Book Review: "Left to Tell" and "Led by Faith" by Immaculee Ilibagiza
I heard this beaming woman speak one year ago, she was one of the happiest women I've seen and I thought, without knowing her, "I wish I could have that serene, joyful type of personality."
She is graceful, has kind eyes, and spoke gently with the voice of love on forgiveness, her entire family had been violently murdered with machetes. I was shocked. How could such a joyful person exist if her entire family was murdered?! I feel like I would be locked away in a soft warm room, drooling on myself and feeling vacant for life.... but she has a special miraculous story. She is Immaculee Ilibagiza and she survived the Rwandan genocide of 1994 hiding in a bathroom with seven women for over three months. I am going to hear her again at the end of February, and I wanted to read more about her before going to see her. She shares her story of survival, on how praying the rosary in hiding literally saved her life, and it is her calling to spread the message of forgiveness. I want to be like her.
My first two books for this year are autobiographical books by Immaculee Ilibagiza, a Rwandan genocide survivor.
I think if any one can teach us to forgive it is Immaculee. I know I have held grudges for "legitimate" things people did to knowingly hurt me, only to see that my grudges are chains which bind me to inner sadness, conflict and lack of peace and build a barrier between me and my acceptance of God's love for me and everyone. As I have heard Immaculee's story, and read her books I have let go of those grudges, mentally looking at those people as I pray, and forgiving them by name. I see the people that hurt me with compassion for their wrongs and I try to forgive as soon as I can now. Thank you, Immaculee.
If you can, read this book, her story is truly miraculous.
This book begins in the tropical paradise of Immaculee's home in Rwanda where she lives an idyllic, though sheltered, girlhood with her family. Her house sits at the top of a hill, and was built by her father to overlook Lake Kava, where she swims in the afternoons with her three brothers, Damansce, Vinney and Amabile. Their family is Catholic and her parents raised their children to believe that God loves everyone, regardless of their tribe or whether the person is good or evil. Immaculee's father is highly respected and many people come to him and her mother for advise or favors. Her life is exactly as she would like it till one day she is asked in school if she is from the Tutsi tribe or the Hutu tribe and Immaculee isn't sure what she is being asked. The teacher expels her from the class and it is her first taste of the hatred that is to follow. That night, Immaculee asks her father if she is a Tutsi or a Hutu, and her father nearly chokes on his dinner in shock that his daughter is asking what tribe she is from, because he knows that there are strong political movements ignited by racism between Hutu's as revenge for Tutsi's suppressing them in years past.
Racial hatred spreads the next few years, and as a teenager Immaculee isn't accepted into a high standing high-school because she is Tutsi. Her father sells their most prized possessions, two cows, to send her to a private high-school with nuns. There Immaculee is happy, she graduates with honors and is accepted to a university. It is 1994 and she is excited about life, has many friends and a sweet Hutu boyfriend named John. Then she is suddenly called by her parents to come home, which is odd as they really fought for her to go to the University. Upon arriving home she sees that her parents are anxious, and they called two of her brothers home too. The third brother was out of the country also at a University and they decided that he should stay safe there. The Tutsi president was murdered and now the Hutu militia had begun murdering every Tutsi they were coming in contact with. The violence was about an hour away from their home and they thought it would pass, that rich countries would notice and immediately send for help (Clinton did nothing....)
In the next few days, hundreds of Tutsi's flock to Immaculee's parents home seeking help, comfort and advise. The hundreds of Tutsi's grow to two thousand Tutsi's sleeping on her parent's lawn and hoping that this awful massacre happening so close ends. It doesn't.
Hutu's are being given machetes and told that they must kill every Tutsi, old, young, woman, man and that if they do not kill that they will be killed for keeping them alive. Screams start spreading close to Immaculee's home and her father stands at the top of the hill, raises his rosary and tells the people to pray the rosary and to pray for peace and to forgive the people who are coming for their lives. As he finishes praying, he goes to his daughter, presses his rosary into her hand and tells her to go to a Huto Pastor's home who is a good friend and that he will see her soon. Immaculee knows that if she doesn't leave she will die.
She runs to the Hutu pastor's home and he shoves her in a tiny 3x4 bathroom that she thinks is small and homes she gets out soon. Later that day four more women come, the next day two more. There are now seven women shoved in a 3x4 bathroom holding their breath and praying that the Hutu murderers will not find them, torture and kill them.
While there, Immaculee uses her father's rosary as a gateway to comfort and strength. They are given little if any food, the screams of people being tortured are constant, and more than once murderers come to look for hiding Tutsi's at the Hutu pastors home. During her waking hours, as she cant talk, Immaculee prays the rosary, praying often over twenty times a day. The Rosary is the Bible on a string, it tells the life of Christ from his conception, through His life and miracles, to His Crucifixion and Resurrection. It is a series of prayers meditating on His life. There are five meditations in each rosary, with a total of twenty meditations.
Immaculee learned, while praying and meditating on the meditations of the rosary, that it is more than a prayer, it is a landline to call heaven. While she was praying, and Hutu killers would torture Tutsi's she couldn't pray "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us." It was too hard for her to forgive murderers. She realized that if her only company was God and Our Lady, that she needed to surrender the hatred she had in her heart towards the killers. She realized that you can't accept God's love if you have hate in your heart. She began forgiving the killers. As they would come looking for her to kill her she would pray the rosary and she saw a wall of light form in the bathroom protecting her and the women from being discovered. Each time they came this wall of light would form. She has written a book on how the Rosary saved her life.
Immaculee survived 92 days in that bathroom with the other six women. She lost her entire family except for one brother who was out of the country. The rest of her family was horrifically killed with machetes and chopped into pieces. As the war ended, and she found out where the murderer was, she went to the jail to see him Saw he was a good Hutu friend of her father who had become blinded by evil. She took his hand, looked him in the eyes and gave him her forgiveness for killing her family. Only God's supernatural love could give her the help to forgive, and by that forgiveness teach others how to break from the chains of bitterness and hatred to forgive others.
I will write less about this. This is the sequel to Left to Tell. The war has ended and Rwanda is in shambles. Everyone is poor now, there are no jobs, no shops, 2 million dead Tutsi's lying in the street rotting after the genocide.
Immaculee had no home, no clothes except for the ones on her back, no money but she had her rosary. I know! The power of the rosary! She knows that her family is dead, and she is filled with sadness and grief but determined to live her life with a reflection of the love that God allowed her to see while stuck in the bathroom for 92 days. That time in hiding taught her that God loves us all, and He wants us to love each other, and the only way to do that is to forgive as He forgave us.
Immaculee leads each surpassing day of her life with trust in God's providence as she moves forward to rebuild her life. She comforts her friends, takes care of orphans and eventually goes day after day to the United Nations office to ask for a job. Her clothes are the same ones she has worn for months so it is understandable that no one will hire her. In a series of little miracles, Immaculee is able to go to her old dorm room, where she collects her diplomas, and finds money she hid before the war started. With that she is able to buy new clothes, food and go well prepared to keep asking for a job at the UN. After weeks of going daily, and praying the Rosary daily asking Our Lady to intervene, she is given a job at the UN. Immaculee knows she is being called to help survivors of the genocide and to spread a message of forgiveness to the world.
Immaculee learns to live each moment of her life entrusting it to God and thanking Him for the gift of her life. She eventually moves to New York City where she continues working for the UN and eventually begins sharing her story of forgiveness with the world. Her story has been translated in many languages. Currently, Immaculee dedicates herself only to the message of forgiveness, speaking to any audience that will hear on that message that applies to each of us.
We all have someone to forgive! Thank you Immaculee for sharing your secret to forgiveness, by asking God to help us forgive, with the rest of the world!
 |
| She's got that special something! |
She is graceful, has kind eyes, and spoke gently with the voice of love on forgiveness, her entire family had been violently murdered with machetes. I was shocked. How could such a joyful person exist if her entire family was murdered?! I feel like I would be locked away in a soft warm room, drooling on myself and feeling vacant for life.... but she has a special miraculous story. She is Immaculee Ilibagiza and she survived the Rwandan genocide of 1994 hiding in a bathroom with seven women for over three months. I am going to hear her again at the end of February, and I wanted to read more about her before going to see her. She shares her story of survival, on how praying the rosary in hiding literally saved her life, and it is her calling to spread the message of forgiveness. I want to be like her.
My first two books for this year are autobiographical books by Immaculee Ilibagiza, a Rwandan genocide survivor.
I think if any one can teach us to forgive it is Immaculee. I know I have held grudges for "legitimate" things people did to knowingly hurt me, only to see that my grudges are chains which bind me to inner sadness, conflict and lack of peace and build a barrier between me and my acceptance of God's love for me and everyone. As I have heard Immaculee's story, and read her books I have let go of those grudges, mentally looking at those people as I pray, and forgiving them by name. I see the people that hurt me with compassion for their wrongs and I try to forgive as soon as I can now. Thank you, Immaculee.
If you can, read this book, her story is truly miraculous.
This book begins in the tropical paradise of Immaculee's home in Rwanda where she lives an idyllic, though sheltered, girlhood with her family. Her house sits at the top of a hill, and was built by her father to overlook Lake Kava, where she swims in the afternoons with her three brothers, Damansce, Vinney and Amabile. Their family is Catholic and her parents raised their children to believe that God loves everyone, regardless of their tribe or whether the person is good or evil. Immaculee's father is highly respected and many people come to him and her mother for advise or favors. Her life is exactly as she would like it till one day she is asked in school if she is from the Tutsi tribe or the Hutu tribe and Immaculee isn't sure what she is being asked. The teacher expels her from the class and it is her first taste of the hatred that is to follow. That night, Immaculee asks her father if she is a Tutsi or a Hutu, and her father nearly chokes on his dinner in shock that his daughter is asking what tribe she is from, because he knows that there are strong political movements ignited by racism between Hutu's as revenge for Tutsi's suppressing them in years past.
Racial hatred spreads the next few years, and as a teenager Immaculee isn't accepted into a high standing high-school because she is Tutsi. Her father sells their most prized possessions, two cows, to send her to a private high-school with nuns. There Immaculee is happy, she graduates with honors and is accepted to a university. It is 1994 and she is excited about life, has many friends and a sweet Hutu boyfriend named John. Then she is suddenly called by her parents to come home, which is odd as they really fought for her to go to the University. Upon arriving home she sees that her parents are anxious, and they called two of her brothers home too. The third brother was out of the country also at a University and they decided that he should stay safe there. The Tutsi president was murdered and now the Hutu militia had begun murdering every Tutsi they were coming in contact with. The violence was about an hour away from their home and they thought it would pass, that rich countries would notice and immediately send for help (Clinton did nothing....)
In the next few days, hundreds of Tutsi's flock to Immaculee's parents home seeking help, comfort and advise. The hundreds of Tutsi's grow to two thousand Tutsi's sleeping on her parent's lawn and hoping that this awful massacre happening so close ends. It doesn't.
Hutu's are being given machetes and told that they must kill every Tutsi, old, young, woman, man and that if they do not kill that they will be killed for keeping them alive. Screams start spreading close to Immaculee's home and her father stands at the top of the hill, raises his rosary and tells the people to pray the rosary and to pray for peace and to forgive the people who are coming for their lives. As he finishes praying, he goes to his daughter, presses his rosary into her hand and tells her to go to a Huto Pastor's home who is a good friend and that he will see her soon. Immaculee knows that if she doesn't leave she will die.
She runs to the Hutu pastor's home and he shoves her in a tiny 3x4 bathroom that she thinks is small and homes she gets out soon. Later that day four more women come, the next day two more. There are now seven women shoved in a 3x4 bathroom holding their breath and praying that the Hutu murderers will not find them, torture and kill them.
While there, Immaculee uses her father's rosary as a gateway to comfort and strength. They are given little if any food, the screams of people being tortured are constant, and more than once murderers come to look for hiding Tutsi's at the Hutu pastors home. During her waking hours, as she cant talk, Immaculee prays the rosary, praying often over twenty times a day. The Rosary is the Bible on a string, it tells the life of Christ from his conception, through His life and miracles, to His Crucifixion and Resurrection. It is a series of prayers meditating on His life. There are five meditations in each rosary, with a total of twenty meditations.
Immaculee learned, while praying and meditating on the meditations of the rosary, that it is more than a prayer, it is a landline to call heaven. While she was praying, and Hutu killers would torture Tutsi's she couldn't pray "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us." It was too hard for her to forgive murderers. She realized that if her only company was God and Our Lady, that she needed to surrender the hatred she had in her heart towards the killers. She realized that you can't accept God's love if you have hate in your heart. She began forgiving the killers. As they would come looking for her to kill her she would pray the rosary and she saw a wall of light form in the bathroom protecting her and the women from being discovered. Each time they came this wall of light would form. She has written a book on how the Rosary saved her life.
Immaculee survived 92 days in that bathroom with the other six women. She lost her entire family except for one brother who was out of the country. The rest of her family was horrifically killed with machetes and chopped into pieces. As the war ended, and she found out where the murderer was, she went to the jail to see him Saw he was a good Hutu friend of her father who had become blinded by evil. She took his hand, looked him in the eyes and gave him her forgiveness for killing her family. Only God's supernatural love could give her the help to forgive, and by that forgiveness teach others how to break from the chains of bitterness and hatred to forgive others.
I will write less about this. This is the sequel to Left to Tell. The war has ended and Rwanda is in shambles. Everyone is poor now, there are no jobs, no shops, 2 million dead Tutsi's lying in the street rotting after the genocide.
Immaculee had no home, no clothes except for the ones on her back, no money but she had her rosary. I know! The power of the rosary! She knows that her family is dead, and she is filled with sadness and grief but determined to live her life with a reflection of the love that God allowed her to see while stuck in the bathroom for 92 days. That time in hiding taught her that God loves us all, and He wants us to love each other, and the only way to do that is to forgive as He forgave us.
Immaculee leads each surpassing day of her life with trust in God's providence as she moves forward to rebuild her life. She comforts her friends, takes care of orphans and eventually goes day after day to the United Nations office to ask for a job. Her clothes are the same ones she has worn for months so it is understandable that no one will hire her. In a series of little miracles, Immaculee is able to go to her old dorm room, where she collects her diplomas, and finds money she hid before the war started. With that she is able to buy new clothes, food and go well prepared to keep asking for a job at the UN. After weeks of going daily, and praying the Rosary daily asking Our Lady to intervene, she is given a job at the UN. Immaculee knows she is being called to help survivors of the genocide and to spread a message of forgiveness to the world.
 |
| There were millions of Tutsi orphans after the Genocide. Immaculee led efforts with the UN to show them love and hope. |
Immaculee learns to live each moment of her life entrusting it to God and thanking Him for the gift of her life. She eventually moves to New York City where she continues working for the UN and eventually begins sharing her story of forgiveness with the world. Her story has been translated in many languages. Currently, Immaculee dedicates herself only to the message of forgiveness, speaking to any audience that will hear on that message that applies to each of us.
We all have someone to forgive! Thank you Immaculee for sharing your secret to forgiveness, by asking God to help us forgive, with the rest of the world!
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