More than three decades have passed since the horrific genocide in Rwanda. Amid the outburst of murderous rage, there were people—both Africans and foreigners—who stood in the way of the hatred and bloodshed.
Dr Willard Munger is one of them. His missionary work on educational projects in Congo, Bangladesh, and India prepared him for the crisis in Rwanda, where he had just arrived to work at Kigali Adventist University.
Dr Munger became forever connected to Africa. After working in Kenya for four years, where we filmed this interview in 2016, he became the founding rector and president of the Adventist University of Burundi.
Do you have any early memories related to religious activities or prayer?
Perhaps the most interesting were the mission reports. My parents bought me books about missionaries. I read them voraciously. I loved reading. I also enjoyed the mission reports from Sabbath School. All of this made me want to become a missionary myself.
Later, when I was at university, I was so interested in missions that if I went on a first date with a girl and she wasn’t interested in missions, that would be our last date.
You were very determined. Where did you go to school?
La Sierra College. Since I’d been good at chemistry at school, I decided to study it at university. When I was in my third year, the college started a programme in collaboration with Collonges-sous-Salève that allowed us to study abroad for a year.
So, you learned French. Did you enjoy living in France?
Of course! I love travelling, and that experience really whetted my appetite. Then, I attended Andrews Theological Seminary for a year. As I was interested in science, I didn’t enjoy it much. Six days before the start of the second year, I went to Benton Harbor and got a job teaching sixth graders.
Chemistry?
No, I taught all subjects, as was the case in sixth grade back then. I taught middle school students in Benton Harbor. It’s also known as Benton Harlem.
Yes, I know—it’s a really tough place. It was a good introduction to teaching!
I went on to pursue a Master’s degree in Mathematics and Applied Physics. However, I didn’t finish the programme because I was called to Africa. Something interesting happened. The president of the Adventist Church for the whole of southern Africa was at Andrews University, and the director of the Department of Missiology at the Theological Seminary contacted my wife. He had been her director, so he knew her well. He told her that we needed to speak with the president of the Trans-Africa region. I was away at the time—I don’t remember where. When I came home, she met me at the door and told me that we had a meeting. Her former director knew that I wanted to be a missionary. He had tried hard to find somewhere for me to go. However, of all the places in the world, Africa was the last place my wife wanted to go.
Why?
Because she was born in India. She was American, born in India. India was her dream. She was the child of missionaries. That’s why she wanted to become a missionary herself.
So, she flatly refused to go to Africa.
Not exactly, but almost. She told me that we could visit and talk, but we weren’t going to Africa. She was determined not to go to the Congo or to learn French. Never say never. Well, we went to Africa in 1968. We went to the Congo. Eventually, she learned enough French to get by in Paris on her own.
But the Congo wasn’t in a very good place in the late 1960s. The Simba uprising of 1967 had been crushed around 30 kilometres from where the Adventist university is now located in the east of the country. I can almost see the hills where the rebels were wiped out. We arrived there a year later.
Why were you sent to the Congo?
To lay the foundation for the first high school in the Congo. I was the first missionary to live on the Lukanga campus. I have built a lot. I’ve built on three continents.
Did you have to find or train teachers?
Yes, I had to train teachers. Today, three of the union presidents in Central and East Africa are my graduates.
From that school?
Exactly. One of them earned his tuition fees by working in my garden. That’s the satisfaction of being a missionary teacher all over the world. I spent six years in the Congo. I started a school there, which many students attended. It’s hard to imagine what the conditions were like. If a truck drove by, I’d call a break so that all the children could watch it.
How did you manage to adapt everything you knew?
I had to help them learn and teach them to think logically. They had excellent memories, but lacked logical thinking skills.
Their minds hadn’t been overwhelmed by information overload. But what about food?
The Congo is the region’s breadbasket. You can buy as many vegetables as you want for eight cents a kilogram. Strawberries were very cheap, too. But not other fruits. Even bananas were hard to find. We were exposed to the wind at an altitude of around 2,000 metres. We had to light a fire every evening.
After the separation from Bangladesh, we were called to go to Chuharkana Mandi in Pakistan. I taught science and also did construction work. My wife taught secretarial courses. We stayed there for almost five years.
What challenges did we face there?
Building a Christian school in a country where only two per cent of the population are not Muslim.
I suppose they weren’t so militant back then.
They weren’t. In fact, Pakistan was pro-American back then. That’s why it was easy for us to work there. We then moved to India, where I served as principal of the Adventist high school in Roorkee, north of New Delhi. It was a very old school. I changed its direction somewhat. Within three years, our student numbers grew from 275 to over 500. We went from being heavily in debt to constructing additional buildings.
The school flourished. Initially, nobody passed the English exam. After a year, however, the pass rate reached 100%. I played a key role in establishing the school’s reputation, attracting students from all over northern India, as well as from neighbouring countries.
Among the students was a young man who was the son of our caretaker. He was Hindu. He attended the school from the outset. He attended my Bible classes for two years. When he graduated, he enrolled at the public university in Roorkee. I thought I hadn’t reached him. A year later, while I was in my office, he came to me and asked, “Mr Munger, can you baptise me?” He now serves on the church leadership team. His father did not object.
We then moved on to Spicer College in Pune. Interestingly, I taught theology, physics, and mathematics—a rare combination. During that time, I was involved in a motorcycle accident. My wife was in the sidecar. A woman suddenly decided to cross the street without looking. I braked, she saw us, and she leaned against us. This pushed us into an oncoming truck. My wife was crushed.
She was gone in an instant. She had wanted to reach India, and there she remained. She had come home.
That’s right. That was on 25 April 1983. Following this tragedy, the leadership helped me return home to complete my doctorate.
Some time later, with the agreement of my three children, who were all born in Africa, I remarried. I then worked at the General Conference for five and a half years. I started at the old headquarters and remained there until the move to the new building.
The president of the Adventist University in Central Africa, located in Rwanda, would stop by my office whenever he attended the General Conference to ask me when I was returning there. I accepted the position in 1990. At the time, Rwanda was considered one of the most peaceful countries in Central Africa. However, when I arrived, war broke out.
Thanks to my degree in computer science, I was dean of the School of Economics. Shortly afterwards, I also became head of campus security. The university had an excellent reputation and was the only effective private university in the country, producing graduates who were helping the nation, so the government did everything in its power to keep it open. At that time, I also worked with some embassies. I secured a decision that soldiers would not carry weapons on campus. The campus had been designated a weapon-free zone.
It was more of a psychological battle. I used psychological tactics to show those who wanted to harm us that we would not give in. We didn’t use any force. At worst, we would file a report with the local authorities.
By the end of 1993, tensions in the country had risen significantly. I travelled to the capital, Kigali, every week. The university also had an IT company. We visited the US Embassy and exchanged information in an attempt to maintain peace and security.
On 6 April 1994, the president’s plane was shot down. Fighting broke out. The following day, I heard on the radio that some of our mission’s buildings in eastern Rwanda, including an orphanage, had been overrun by killers. That Thursday afternoon, I received a phone call. They had started killing people just 75 metres from our campus. They had set the huts on fire. The killings continued that night. I stood guard on campus all night. I realised that we were surrounded by a massacre. The night was lit up by the fires.
Early on Friday morning, I was called to one of the gates. There was a large crowd there. They were shouting, “Open the gates and let us in!” They were pushing the gatekeeper and making threats. I went over, took the key from him and opened the gates myself so that they wouldn’t force him to do it.
Throughout the night, people in danger had gathered around us, wanting to enter the campus to take shelter. At around 8 AM, women and children flooded onto our campus. We also discovered the first murders. The Minister of Agriculture’s sons, who were Hutu, but belonged to a different political party, were found dead in their room. They had been beheaded by the militias who had snuck onto the campus and executed them.
We had assumed that the besiegers’ target was the girls’ dormitory, and we had managed to protect it. However, at around 8 a.m., the mob stormed in and the killings began. They weren’t just looking for members of the Tutsi tribe; they were looking for anyone who was educated. They killed anyone they had previously had a conflict with.
I managed to move a pregnant Congolese woman from one place to another—she wasn’t part of the targeted ethnic group. I had to make some dreadful decisions. In front of the girls’ dormitory, a young woman was lying on the grass. They had torn her blouse and trousers. I thought she was dead, but she looked me straight in the eye, just as I am looking at you now. I was being watched. I realised that if I went to her, they would kill her too. Instead, I prayed that she might escape and flee later. But I don’t know what happened.
You chose between a bad thing and an even worse one.
Had I chosen to be loving by the usual definition, I would have done more harm because the crowd would have followed my lead and killed her. It was awful.
Were you personally in danger?
A man arrived carrying three large knives. They were covered in blood. He had killed with them. He asked, “Where is Mr Munger? We want to kill him.” Everyone was terrified. One of the students came to tell me what had happened.
What can you say to a man like that? How do you tell him to leave you alone when he wants to kill you? After praying, I went back to the student and told him, “Go and tell him that I haven’t eaten or drunk anything all day. I’m hungry, and I’m going to eat.” He went and told the man that. And the man left.
Unbelievable! But the killings continued.
On Friday afternoon, we gathered 500 bodies from our campus, 200 of which were from a single building.
Were most of them students?
Most of them were among those who had come to take shelter. Of the 500, only 25 were students. We managed to protect most of the students, including those from the targeted ethnic groups. We also protected those belonging to political parties that are now being hunted down. In total, I think we lost around 100 students, including those who were killed on their way home—an area beyond our control.
Still, in the end, you had to leave.
Yes. Our departure was precipitated by a specific incident. We had a Belgian man on campus whose wife was from Puerto Rico and was pregnant. On Saturday evening, she went into labour. Things were bad enough as it was. She had previously given birth by caesarean section, so she would have to do so again. The hospital was 30 kilometres away and the road was controlled by the people carrying out the massacre. How could we get past them?
We were in contact with the American, Danish, and Belgian consulates. The Americans told me that the Marines could provide protection for the convoy. Ultimately, we opted for the Belgians because they would arrive more quickly, enabling us to leave and travel to Goma.
We stopped by my house. I grabbed the key to the Toyota, started the car and drove off. On Sunday, we arrived at the hotel where we were expected. I gave the key to a professor from Madagascar so that he could drive the car back. He was holding the key when the garage manager came over and examined it. He said, “You have the wrong key.” The professor insisted that it was the correct key.
The garage manager insisted that this was impossible. He took out the correct key and told the professor to try it. The man put it in the ignition and the engine started. The professor said he had driven with the other key and that it should work. He tried it, but it didn’t work.
You drove with the wrong key!
I drove with the wrong key. I could tell you many more significant miracles from my life.
I had lost my first wife, but I don’t think I would have survived in Rwanda if I hadn’t experienced that trauma. You have to keep going no matter what happens. You must keep your confidence, make things work, help people survive, and run the institution as if you were in control.
Another miracle was that we had 6,000 litres of gasoline and 6,000 litres of diesel on campus. We had rarely had that much fuel before. It had been delivered just before the massacre. Thanks to those reserves, we were able to cope. The generator at our home ran for more than five hours without being touched. Normally, it needed refuelling every two hours. Many things like that happened.
Even after all that, you stayed in Africa. You like it here.
Yes. We stayed in Africa for another six years before returning to the United States. In 2013, we moved back to Nairobi, where I now work at the Adventist University of Africa.
At last, you’re in a peaceful place.
Apparently. I don’t want to go into details, but it hasn’t always been peaceful here. But we are in God’s hands.
Thank you so much. You’ve left me speechless. Despite everything you’ve been through, you still love the mission and Africa. Thank you for sharing your amazing experiences with us.
It’s not actually about us, though, but about Him.
