BOB ABERNETHY: Several U.S. Jewish organizations this week pledged aid to Christian refugees who have fled Lebanon for Israel. An estimated 6,500 Christians left Lebanon when Israel withdrew its occupation forces. Many of the refugees were members of the South Lebanese militia, who feared retaliation by the Hezbollah forces. The refugees are currently quartered at a site near the Sea of Galilee and in other locations in northern Israel. United Jewish Communities and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations pledged to send clothing, toiletries, and toys.

Six years ago, in an African country most Americans knew little about, tribal violence broke out on an almost unimaginable scale. It was Rwanda, and it was genocide. Eight hundred thousand people were killed in little more than three months. Now some previously small denominations are experiencing dramatic growth in the Hutu and Tutsi efforts to find reconciliation. Fred de Sam Lazaro has this special report.

FRED de SAM LAZARO: The Catholic Church has long been one of Rwanda's most powerful institutions. It was brought by German and Belgian colonists to this landlocked nation and claims in its flock about two thirds of the country's eight million citizens. And because it was the church for both Hutu and Tutsi, church buildings served as safe havens through decades of social unrest between Rwanda's two rival ethnic groups. That changed in April 1994, when Tutsis once again sought refuge in churches like this one in Ntarama, urged on by the mostly Hutu soldiers.

Ms. DANCIL NEABAZUNGI (Through Translator): The soldiers, who were here to ensure people's safety, told them to gather in the church so that they could guard them, but it turned out to be a trap to just make it easier for them to be killed.

de SAM LAZARO: Dancil Neabazungi lost her husband and 17 relatives who were in the church when militiamen hurled grenades into it. Then they shot anyone who tried to escape. Entire families perished, and most remain in the church, displayed in a stunning, grisly memorial to the three-month orgy of violence that claimed an estimated 800,000 lives, about one tenth of Rwanda's entire population, perhaps half of its Tutsi minority.

Six years into a precarious coexistence, shell-shocked Rwandans are again flocking to churches, this time seeking spiritual instead of physical refuge. But the religious landscape, at least from outward appearance, has changed considerably. Dozens of new, so-called charismatic churches have emerged across Rwanda, many funded by European and North American sponsors. There are an estimated 300,000 Seventh-Day Adventists, for example. Rwanda's Baptist churches claim about 400,000 members, up eightfold since 1995.

Pastor PAUL GITWAZA: (Foreign language spoken)

de SAM LAZARO: Twenty-nine-year-old Pastor Paul Gitwaza, a Tutsi, began this church barely one year ago. Today he draws about 7,000 enthusiastic congregants to Sunday service, which lasts about four hours.

Pastor PAUL BAHATI: (Foreign language spoken)

de SAM LAZARO: In Kigali's business district, a daily lunch-hour prayer service is packed to capacity. Like other upstart colleagues, Pastor Paul Bahati says his worship services are attracting large numbers of converts from Catholicism.

Pastor BAHATI: I can say that Rwanda is an ambulance; it's carrying sick people. Now people are looking where they can get a message that can heal their deep wounds, not a repetitive or a traditional beliefs which will not touch their heart.

de SAM LAZARO: More importantly, Pastor Bahati says new churches like his are bringing together Hutus and Tutsis, worshipping side by side, helping heal a nation whose ethnic division seems as baffling as it's been brutal. To begin, the Hutu and Tutsi are virtually indistinguishable in physical features, language, or religion. Although there had always been class divisions, the colonial Belgian government decided in the 1930s to officially categorize the Hutu and Tutsi. They tried unsuccessfully to draw artificial distinctions between the two, according to Antoine Rutayisire.

Mr. ANTOINE RUTAYISIRE (African Evangelistic Enterprise): Everybody with 10 cows and above, he would be a Tutsi. Everybody with less than 10 cows, he'd be Hutu, which was very funny actually. You ended up having one brother being a Hutu because he has -- he doesn't have cows and another one becoming a Tutsi because he has cows. We still have those things around here even today, but I think that was kind of an administrative mistake.

de SAM LAZARO: Many historians are far more critical. They say the creation of a Tutsi elite, which enjoyed superior education and job privileges, bred resentment among the majority Hutu. A civil war began in the early '90s, and when Rwanda's Hutu president died in a suspicious plane crash in 1994, there was an all-out call for blood. Killers were allowed to take their victims' belongings, and victims were easy to spot.