993, during the Burundian civil war, Barankitse took shelter at the bishop’s palace in the village of Ruyigi. She watched as 72 people were slaughtered before her eyes, including her best friend. She gathered her seven adopted children and 25 others and fled, determined to care for them. In the two decades since, her efforts have expanded from a desperate, emergency response to sustained institution building. Over the years, her organization, called Maison Shalom (House of Peace), has grown to include schools, homes, a hospital, a morgue, a movie theater and a swimming pool. Their purpose is practical and symbolic: the swimming pool, for example, represents the waters of baptism built on a killing field. Her vision is to invent a new future through love -- a future in which every citizen of Burundi can have a decent life. “Every day I improvise new life,” Barankitse said. “Because love makes us inventors.” Barankitse’s vision and work help to illumine the key concepts that shape Leadership Education: Christ-shaped, transformative leadership, traditioned innovation, generative organization and sustainable design. Maison Shalom displays the power of vibrant institutions and thriving communities that are signs, foretastes and instruments of God’s reign. Barankitse’s vision and work are important for several reasons. First, they are informed by a deep Christian imagination. Her wonderful expression “Love made me an inventor” points to how God’s love has shaped her imagination to redesign her community in the wake of destruction. This imagination is oriented toward the end of God’s reign. Second, they display powerfully the significance of institutions for human flourishing. Barankitse’s development of Maison Shalom illustrates both the power of institutions and the importance of an institutional “ecosystem” to enable people not only to survive but also to flourish. Her creative insistence on building a swimming pool as well as a theater reflects this vision of flourishing. And third, her vision and work illumine how, even in the wake of horrifying sin and destruction, people can work together to discover new life. This new life requires and is nurtured by institutions working effectively together. If Barankitse’s vision and work can enable this sort of innovation in rural Burundi, imagine what might be possible in settings where there has been less explicit destruction and where more human, physical and financial resources are available. The following interviews, articles, videos and websites tell the story of this remarkable woman and her work. Love made me an inventor In a video taped in 2011 at Maison Shalom in Burundi, Maggy Barankitse shows visitors the institution she founded after Burundi’s brutal civil war. Maison Shalom is dedicated to saving the country’s orphans and raising them in God’s love. Maggy Barankitse: Builder of hope Maison Shalom’s founder and president talks in a video interview about Maison Shalom and its work restoring dignity and hope to the citizens of her war-torn nation. Excerpts from this interview can also be viewed by topic in a series of short video clips. In them, Barankitse talks about her phrase “Love made me an inventor,” why she built what she did at Maison Shalom, how she found the courage to create an innovative institution, why she built a morgue, her own struggles with God, the importance of forgiveness, and her view that life is a feast. Maggy Barankitse at Duke University Barankitse was awarded an honorary degree by Duke University in 2013. While on campus, she took part in a public conversation in Duke Divinity School’s Goodson Chapel with the Rev. Emmanuel Katongole and Aline Ndenzako Danziger, the vice president of Maison Shalom. L. Gregory Jones: Discovering hope through holy friendships Maggy Barankitse’s signature line is “Love made me an inventor.” Holy friends enable us to experience the love that will make us inventors and help us discover and rediscover hope for the future.
Posted on: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 13:29:26 +0000
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