On 01/10/08 we went to follow a case of a fellow Rwandan imprisoned in the Monroe Country Jail in Michigan, USA. His immigration case had been adjourned to allow the Court time to find a translator. As we were in line for the security check-up, we saw a man we recognized as an African. We even said he looked like a Rwandan. The pastor who was with us had to take a fingernail-cutter found in my bag back to our vehicle, and on his way he greeted this man who told him he did not know what to do with his camera. The security officers would not allow him to take it into the building. So the pastor ended up taking it to our vehicle for him.
While waiting to enter the court room, we talked to him again. He told us he had come to interpret in somebody’s case. We then knew it must be the same case we were there for. We left him waiting while they called us to go and sit with the prisoner before the hearing started. More than thirty minutes elapsed before they called us to enter the courtroom. We met the interpreter in the hall-way. Immediately after we sat down in the courtroom, we were shocked to hear the decision of the Judge: the interpreter was disqualified because he had a connection with the family members of the prisoner. The prisoner became very upset by this. We only tried to console him by implicating God in that incident, the loving God who always has good plans for those who connect with Him.
We knew the name of the dismissed interpreter by the time we left. There is now a concern about how next time a new interpreter and family members will have to avoid each other. The problem is that we are all brothers and sisters, we are all connected, despite the existence of those demon-possessed individuals who hunt each other.
---FIND Board Member, Scholastique Bamurange
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