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Nonfiction. HTML: Immaculee Ilibagiza grew up in a country she loved, surrounded by a family she cherished. But in 1994 her idyllic world was ripped apart as Rwanda descended into a bloody genocide. Immaculee's family was brutally murdered during a killing spree that lasted three months and claimed the lives of nearly a million Rwandans. Incredibly, Immaculee survived the slaughter. For 91 days, she and seven other women huddled silently together in the cramped bathroom of a local pastor while hundreds of machete-wielding killers hunted for them. It was during those endless hours of unspeakable terror that Immaculee discovered the power of prayer, eventually shedding her fear of death and forging a profound and lasting relationship with God. She emerged from her bathroom hideout having discovered the meaning of truly unconditional loveâ??a love so strong she was able seek out and forgive her family's killers. The triumphant story of this remarkable young woman's journey through the darkness of genocide will inspire anyone whose life has been touched by fear, suffering, and loss.… (more)
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Sad story of neighbors, and friends turning on each other because of artificial differences.
Left to Tell can be counted among the incredible stories of people living out their faith in unfathomable circumstances such as Ten Boom’s The Hiding Place and Eareckson-Tada’s Joni. The author, a mere college student during the Rwanda Genocide, describes her experience of helplessly hiding—a hunted, despised minority—in a tiny bathroom with seven other women as they smelled the death of loved ones and listened to the atrocities occurring inches outside the bathroom’s window.
Ilibagiza’s story has immense worth, not only as a moving recollection of Jesus’ amazing power in our lives, but also as a revealing historical narrative of one of Rwanda’s darkest times. Left to Tell was particularly fascinating to me, however, as a real-life picture of our brothers and sisters’ faith from across the globe. After reading Philip Jenkins’s The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, a must-read discourse on Christianity’s astounding expansion into Asia, Latin America and Africa, Ilibagiza brought this amazing statistical phenomenon down to a personal, human level. As a married woman with a two children now living in the United States, she still possesses a faith rich in culturally-relevant African Catholicism—her beloved rosary, her love for the Mother Mary—mixed with an ancient belief system including communicating with the spirit world via psychics. It struck me as endearingly amusing when the author confesses her father would rather she marry a Hutu, their “enemy” tribe, than a Protestant. And though her religious practices are vastly different from mine, her familiar yearning for Truth in a relationship with God through Jesus rings true page after page.
This book opened my eyes to consider Jesus’ work in our lives beyond my own Western experiences. I was compelled to consider the vast and wide road by which all humans may encounter Jesus. And Immaculée Ilibagiza truly is my sister in Christ. I am grateful for her poignant, life-changing example in becoming a vessel of God’s love and forgiveness.
Most of Immaculee's family is killed during the genocide but she survives hidden in a small bathroom with 8 other women. While in hiding she strengthens her relationship with
This woman should be an inspiration to all of us. How often do we find ourselves complaining about trivial things? Yet Imaculee faced the worst of the worst and coped with it graciously without any complaint at all. It takes a very strong person to be able to do that. And I applaud her for sharing her story with us.
I have puzzled over the big questions often, a pleasant way to spend the quiet
I actually found an answer for that question that sits well with me. A forest was burned away when the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs crashed into the Gulf of Mexico off the Yucatan. There’s a petrified forest, in fact, in Arizona with tree trunks that were made into rock by the event. Then the grazing animals, eating all the seedlings, rose in great numbers before the trees could overtake the acreage.
One puzzle piece of my world fits snugly into place.
The cyclic massacres of the Tutzis and Hutus in Rwanda was another big question that came around in quiet moments. How could neighbors who were cousins indulge in widespread massacres every 12-18 years? What was the motivation? What were their explanations for the outcomes?
This is a heavy topic, not light banter for the dinner party. I could just ignore the question of relative motivations. Or I could explore the grievous actions and utilize some underlying truth to provide motivations for characters in my novels. The issue is relevant in many countries just now.
I read different partial answers that fit the rhetorical stance of the writer or organization more than the participants. I read much later the neo-Malthusian chapter by Jared Diamond in Collapse. His argument called for more trees and fewer babies, and the relative responsibilities of developed countries. But the example illustrates his articulated themes, rather than some open-ended investigation of inductive reasoning.
But what about the participants in the Rwandan massacres? A GoodReads friend suggested that I read Left to Tell by Immaculee Ilibagiza in which she describes her experience as a Tutsi hiding in a Hutu’s bathroom with six other women. To my surprise, this was a book of Catholicism and the power of faith, except the proofs of faith were thin.
Immaculee claims a Hutu killer turned away when he saw her face, I suppose like the visage of Moses could bring conviction in the spirit. She claims that God helped her onto a path of compassion and forgiveness so she could get past urges of revenge. The author was remarkable indeed, but what about the other Rwandans who participated, and will participate again in a decade or so?
The author claims that her prayers covered her friends so the killers didn’t attack the defenseless group while she hurried toward them with French peace-keepers. Except this scene happened late in the four-month-long massacre when passion was burned out and outside soldiers were armed with guns, not machetes.
I enjoyed the writer’s descriptions, and I thanked God more than once for my easy lifestyle. Her statement of faith seemed true but too glossy in print form. I’m certain Immaculee Ilibagiza is an inspiring motivational speaker, and I admire her work with orphans and raising international awareness through the UN.
One woman’s answer for how she survived the nightmare doesn’t speak to how we, the human race, can indulge this horror or how we prevent future massacres among neighbors and cousins.
Unfortunately, I’m still seeking that big answer for my big question.
The house in which she and the others were hiding was searched numerous times by gangs of Hutu killers but they never found the bathroom in which they were hiding because its door was covered by a large wardrobe.
While she was hiding, Immaculee constantly prayed a red and white rosary given to her by her father, meditated on God and constantly expressed her faith in God and visualized the positive results which she sought.
She states:
"I was living proof of the power of prayer and positive thinking which really are almost the same thing. God is the source of all positive energy, and prayer is the best way to tap into this power." Id. p. 190.
She visited in prison the leader of the Hutu gang who killed her mother and brother Damascene and told him that she forgave him.
Through the power of visualization she obtained a job at the United Nations after "...visualizing that I was already working at the UN, taking notes, answering phones and making important decisions." Id. p. 185.
Immaculee wanted to find a good man for a husband so she drew a picture of the man she wanted to marry, described his physical features, height, weight etc, and his moral character . She states:
"Once I was clear on exactly what I wanted, I began to visualize it, believing it in my heart that it had already come to pass. I'd put it all in God's hands and knew it was only a matter of time before he would bless me with my wish....But to hurry things along, I took out my father's red and white rosary and began praying for my husband to show up. Three months later he did." Id. p. 207
This book is a superb example of the power of prayer, faith, visualization and forgiveness.
She tells how she prayed and relied on God and how He helped her to survive the horrific genocide in Rwanda where her Hutu friends and neighbors killed her Tutsi family and friends and tried to find and kill her as well. She tells of the Hutu pastor who hid her and several other Tutsi women in a small bathroom in his house which put him and his family at risk of also being killed. She tells of her love for her family and how horrified she was to learn that her Hutu neighbors had shot them and chopped them to pieces with machetes.
And she tells how she prayed and was able to forgive her Hutu friends and neighbors who had turned against her and her Tutsi family and friends and called them snakes and cockroaches and killed them like they were those vermin.
She shares her faith and how the Lord helped her to forgive and love her enemies.
Her faith is touching, but the whole story of the holocaust there is horrifying and disturbing.
What on earth is wrong with people? Why do they treat one another that way? Why did the rest of the world allow it to happen?
Progress. It’s easy to be a liberal because you think that the world’s getting better, but this is a slippery justification. People have different experiences, and in places the world is not improving. There’s still violence, even crimes
Intellect. Intellectuals, whether they tend more towards change and justice or “pure reason”, look mostly to the intellect by default. But if you’re hiding in your bathroom from killers, you’re out of the debate. You can’t study as much as someone in prison or under house arrest, let alone even an average student, let alone an affluent one, so pure reason is somebody else’s job. You also can’t bring about political or social change, and getting angry about that is essentially self-punishment. But if you surrender your anger, you do what is possible for you, which is actually the prerequisite both of a just society, and the pursuit of reason.
…. The only problem with the above paragraphs is that I did such a job tidying up, and I. had such an untidy life. I can think of a few untidy, undeveloped, half-baked points, but it’s such a dicey subject, I feel like the only prudent thing is to spare you the half-baked ideas; otherwise I’d be cruising for a bruising, y’all.
…. Then again, maybe I can make one thing tidy, almost. Both the French captain and the Tutsi rebel major, who reject forgiveness out of hand—“I’ll forgive them when they’re dead”—also express self-doubt, express guilt for not having stopped the genocide, and want revenge as false penance, which I think says something about vengeance.
…. But maybe there’s hope in this world, too.