How God hears a prayer from inside a Septic Tank! (Part 1)How God hears a prayer from inside a Septic Tank! (Part 1)
Tragedy Into Triumph
Pastor Gene Bosco recalls surviving the Rwandan genocide, including being thrown into a septic tank with his siblings and crying out to God to stop the rain. His story traces doubt, faith, family survival and the first time he became convinced that God hears prayer.
34:59•29 May 2026
From Septic Tank to Second Chance: Pastor Gene’s Story of Survival and Faith
Episode Overview
- Gene describes how long-standing ethnic and political tensions in Rwanda escalated into the 1994 genocide, with over a million people killed in around 100 days.
- His family became targets due to their Tutsi identity and his father’s opposition to the government, leading to his father’s murder and the siblings being thrown into a septic tank used as a mass grave.
- Trapped inside with rising rainwater, Gene and his siblings prayed repeatedly for God to stop the rain, and he recalls the rain stopping and the water receding, convincing him that God hears prayer.
- Gene shares how his mother’s open faith and her Bible led a soldier to spare her life, even while accusing her family of being traitors.
- After escaping, Gene and his siblings were aided by opposition soldiers, gradually reunited with their mother and older brother, and later began rebuilding life, with Gene eventually embracing a more obedient, personal walk with God.
“First thing I learned right there, I learned that God can hear prayers.”
What remarkable journeys have people faced head-on against addiction and suffering? This conversation shares one such story, and it’s hard to forget. Host Wendell Brown sits down with Pastor Gene Bosco, also known as JB Manywa, who recounts surviving the 1994 Rwandan genocide and being left for dead in a cement-covered septic tank. As a 15-year-old, Gene had already watched his country descend into chaos, his family marked as targets because of their Tutsi identity and political stance.
The episode walks through the tense build-up to the genocide, the shooting down of the president’s plane, and the fear that became everyday life. Things turn almost unthinkably dark when soldiers force Gene and his siblings into a septic tank being used as a mass grave. With rain pouring in and water rising above their heads, the teenagers cling to the only thing left: prayer.
Gene remembers telling his siblings, “We need to stop praying… we need to tell God to stop the rain,” and later realising, “First thing I learned right there, I learned that God can hear prayers.” This isn’t a neat or easy faith story. Gene admits that his father’s murder made him doubt whether God even existed. Yet, through the horror, he starts to believe that God hears, even if he doesn’t yet understand what it means to fully follow Christ.
The episode also tracks the remarkable survival of his mother, spared when a soldier sees her clutching a Bible, and the eventual reunion of his family after the conflict. While the focus is genocide rather than alcohol, anyone in recovery will recognise the themes of trauma, doubt, survival, and slowly rebuilding life and faith after devastation.
It’s raw, honest, and surprisingly hopeful – the kind of story that makes you ask what prayer, perseverance and community might mean in your own hardest moments. What broken places in your life are you brave enough to bring into the light?
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