Jan. 12, 2012 Thurs.: 1st Week in Ordinary Time (B)

Segatashya Interview, July 20, 1982.

Question: Did you ask Jesus why he chose you, a pagan boy—a boy who has never been to church, read the Bible, said a prayer, and who is not even baptized—to be his messenger?
Segatashya: I did ask him that, sir. He said that he chose me as a sign to show people who don’t believe in him—like pagans and any other nonbelievers —that he is not forgetting them. He sees them, he cares about them, he loves them, and he hopes that they invite him into their hearts. By choosing a pagan boy as his messenger, he let the world know that his love and salvation are available for everyone. And I know that grown-up Rwandans don’t always respect what children have to say, but Jesus told me that he says in the Bible: Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise…. Jesus has sent me on a mission to tell us all to love him and to praise him, and to make our hearts as pure as new-born children so we may enter the Kingdom of God.

“That was just the first ten minutes of the Commission’s first interview with Segatashya,” Dr. Bonaventure said. Then, nodding to some family photographs of his wife and children, he added, “I spent countless hours talking to the young man; indeed, he became like family to me, like another son.”

Ilibagiza, Immaculee (2011-11-28). The Boy Who Met Jesus: Segatashya of Kibeho (pp. 120-121). Hay House.