Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust (4 page)
Read Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust Online
Authors: Immaculee Ilibagiza
Tags: #Biographies & Memoirs, #Historical, #Africa, #Leaders & Notable People, #Religious, #Memoirs, #Specific Groups, #Women, #Christian Books & Bibles, #Catholicism, #Self Help, #History, #Religion & Spirituality, #Spirituality, #Inspirational, #Self-Help, #Motivational, #Central Africa, #Social History, #Gay & Gender Studies
Editorial supervision:
Jill Kramer •
Design:
Tricia Breidenthal
Interior photos courtesy of the author
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic, or electronic process, or in the form of a phonographic recording; nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or otherwise be copied for public or private use—other than for “fair use” as brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews—without prior written permission of the publisher. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ilibagiza, Immaculée.
Left to tell : discovering God amidst the Rwandan holocaust / Immaculée Ilibagiza, with Steve Erwin.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4019-0896-6 (hardcover)
ISBN-10: 1-4019-0896-9 (hardcover)
ISBN-13: 978-1-4019-0897-3 (tradepaper)
ISBN-10: 1-4019-0897-7 (tradepaper)
1. Ilibagiza, Immaculée. 2. Catholics--Rwanda--Biography. 3. Rwanda--History--Civil War, 1994--Personal narratives. I. Erwin, Steve. II. Title.
BX4705.I46A3 2006
282.092--dc22
2005031509
Hardcover: ISBN 13:
978-1-4019-0896-6 •
ISBN 10:
1-4019-0896-9
Tradepaper: ISBN 13:
978-1-4019-0897-3 •
ISBN 10:
1-4019-0897-7
09 08 07 06 4 3 2 1
1st printing, February 2006
Printed in the United States of America
To my beloved parents, Leonard and Rose;
and my dear brothers Damascene and Vianney, for all
the selfless love you gave me. You make heaven
a brighter place, and I will love you always.
For my brother Aimable, with much love
and in hopes of healing unspoken pain.
And to my new family—Bryan and our sweet babies,
Nikki and Bryan, Jr.—for giving me a new life, love,
and inspiration. You make my life complete.
In memory of holocaust victims everywhere.
Immaculée’s hometown, Mataba, which is north of Kibuye and west of Mabanza, on the shores of Lake Kivu.
CONTENTS
Introduction
My Name Is Immaculée
Chapter 8:
Farewell to the Boys
Chapter 10:
Confronting My Anger
Chapter 11:
Struggling to Forgive
Chapter 12:
No Friends to Turn To
Chapter 13:
A Gathering of Orphans
Chapter 14:
The Gift of Tongues
Chapter 17:
The Pain of Freedom
Chapter 18:
A Letter from Damascene
Chapter 20:
The Road to the Rebels
Chapter 24:
Forgiving the Living
Wristband Ordering Information
“When we are no longer able to change a situation—we are challenged to change ourselves.”
— Viktor E. Frankl, psychologist, author, and Nazi holocaust survivor
I
’ve read thousands of books over the past 50 or so years. The book you hold in your hands is by far the most moving and poignantly significant of the vast library that comprises my lifetime of personal reading.
You’re about to embark on a journey that will undoubtedly change the way you view the power of faith—forever. A single phrase from the scriptures reminds us that “with God all things are possible.” I’ve quoted this passage frequently in my lectures, often adding the rhetorical question: “Now what does that leave out?” The answer is obvious to all: “All things means all things.”
You’ve read that pure faith, devoid of all doubt, can move mountains and even project a camel through the eye of a needle. But even with your own unshakable faith, the mountain has probably remained stationary where it’s always been, and the eye of the needle is too tiny to welcome even one camel’s eyelash—let alone the entire creature traversing a minuscule opening. Well, I’m happy to report that when you’ve completed your first reading of
Left to Tell,
you’ll have a new perspective on what the field of
all
possibilities looks like. As you bear witness to Immaculée Ilibagiza’s transcendent experience in the midst of a holocaust too horrible to even contemplate, you’ll also understand how the limitless power of pure, undeterred faith can indeed work to create miracles.
Despite the hideous display of humans’ inhumanity to each other that was taking place only a decade or so ago in the country of Rwanda, this is truly a love story in the purest sense of the word—a story of the triumph of the human spirit, a story of one woman’s profound faith and determination to survive (against literally impossible odds) in order to tell her tale and to be an agent for ushering in a new spiritual consciousness, and a story of a love for God that was so strong that hatred and revenge were forced to dissolve in its presence.
I have come to know Immaculée very, very well over the past year—in fact, we communicate on a daily basis. She’s traveled with me, speaking on the same stage and telling her story to audiences that number in the thousands. We’ve talked privately for hour after hour about her experiences in the holocaust and her ambitions today, and I’ve spent time with her and her family. I’ve spoken with her co-workers and even her fellow holocaust survivors, and she’s spent a great deal of time with my own children. I’ve conversed with her during long plane and train rides between lecture stops, and I’ve seen her stand before audiences large and small. I’ve come to know this dynamic, powerful woman so well that I count her as one of my closest friends. In fact, I’ve come to love and admire her so much that I’ve dedicated my latest book,
Inspiration,
to her.
I reveal my own personal relationship with Immaculée here in the opening pages of this extraordinary work because I want you, who are about to be immersed into an experience that will change your life forever (and I believe is destined to change
the world
for the better as well), to know firsthand what a phenomenal human being Immaculée Ilibagiza is in my eyes. In all of my countless hours with her, in this multitude of private and public settings, this transcendentally spiritual woman always—and I mean
always—
shines a light that captures everyone within its boundaries.
When she converses at a dinner table, all who are present not only listen, they’re magnetically drawn to her; and in large audiences, you can hear a pin drop as she speaks from her heart with so much conviction. There is something much more than charisma at work here—Immaculée not only writes and speaks about unconditional love and forgiveness, but she radiates it wherever she goes. She lives at an elevated level of spiritual consciousness, and by doing so, she raises the energy level of all those whom she encounters . . . including myself.
The very first moment we met, I knew in an absolute flash of insight that I was in the presence of a uniquely Divine woman (something that will be evident when you complete this book). We briefly spoke after a presentation I made in New York City for the Omega Institute, and after only a second or two, she was gone from my sight—but in those few moments, I was captured. I sensed her exceptionally high energy, similar to the way I felt after having been with Mother Meera (an Indian woman who’s thought to be an incarnation of the Divine Mother) many years before.
Immaculée didn’t seek me out for assistance in having this book published—
I
was the one who did the seeking. That inner glow of joy and love that I felt in her company wouldn’t leave me, so I asked my daughter Skye, who had exchanged e-mail addresses with Immaculée, to please make every effort to contact her. Days turned into weeks, and there was still no communication. Each day I’d ask Skye, “Have you heard from the woman from Rwanda?”
Finally, Immaculée responded to my daughter’s inquiries, and I telephoned her immediately. I asked her one question: “Would you be willing to write your story of survival? I feel compelled to help you get the message to the world.” It was then that Immaculée told me she herself had already written down every detail of her ordeal as a Tutsi woman in Rwanda who was being hunted and marked for certain death during the genocide of 1994. She told me she felt that this was the reason why she’d been spared, but that her efforts in being published were unsuccessful, largely because English was her third language and she needed help in getting the essence of her story converted to a more readable format.
It was at this point that I asked her to send me everything she’d written, which turned out to be about 150,000 words in which she’d painstakingly recorded every detail some five years after leaving Rwanda. I made one phone call to my friend Reid Tracy, the president of Hay House, and arrangements were made to have writer Steve Erwin help Immaculée tell her story in the way that it’s written on these pages. I told Reid that I would support this project in every way possible: Not only would I write the Foreword, but I’d also help bring Immaculée and her story to all of my public appearances. In addition, I’d travel to Rwanda with her and her family and help her raise money to fulfill her mission of aiding the many orphaned children left behind when the killing finally stopped.
In addition, I told Reid that I wanted to include Immaculée in my Public Television special on
Inspiration: Your Ultimate Calling,
and that I’d do everything in my power to bring this spiritual woman’s saga to the public eye. And all of this was done because of that feeling I had when I first met her, at the back of a room full of people, for only a few moments.
It has been said that
the laws of the material world do not apply
in the presence of the God-realized.
You’ll come to understand these words directly by the time you finish reading this book. Time after time, Immaculée’s pure, God-realized “Inner Beingness” allowed her to erect invisible barriers so that killers with machetes who were only inches away were blinded to her physical presence. As her faith deepened, the miracles became even more astonishing. Her visualizations became so real—and all doubt was banished from her mind—that she was indeed at one with God. She knew that God was with her as she saw a cross of light bar her and her companions from certain death. Angels of love and compassion seemed to emerge out of nowhere as Immaculée intensified her communion with our Creator. She was able to stare down a determined killer and watch in certainty as he dropped his weapon and became immobilized as his contempt was converted to kindness.