Fourteen years have passed, but Carl Wilkens still remembers the sound of the crashing airplane that sparked the killing. He remembers the bands of Hutu militiamen roaming the streets of his neighborhood. He remembers the apprehension and tension he felt while driving through the streets of Rwanda’s capital during the 1994 genocide.

He wants to ensure that no one forgets.

Wilkens, the only American to remain in the central African nation during the violence that led to the deaths of almost 1 million Tutsis and moderate Hutus, will speak Friday morning to students at Charles Wright Academy in Tacoma. Wilkens also will deliver a speech Friday night at Pacific Lutheran University in Parkland. The latter is free and open to the public.

He first arrived in Rwanda with his wife and two children in 1990 to build schools and health centers for the Adventist Relief Development Agency. Six months later, a civil war between the government and the Rwandan Patriotic Front erupted, and Wilkens subsequently began working with internally displaced refugees.

“When the war ended with the cease-fire three years later, we were so optimistic with the prospect of a broad-based government,” Wilkens said last week on a cell phone from Memphis. “But then it was delayed and delayed and delayed.”

That optimism shattered the night of April 6, 1994. An airplane carrying Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and Burindian President Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down outside the airport in Kigali as they returned from a round of peace talks in neighboring Tanzania.

The slaughter began within hours.

Wilkens and his family prayed about what they should do. The family employed two Tutsis who’d be killed if they all left. His family evacuated. Wilkens remained.

The government placed the capital under 24-hour curfew. For three weeks he was a prisoner inside his own home. When the ban was partially lifted, a colonel told Wilkens that several orphanages around Kigali needed help. He spent the next three months scrounging food, water and medicine for the orphans.

“I’d find guys who had stashed some powdered milk, buy it off of them and bring it to the orphans,” he said. “There weren’t many other people who could help.”

Seven months later, his family rejoined him. They remained in Rwanda to help rebuild the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the country, which he describes as “decimated.”

In September 1996, they left Africa after 12 years so Wilkens could accept a chaplain position at a high school in Days Creek, Ore. He left that job in January to deliver speeches full time; the ongoing genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan has rekindled interest in Rwanda.

He hopes to help students understand “what it’s like to enter someone else’s world,” he said. He’ll also touch on confronting prejudices and tackle identity issues.

He also hopes to promote a grass-roots effort to pressure lawmakers into intervening to halt the genocide in Darfur. He’ll encourage attendees to call 1-800-GENOCIDE, where callers can receive information and, after entering their ZIP code, can be directed to their representatives.

“People have to understand that in the Rwanda genocide, legislators did nothing,” he said. “And people paid the price for them doing nothing. We can’t let legislators do nothing again.”

Scott Fontaine: 253-320-4758

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HEAR HIS MESSAGE

What: Carl Wilkens: An Eyewitness to Genocide

When: Friday 7 p.m.

Where: Nordquist Lecture Hall, Xavier Hall, Pacific Lutheran University, Parkland

Cost: Free