CDCarrying Divine
A pregnant woman in a floral dress holds her child as another clings to her at an ICRC airfield outside Kigali in 1994, smoke rising on the hills behind her

A Memoir by Henriette Nyirarukundo Ngenga

A Memoir by Henriette Nyirarukundo Ngenga

Carrying Divine

My Rwanda Genocide Survivor Story

She carried new life through 100 days of death.

Henriette Nyirarukundo Ngenga’s testimony is a story of survival, motherhood, faith, and the miracle of life preserved in the middle of genocide.

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“I told God if I survived, I would tell my story… our story.”

The Story

From terror to testimony.

Memoir

A mother carried life through 100 days of death.

In April 1994, Henriette was pregnant with her fifth child, Divine, while protecting four young children through the Rwandan Genocide. This is her testimony of terror, faith, and survival.

Speaking

A living witness for churches, schools, and remembrance events.

Henriette speaks with courage, tenderness, and spiritual conviction about identity, grief, forgiveness, motherhood, and the miracle of survival.

Legacy

A story preserved for the next generation.

Carrying Divine is becoming more than a book. It is a family archive, a teaching resource, and a platform for healing conversations.

Carrying Divine — book cover. The silhouette of a pregnant woman against a Rwandan sunset, framed by the title in serif type.

Available now

Read the memoir.

Carrying Divine follows Henriette’s childhood in Rwanda, the violence of ethnic persecution, the 1994 genocide, and the faith that carried her family forward.

“I carried new life in my womb through 100 days of death. I am a survivor of horrific atrocities, but I am also a walking miracle.”

Henriette Nyirarukundo Ngenga, with Kristin Poncé Baker

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The Living Archive

Family photographs, fragments of memory,
and the life that continued.

These images trace pieces of Henriette’s life — family, love, loss, arrival, and the miracle of a story preserved.

A family portrait of Henriette with her mother and father
Plate 01· of 07Rwanda · before

I.

Family roots

The people and places that shaped Henriette’s early life — a family, a country, a beginning that came before everything else.

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A family portrait of Henriette with her mother and father
Plate 01Rwanda · before

Family roots

The people and places that shaped Henriette’s early life — a family, a country, a beginning that came before everything else.

Henriette and her husband in a portrait from their early years together
Plate 02A new chapter

Love and memory

A life held in photographs, names, and stories. The marriage that anchored a new chapter, kept close in every season.

Henriette’s husband with his closest friend, in a quiet moment together
Plate 03Brotherhood

A bond beyond words

The friendships that endured — the kind built over years of shared meals, shared faith, and shared silence.

Henriette with friends and family at a gathering before 1994
Plate 04Before

Community

The friendships and family ties that formed a world before everything changed — the faces of a life that once felt ordinary.

Henriette as a student, in a college dormitory in the years that followed
Plate 05After

Beginning again

Fragments from a life rebuilt with courage and faith — the slow, ordinary act of starting over after the unthinkable.

Henriette and her family arriving at JFK airport in the United States
Plate 06JFK · arrival

Arrival

A journey carried across countries, memory, and generations — the day a new country said welcome, and a story kept moving forward.

A view of Kigali rising on the hills, the city Henriette carried home in her memory
Plate 07Carrying Divine

The book

A testimony preserved so the story would not disappear — written down, given form, held in the hands of strangers and family alike.

Speaking engagements

A testimony for rooms that need courage.

Henriette’s story is especially powerful for churches, schools, women’s gatherings, remembrance events, and communities seeking honest conversations about trauma, faith, identity, and survival.

Book signing and in-person sales
Church testimony and survivor talks
School, university, and community events
Motherhood, faith, trauma, and resilience gatherings

Invite Henriette

Book a speaking engagement or request signed copies.

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