Last Thursday, instead of a usual worship and social get together we normally have at my church we watched a movie called ‘As we forgive’.

We saw this film that talks about a large number of murderers where released early from jail in Rwanada where two tribes of people were at war and many people were slaughtered.  The government released these people from prison which caused initial anger and fear from the survivors and families of those lost.

Where as its hard to grasp anyone forgiving someone that was lost in war or terrorism, especially as today I walked past a coffee shop in Hillel Street, and a bakery shop in Jaffa Street that used to be a Sbarro pizza joint – both of these scenes of two tragic suicide bombings that happened in the early 2000s here in Jerusalem.

The film showed rows and rows of skulls and bones on shelves, and talked to murderers all confessed their actions against the families of those who had lost loved ones to killing.   Some of these families amazingly accepted a confession from the killers that were out of prison quite quickly, and some it took several meetings over the space of a few months.

Where as for most people, to forgive someone for the responsibility of a death of a loved one seem enormously hard to comprehend, the point of the movie is about forgiveness can be done with any kind of wrong doing.   This film was really good and I hope it is shown in more churches.

www.asweforgivemovie.com