By Jared Fields, Editor in Chief

We watch war movies for entertainment.

The horrifying scenes of war- death, gunfire, explosions, agony, fear – many of us only see on a screen.

Serge Gasore lived those scenes. Though not on television, movies, a computer or in books.

He saw it all in a Rwanda church.

Beginning in April 1994, extremists of the Hutu tribe killed at least 500,000 Tutsis during the 90 days after president Juvenal Habyarimana died in a plane crash. The Hutu extremists tried to take control of the government through genocide, immediately hunting down members of the Tutsi tribe. When the militia arrived in Serge’s town of Ntarama, they began by burning the grass roofs and terrorizing its citizens.

Taking sanctuary inside the church, many believed the soldiers surrounding the building would not attack. However, on the third day they invaded the church.

The militia killed about 5,000 in the Ntarama church alone.

Seven-year-old Serge witnessed the death of his grandmother by a grenade while pressed against her back. He had no time to worry about that or the chaos surrounding him. He needed a way out.

“I didn’t recognize what happened. I just saw blood on me,” Serge said. “Her body was totally broken. I was very close. I just got crazy and went through the door.”

Outside the door was a policeman, but this policeman wasn’t helping Tutsis. Spotting little Serge, the policeman did not shoot, and Serge ran into the “bush,” or forest.

Serge rendezvoused with four others two miles into the bush. They hid there the rest of the night, waiting until morning to return and see the remains of Ntarama.

Serge’s life is filled with return trips.

-Natural runner-

This weekend he returns to the NCAA Division II Cross Country Championship attempting to win Abilene Christian University’s second national title.

Running competitively, not for life or death, Serge is a contender for the individual title after winning the Lone Star Conference and NCAA Division II South Central Region meets.

For those efforts, the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches’ Association awarded Serge the region’s Male Athlete of the Year.

-“You keep going”-

Running comes naturally to Serge. He stills shows dozens of scars on his body from his time running from Hutu soldiers in the Rwandan bush.

Serge’s group went to the school after the first night in the bush as refugees. There they met other survivors, but Serge’s heart longed to see what became of his family at the church.

Arriving at the church he fled the previous day, Serge saw the destruction and devastation leveled upon the building where his family, friends and community worshipped. Serge saw dead bodies heaped in a pile, and, while walking away, heard pleading cries to his name:

“Serge! We are still alive!”

The calls came from two younger cousins, hiding in the pile of dead bodies. As he pulled a third cousin out of the pile, he noticed she had died from the crushing weight of the bodies.

Serge and the two surviving girls went to the school to meet again with the survivors.

But Serge and the rest of the survivors didn’t stay long. From the top of the hill where the school sat, they could see the bus of soldiers approaching.

Everyone left the school in a frantic rush through the bush.

“The way there, there were bullets everywhere,” Serge said. “You are walking with someone, you are here, they are here, they shoot somebody in front of you, they fall down,
you keep going.”

The soldiers didn’t pursue Serge and the group far into the bush. Instead, the soldiers took and killed their cows, ate, got drunk and went to sleep.

Like a work day here, the soldiers sought Tutsis from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

“When you passed 5 p.m., you know that day you are OK,” Serge said.

Serge’s daily routine for the next two weeks consisted of him going to town to scrounge or beg for food before taking it back to the bush during the day.

“At 5, I know they’re leaving, I come back all the way down my way, there’s all the people who died, they’re people screaming, they’re calling me, they’re saying, ‘Bring me water,'” Serge said. “I can’t do anything.”

Finding food and water, despite living in a beautiful forest, was no simple task.

“Sometime they kill people on top of the mountain, and because it was raining season, the rain would bring down the bloody streams,” Serge said.

Having no other choice, the people would sometimes drink the contaminated water.

-The killers-

One day, Serge was walking to meet with his cousin Gitenjye when the soldiers caught her. Hiding nearby and seeing the situation Gitenjye faced, Serge quietly watched the unfolding drama.

“Do you have money?” the killers asked.

“I don’t have money!” she said. The killers gashed her neck and in pain she succumbed to their pressure.

“My cousin has money. Call him to come and bring the money,” Gitenjye said.

As she called, Serge knew the killers’ plan. They were going to kill them both. He knew they would kill Gitenjye whether she gave them money or not. If Serge responded, they would kill him, too. He chose not to respond, sitting quietly close by. Her captors sliced her neck, killing her, and left her. Serge returned to the bush.

-“It’s easy”-

Serge wants to return home again in the summer. He wants to write a book about his life and the events from Ntarama in 1994. He also wants to represent his country by running for Rwanda in world competitions.

Serge’s dad survived the genocide and still asks Serge if he is normal.

“Some people go crazy,” Serge said. “My dad, he’s always like, ‘You’re not normal.’ Maybe because I had to go through hard things and went to the army I had to be strong.”

Serge has no problem talking about the things he’s seen. His only problem with telling his story is that it takes too long.

When Serge recalls his past, he doesn’t show sadness. Instead, it motivates him.

“When I recall, that’s when I feel I have to work harder,” Serge said. “It doesn’t take me to the negative side; it takes me to the positive side.”

For Serge, that thinking keeps him from thinking of anything as difficult.

“Everything beside genocide is easy.”

In the library, translating all of his homework into French so he can understand it is easy.

Morning workouts at 6 a.m., after hours of homework from the previous evening’s workout, are easy.

“When I am working, they say, ‘Oh man, how can I do this? I’m dying,'” Serge said, laughing at someone’s statement. “You are joking. What’s going on? It’s easy.”

-Rescue-

Serge returned to school after the 90 days of genocide. While standing on the side of the road in the city of Nyamata, a truck pulled up beside young Serge.

A soldier asked Serge to get in the truck. For some reason the man who asked Serge to get in the car, Gen. Paul Muyenzi, liked him. He kept Serge on guard around his home and in September put Serge back in school.

When Serge turned 15, he joined the army officially.

“The people around him were complaining about me. They were saying, ‘You are in the army and you don’t do service. You are going to school,'” Serge said. “They were jealous. I joined the army, but my boss – he protected me.”

But once Serge almost lost his life when he left Muyenzi’s protection.

At 14, Serge went alone to visit his uncles. On the way, Hutus kidnapped him to Congo.

The group asked if Serge knew a certain man. Serge did, so they asked him to get in the car. He stepped in with four other guys. They tied his hands and made him write a letter to his dad saying the group was going to kill Serge.

Serge spent three days in the Congo bush, tied naked, standing to a stake facing the sun. Blind from the sun exposure and exhaustion, the group gave a machete to a member, ordering him to take Serge and kill him.

“When we got somewhere to have to kill me he said, ‘I will not kill you because this group has killed a lot of innocent people. I will not kill innocent people, and I am leaving.’ So he
left me,” Serge said.

Serge found a trail that eventually led to a road. A man in a car stopped and asked Serge a question. Serge didn’t understand Swahili and could not answer, but the man let him in the car.

The man dressed Serge in the only clothes he had, women’s clothes. The man was driving to Uganda and took Serge to the border on his way.

Immigration took Serge home after some time in the hospital and in an investigation to determine why a beaten man in woman’s clothing was brought to them.

In a miraculous Tom Sawyer moment filled with relief and joy, Serge limped home to his family mourning for him.

Serge stayed with his family for three months before being ordered to return to the army and school.

Serge attended school and then performed his military job at night until he turned 18.

Then Serge graduated and after national testing, enrolled at the University of Rwanda to run for the school. He attended school and ran there for a year before former ACU track and field coach Steven Moore discovered Serge and recruited him to Abilene.

Serge arrived in Abilene in August of 2005, speaking no English and wary of everyone.

“When I got in America, it changed a little bit because before I used to think that every people are mean,” Serge said. “Even when some people would try to be nice to me, I would think you want to try to kill me tomorrow, because that’s what happened.”

Now Serge says he can see that people are kind.

He saw little genuine generosity growing up. If he did see “nice,” it could easily be confused with luck.

Running for Rwanda, writing a book, graduating with a degree from ACU – it’s all easy.

No one knows how his goals will culminate: cross country meets, his travels, a career. We’ll have to wait for the book.