It took 3 plane rides and 25 hours of non-stop travel to get here.

I have always been fascinated with Rwanda. Today, Rwanda is one of Africa’s greatest success stories – but also home to one of Africa’s greatest tragedies: the Rwanda Genocide.

Rwanda is landlocked in Central Africa, and one of the smallest countries in Africa. Located a few degrees south of the Equator, the population is young and predominantly rural, with a density among the highest in Africa.

The Rwandan genocide, also known as the genocide against the Tutsi, was a mass slaughter of Tutsi, Twa, and moderate Hutu which took place between 7 April and 15 July 1994.

The genocide, which had been planned for at least a year, began after the assassination of Rwandan president. The killing began the next day when soldiers, police, and militia began executing Tutsi and moderate Hutu military and political leaders.

The scale and brutality of the massacre caused shock worldwide, but most Western nations including Belgium, France and the U.S. ignored the genocide.

Most victims were killed in their villages or towns, by their neighbors and fellow villagers. Hutu gangs searched out victims hiding in churches and school buildings. The militia murdered victims with machetes and rifles.

An estimated 500,000 to 1,000,000 Rwandans were killed over three months and 250,000 to 500,000 women were raped. About 70% of the Tutsi population was murdered.

The genocide has had a profound effect on Rwanda and neighbouring countries. Today, Rwanda has two public holidays to mourn the genocide, and denial of the genocide is a criminal offence.

While it is heralded as an African success story, Rwanda is still very poor. The average Rwandan lives on $1.78 a day. But the children and families we help are even poorer than that. 2 out of every 3 adults are illiterate.

The only work most of them can find is as day laborers making $1 a day. They live in huts made out of mud. sticks, and cow dung. Most of the children we saw were suffering from malnutrition and stunted growth.

Everywhere we went we saw people carrying water. Some of them walk for miles every day to get water. It made me think of all the expensive brands of “designer” water we have in the U.S.. And how strange it is that while they are carrying water, we were carrying iphones and ipads.

Over the past 10 days, at hospitals, clinics and camps, we’ve met hundreds of patients and their families.

When we would ask how far they had come, we were astounded to hear they had had traveled 50 miles, 100 miles, even 300 miles to reach our partner hospitals.

These vast distances showed just how desperate they are. For most of them, our free treatment program is their first, last and only chance. You could see the desperation in their eyes.

Amidst all of this poverty and suffering, we were inspired by many selfless surgeons, nurses and hospital administrators. These are the real heroes. It is only through their hearts and hands, and their commitment to helping the poor that our programs are possible.

Our unique strategy of empowering local doctors through financial aid, free training and equipment, enables us to cure children who are born with clubfoot for as little as $250.

That’s all it costs to save a child from a lifetime of pain and suffering.

Of all the extraordinary moments we experienced on this trip, here is one story I will never forget.

One day, we traveled out to the countryside to visit the home of one of our clubfoot patients. He was the first born son to a young man and his wife. They live in a very poor village.

The mother was beaming when we arrived. She was proudly holding her son and his perfectly straight feet. She was extremely appreciative and kept thanking us for saving her son.

After we took some photos and took a little tour of their very humble home, our translator told us the father wanted to speak to us.

He told us how devastated he was when he first saw his first baby the night he was born as we gathered around him. He had a very serious look on his face. Their baby’s feet were both horribly deformed and twisted inward. The mother was in tears. The father was in a rage.

“Right away I knew it was my wife’s fault,” he told us wagging his finger, his voice rising. “Her mother has deformed feet, I knew it was a family curse and she had destroyed our son’s future. I told her to take her baby and leave my house NOW and never, never come back!”

She begged and pleaded with him to reconsider. She threw herself at his feet. She was sobbing uncontrollably and shaking. He was unmoved.

“Get out,” he said. “And take that thing with you.”

And she did. Less than an hour after giving birth, she got up and got dressed while the midwife carefully wrapped up her newborn baby boy . Then she walked out that door with her baby on her back into the night.

Two months later his wife’s brother came to see the father. Your son is not cursed he told the father. Your son was born with clubfoot, a common birth defect that can easily be cured. Your son goes to the hospital every week for free treatment — his feet are almost straight.

The father was in shock and ashamed. He could not even look his brother-in-law in the face. He sat there looking down at the ground with tears streaming down his face without saying a word. After a few minutes, the brother-in-law grew impatient and got up to leave.

“What should I tell my sister?” he asked.

“Tell her to come home.”

We were all in shock. No one said a word. The father put his arm around his wife at this point, she was getting upset listening to him and seemed to be fighting back tears herself.

“She did come home. And I apologized to my wife, again and again,” he said. “ I made a big mistake. I begged her to forgive me.”

You could tell by her smile that she had. “I want to thank you for helping us,” he said. “You didn’t just save one life, you saved all three of us.”

Every surgery makes a difference.

Every surgery that we help provide changes more than one life.