I was asked to go out to Rwanda after the genocide by the chairty Medair. because, though they were busy providing food and medicines, people were also coming to them, asking them how they were going to forgive each other and be reconciled with each other.

I was a qualified psychiatrist and had been teaching and counselling people with emotional needs. I also ran courses for Christian workers and had joined a team going out to Liberia to help victims of the civil war in 1992.

In Rwanda I began to run workshops for leaders from all denominations of both the Hutus and Tutsis.

We begin the workshop by asking questions like where was God when the genocide was taking place, what did he feel about it? I believe that not everything is God's will; he gave us freedom of choice and responsibility, but he is bigger than all of us, his heart is full of pain and he can redeem even the worst things that have happened.

We split into mixed ethnic groups and everyone gets a chance to tell their stories. Then we bring out a large wooden cross and people are invited to come forward and nail their written story to it, believing that Jesus carried all the sins and the pain of the world on his cross.

I never thought such a simple idea would achieve so much, but so many people have told me that when they return to their seats after visiting the cross, they know something radical has happened to their hearts. Instead of hating those who've hurt them, they want to forgive and bless them. All this took me completely by surprise.

We then burn the stories, like a funeral service, and I always use the symbolism of the red fire lilies which grow out of the ashes of scorched earth in South Africa, showing that God can make beautiful things grow out of even the most devastated places.

Then we discuss the good things which happened during the war, like acts of kindness to enemies. We celebrate that even the worst darkness fails to extinguish the light.

On the final day we have time for people to repent and ask forgiveness for their actions and I begin on behalf of the European colonial powers that helped sow the seeds for these atrocities. For example, it was the Belgians who brought identification cards for the different tribes to divide and rule; the very cards used in the genocide.

The tribespeople in turn may say that, though the colonialists sowed the seeds, it was they who wielded the machetes and they in turn confess their actions.

Those who attend the course become God's ambassadors and go back to their villages, sharing what they've learnt. It's always my aim to pass on the skills of running the workshop to local people and I only return to Rwanda twice a year to see how things are going.

I now work with the Christian NGO [non-governmental organisation], Le Rucher and recently we went to the Congo after 10 years of civil war and had amazing responses. The UN may have gone in with guns to disarm, but they weren't dealing with people's hearts. But the workshops have done so well out there. Regional chiefs, the police and the army have all asked to get involved.

Even the militia sent spies into the sessions to see what they were about and now hundreds of them have attended. They had a march, confessing their wrongs and promising to be ambassadors for peace.

Africa is a wonderful place. There's such a God-consciousness there, even though such terrible things have happened. The people can be so beautiful and less cynical than here in Britain.

I have run two workshops between Welsh speakers, non-Welsh speakers and incomers and that was a very meaningful experience. I had an email from a lady who had attended one of these and she said she really saw things very differently now.

It just shows that the power of the Gospel can be the same wherever you go - even here, in a society that's so secular and materialistic.

People seem to be finding it hard to believe in a spiritual realm, unless it's the occult spiritualists. Even people who go to church can be very humanistic.

So it is hard to come back to Wales, the land of revivals which is now rather spiritually barren. We used to send missionaries to Africa, but I think we need them to come to here because they have so much to teach us. Rhiannon Lloyd