Fortunately for us, Immaculee Ilibagiza was left alive and able to tell the story about what happened to her and her family during the Rwandan Holocaust in 1994 in which more than 1 million lives were lost. What a story she had to tell!
It was two Octobers ago, as I was flying away on vacation to Costa Rica, I picked up “Left to Tell,” which had been mailed as a gift by a friend who knew I’d appreciate the story. I’m writing about it now, because two years later, the story is still as compellingly fresh to me as when I first read it.
If you’re ever tempted to doubt the existence of God in our lives, pick up “Left to Tell” by Immaculee!
I was headed for a 10-day vacation, so I thought the book, which I’d had for several months without reading it, would be a suitable companion during my time there. I was wrong!
I picked up the book during the first leg of my journey from Phoenix to Miami. I never put it down, despite flying on a Red Eye, until we reached the approach to Miami.
Most of that flight, I recall I was crying as I read. My seat mate became concerned, and I had to explain that I was very okay, it was just the book.
Yes. The book!
“Left To Tell” is a powerful chronicling of how this Rwandan woman, Immaculee, 24 years old at the time, managed to stay alive even as killers hunted her down for several weeks and months. All members of her immediate family, except one brother, were slaughtered by members of the Hutu tribe because she was a Tutsi, the opposing tribe.
Immaculee was born of an educated and fairly well-to-do family. As a child she had friends of both tribes. No one differentiated between Tutsi and Hutus, until the war began. Then everything changed.
The survival instinct was strong in Immaculee. That kept her alive in the beginning. But it was her increasingly growing faith in God and the Spirit within her that kept her strong and able to survive crisis after crisis, as the enemy grew closer and closer.
At one time, it was simply a moveable wardrobe that separated Immaculee from the Hutu killers, out to avenge her simply because of her middle-class Tutsi upbringing. To be so young and to know that you were hated and called a “cockroach” by your childhood best friend, as well as Hutu strangers, also was another striking blow delivered to Immaculee during this time.
For three months (91 days), she and seven other women hid in a closet-sized bathroom (3' by 4') in a pastor’s home as the Hutus searched the rest of the home for her. They held their collective breath, as the killers searched less than a foot away from them. Only God could have had those Hutus, bent on killing her, not discover the bathroom behind the wardrobe.
She prepared for death, wondering how the machete would feel slashing through her skin. She clasped her father’s rosary and began silently praying:
“Oh, please, God, please help me. Don’t let me die like this. Don’t let these killers find me. You tell us in the Bible that if we ask, we shall receive...well, God, I am asking. Please make these killers go away. Please don’t let me die in this bathroom. Please, God, please, please, please, save me! Save me!”
Despite her Tutsi roots, Immaculee was brought up Catholic. She did not know how to pray, though, until she was in hiding in the bathroom. During that time, she clung to the red and white rosary her father had given her before he’d left, “God, in the Bible you said that You can do anything for anybody. Well, I am one of those anybodies, and I need You to do something for me now. Please, God, blind the killers when they reach the pastor’s bedroom-don’t let them find the bathroom door, and don’t let them see us! You saved Daniel in the lions’ den, God, you stopped the lions from ripping him apart...stop these killers from ripping us apart, God! Save us, like you saved Daniel!”
The only two verses she’d memorized from Mark, she used to build her faith while in the closet:
“Therefore I say unto you, what things soever you desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” (Mark 11:24)
“For verily I say unto you, that whosoever shall say unto this mountain, be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea, and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.” (Mark 11:23)
From morning until night, Immaculee meditated on those words of God. “When I meditated,” she wrote, “I touched the source of my faith and strengthened the core of my soul.”
God not only saved her, he helped her thrive in the ongoing war!
She was 135 lbs when she entered the bathroom; she was 91 lbs when she left. But she was alive!
Eventually, Immaculee, through her growing faith, was able to find forgiveness for those who wronged her and killed her family in such a brutal way. Instead of seeking revenge, she sought forgiveness.
Triumph of the Spirit!
Immaculee’s story is not a story about the Rwandan war. It is about the human spirit triumphing in the most desperate of circumstances.
I cried as much as I did, not at the sad parts, but actually about the courage of the people who risked their lives to save her and others. I cried because her story of desperation and finding God in the midst of the “valley of the shadow of death,” is one that we all want to believe in the midst of our trying circumstances.
“Left to Tell,” gives you hope and renewed faith.
It is one of the deepest spiritual growth stories I have ever read. It is one of the most powerful spiritual experiences one could ever have in a lifetime, i.e. waking up at death's door with God and faith your only weapons! Through Immaculee, you learn that they are enough!
Dr. Wayne Dyer was the one that "discovered" Immaculee through his daughter and had her tell her story.
It is a story that I strongly recommend you read-- if you haven’t already done so-- to help you increase your faith and hope in God, especially in trying times!
Namaste’,
Che’
NOTE: Third photo captures Immaculee Ilibagiza with orphans from Mother Teresa's orphanage. Immaculee later founded a "Left to Tell Charitable Fund."
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