Ruxin admitted that there was a bit of the guilt that often comes with white privilege driving their decisions.  “I know how all this sounds,” he writes early on. “Great moments, great schools–a place in Manhattan, for God’s sake. But we were not rich, had no trust funds, and we pinched ourselves daily to be living like this.  We knew that luck and privilege were involved, and we were intent on earning our keep and paying it back to the world, somehow.”

Earning their keep meant uprooting their lives and emigrating to Rwanda. Ruxin started with what he knew about international aid and worked to bring additional food and healthcare to Kigali.  Then, thanks to Allissa’s knowledge of restaurants, they discovered an opportunity to provide jobs as well. This is the heart of the story.

It is difficult, in the best of circumstances, to build a restaurant from the ground up. But imagine doing so with a group of people who have never even eaten in a restaurant, let alone worked in one. Now, imagine building a team with people whose family members may have killed one another as recently as one generation ago.

Any successful chef is adept at building teams, and maintaining them despite the usual distractions. But the challenges Ruxin faces take team-building to a new level. In one example, he finds himself exhuming the bones of a genocide victim from his back yard after a stranger knocks on his door looking for her brother’s body. He then has to try explaining the incident to his employees, as well as his three small children.

A Thousand Hills to Heaven is a memoir of making the impossible possible. The Ruxins created a model for success, and helped bring health and happiness to a region that desperately needed it. But they did not need to bring hope. Rwanda is overflowing with hope.

Photo and video care of Heaven.