Hotel Rwanda made me cry

I don't know what it is with me and REALLY serious films, especially with my last post being about Hitler.

Tonight I watched Hotel Rwanda and it really moved me. The story is based, I believe quite closely, on actual events during the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. While angry Hutu mobs roamed the streets killing their Tutsi neighbours, one man opened up his hotel to welcome in refugees as they sought to save their lives from the massacre. The UN refused to stick around to protect them either. Foreign military only came to escort the white visitors to safety, leaving the Rwandans to fend for themselves.

It just made something inside me cry out at the injustice. I've no idea what it feels like to be in such a situation but you must feel so utterly helpless. I don't know what it must be like to watch people beaten and killed, knowing you can't do a thing to stop it. I felt it to some extent as I watched this film, though.

I think that seeing a situation of great suffering stirs something in you. It provokes a sense of compassion which maybe doesn't easily surface in me, at least. It prompts a response. It asks the question, "What do you want to do about this?"

I just feel more and more that here in the West we really have so much. We have it so easy in so many ways yet we still complain. God, let us appreciate the peace we have in our land. Let us be quick to run to those in need, regardless of the personal cost. Let our lives count for something.