"Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust"

A Rwandan holocaust survivor, she forgave the killers of her family. Immaculée Ilibagiza has written a book about her experience, “Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Genocide". It is a simply written book with a powerful message about God and prayer.

The call to mass murder came across the radio in the middle of the night: "Hutus: Rise up and kill your Tutsi neighbors".

In the spring, of 1994, at the start of what become known as the Rwandan genocide, Immaculée Ilibagiza was a 22-year-old college student, home for Easter. She and her family were Tutsi. At the urging of her parents, she fled to the home of a local Episcopal priest--a Hutu--and hid with seven other women in his 3’x 4’ bathroom for three months. When they emerged 91 days later, it was to discover that almost all their friends and relatives had been murdered, hacked to pieces by the machetes of their Hutu friends and neighbors. Ilibagiza lost her parents, grandparents, and three brothers.

But instead of letting rage, grief, and a desire for revenge take over her life, Ilibagiza reached inside herself and found only forgiveness. She describes how she spent much of her time in the bathroom praying--as the screams of the murdered seeped through the single window. Yet when reciting The Lord’s Prayer, she stopped dead at “forgive those who trespass against us.” “So I am praying to God to help me out, to save me, but yet I have got anger", she has said. "There was an obstacle in my heart.”

She asked God to help her overcome that obstacle and forgive. It was, she said, a moment of complete surrender. “I gave everything to God,” she said. “Later when I saw Jesus on the cross, when He said, ‘Forgive them, Father, for they don't know what they do,’ I understood what exactly he meant and what I needed to do.” From that moment, she was able to pray for her enemies, “for this evil to come out of them,” she said. “So then that gives me a way out of my unforgiveness, of my hatred. And I felt so good.”

It is ironic that popular New Age spiritual guru, Dr. Wayne Dyer, who wrote the introduction to this powerful book, completely misses it's message about God and prayer. Dyer is a staunch advocate for the New Age belief called, "God realization." Dyer states: "God realization is the place where in your heart you take your thoughts and ask yourself, 'Are they in harmony with the source I originated from?' Everyone and everything that shows up in the world of form in this universe originates not from a particle, as quantum physics teaches us, but from an energy field. That energy field can be called God, soul, spirit, or consciousness. It looks a certain way, sounds a certain way, and feels a certain way. I try to stay in harmony with what I believe it sounds and feels like."

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." (Philippians 4:13). Even Immaculée Ilibagiza understands she was powerless alone to save herself, and prayed unceasingly (1Thess.5:17) for God's protection, so she could be "Left to Tell...". Her miraculous story has nothing to do with "god realization" and everything to do about "relying on God." *

Also: "Led By Faith: Rising from the Ashes of the Rwandan Genocide",
by Immaculée Ilibagiza

In her second book, continuing her story, we are taught how to trust God in all things:

"Immaculee sought a quiet room in a retreat house for solitary hours of prayer and mourning which healed her broken heart. It was a slow and painful passage bathed in tears, in which she grew into the exceptionally strong, loving woman beloved by millions.

She became a conduit of love for her surviving family members, Mother Teresa’s orphans, her colleagues at the UN, and eventually her own husband and children. Immaculee relates her story with warm humility drawing the reader into her tender presence.

Immaculee is what the world, imprisoned in the isolation of Godless materialism urgently needs, a person unafraid to love God and her fellow man intimately without fear of rejection, with a powerful love which overcomes even hatred and unthinkable acts of savagery."

(www.catholicmediareview.blogspot.com/)

There is still tension among the Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda, "there will be tension for the next 100 years," she said. There are people with wounds from the massacres.(www.immaculee.com )

Rwanda still needs our heart felt prayers.

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*We can gain more powerful insights on the power of prayer that Immaculée discovered during her hour of need, and of that power that comes from God alone, inside Brother Andrew's book, "Prayer Works", also in St. Timothy's Church Library collection.

M.C.