Author on Campus

Today at KICS we had a very special speaker on campus. Her name is Hanna Jansen. She is the mother of 5 Rwandan children-all survivors of the genocide. She has a total of 12 children most of whom are war orphans. She wrote the book, "Over a Thousand Hills I Walk With You," about her daughter's experience in surviving the genocide. She had with her one of her sons. She is currently writing a book based on his experience as well. I haven't read her book yet because I just received a copy last week but I am very anxious to get started now that I have met her. She spoke in chapel this morning and then met with the 7-8 grade students and the high school students to do more of a question and answer time. I sat in on the time with the 7-8 grade students and just found their questions fascinating. It is interesting because several of our students are Rwandan and even though this group is too young to have experienced the genocide first hand they absolutely have been effected by it. They were very interested in why Hanna would want to adopt these children and how her and her husband came to this decision. They also wanted to know about her life in Germany. She was born right after WWII and told the children that she grew up in a town of rubble. Her father was a prisoner of war in Russia and returned to her mother after the war. She said that even though she did not live through the war she knew and understood the affects of war. She said that as a child she would have nightmares of war returning to her homeland. I can only imagine that some of the children in that room have had the same nightmares.

One of the 7th grade students ask a great question, "what do you want your readers to get out of this book?" Hanna's answer was, "I want the reader to understand that life is precious and it should not be waisted."

Here is a link to her website if you would like more information on her. She is a lovely woman and I encourage you to check out her work. www.hannajansen.de/engl-home.htm