My name is Chris Foreman and I have been attending CPC about a year. Thirteen months ago I retired as pastor of a church in San Lorenzo, in the East Bay. On January first of this year, I married a wonderful woman named Liz. – Stand up and say hello. Now we live in San Mateo.I have many things to say but my time is limited. Let me begin my faith story on July 31st, 2010. It is really a story of grief, sorrow and forgiveness. In 2010, I was married to my first wife, Kim Hyun Deok – a Korean by birth. We had been together for 36 years and raised two sons – now both in their thirties.In addition to being a pastor, I was also a missionary to the African country of Rwanda. Kim and I established a campus ministry in 2005 and we were going on mission trips to Rwanda about two times a year. We had many friends in Rwanda, but probably the closest to me was Franc. He had started out as my interpreter in 2001, but by 2010 Franc was almost like a son. He was director of our non-profit in Rwanda.Our mission trip in 2010 was very strenuous. I preached at the university and taught theology classes. After 2 weeks of this I was tired, but Kim and Franc were exhausted. Kim was helping Franc to apply for a visa to visit the US and they had stayed up half the night on Friday to get the documents together.On Saturday afternoon, July 31st, Franc began to drive Kim and me from the university town of Butare to the capitol city of Kigali, for the flight home. It was about a 3 hour journey. We never made it to Kigali.About an hour into the drive, Franc fell asleep at the wheel. The car tumbled one and a half times, landing on its roof. I was sitting in the shotgun seat wearing my seatbelt and escaped without a scratch. Franc sustained a head wound, but he was able to walk away from the accident. Kim was stretched out in the backseat, resting without a seatbelt. One of the Rwandan bystanders later reported that he saw her body fly headfirst through a side window as the car catapulted through the air. Kim survived the car crash, but she sustained serious head trauma. The brain-swelling could not be stopped and on August 3, 2010, Kim died at King Feisal Hospital in Kigali. I was devastated. How could this happen? We were doing His mission to His people, going from one church engagement to another. Why God, Why?After numbness, and pain, and denial, my heart grew bitter. Not toward God – as a preacher, I knew that God was sovereign and could do as He chooses. I wasn’t bitter toward myself. Maybe I should have driven the car. I was certainly more alert than Franc. My heart of unforgiveness and bitterness was focused squarely on Franc. He was the one to blame. If it wasn’t for Franc’s negligence, my wife Kim would still be alive.After Kim died, I fired Franc as African director of our non-profit. I sent word to him that he was not welcome at Kim’s funeral. Some of my close friends said, “Chris, you shouldn’t do this. You should forgive Franc.” I replied, “You didn’t see Kim’s precious body crumpled and bleeding by the side of the road. I’m not seeking revenge, but justice. Franc belongs in jail.”Some of you may know about the terrible genocide in Rwanda – Hutus killing Tutsis. In 1994, almost a million people were murdered by their neighbors – many hacked to death with machetes. Each of my Rwandan friends bears a scar from the genocide, and each has learned to forgive and reconcile. Before I left for home in 2010, I knew that I needed to forgive Franc. How could I call myself a Christian? How could I continue to be a pastor and be a missionary in land of forgiveness if I did not practice what I preached – if I did not forgive Franc with my whole heart? But it was so hard.For me, I learned that forgiveness is a journey. It did not happen in an instant. I wept buckets of tears as I returned to the loneliness of our condo in Hayward. I would roll over in the middle of the night and find Kim missing. Sometimes I sobbed, sometimes I screamed. I did meet with a fellow pastor for several weeks and I did attend a GriefShare class in Castro Valley. But my best therapist turned out to have four legs. I adopted a rescue dog named Jody and she filled some of the emptiness in my heart. [Introduce Jody]I began to preach forgiveness sermons to myself from the pulpit – like Jesus telling Peter to forgive “seven times seventy”. I listened to my own voice preaching and over time my soul began to heal.I sent emails to Franc asking him to forgive me for my hard heart. I reinstated him as director of the Rwandan mission agency and wrote a letter to a local judge in Rwanda appealing that Franc should not serve jail time.In February, 2011, I held a sixtieth birthday for Kim, even though she missed it by seven months. This was a big deal in the Korean community. To honor her memory, I announced that I would return to Rwanda and on the anniversary of the car crash set up a road side memorial for her.With a bronze plaque in my luggage, I returned to Rwanda in July 2011. Franc met me at the airport and we embraced. There was a large scar on his head. I was reluctant to sit in his replacement car, but after a gulp and a prayer, he drove me to Butare. On the one-year anniversary of the car crash and at the same place on the road, we held a celebration. In front of a few hundred Rwandese I publically forgave Franc of his involvement in the car crash and he forgave me of my h ard heart. Without a commitment to Christ and without the grace of God, this would never have happened. All the glory goes to God.I have been to Rwanda two times since then, once with my brother and once with my new wife Liz. God is turning tragedy into victory. I am returning to Rwanda this coming January. On this mission I am traveling with Pastor Mark and Pastor Neal. We will stop along the roadside to remember Kim at her memorial, and then we will preach the Gospel in this uttermost part of the earth. Thank you so much for allowing me to speak and to share my journey to forgiveness. |