Immaculee Ilibagiza boards an airplane nearly every week to travel to a speaking engagement, where she shares her message of hope and forgiveness.
That’s the primary theme of her book, “Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust.”
Ilibagiza grew up in a small village of Rwanda and had been attending the National University of Rwanda to study electrical and mechanical engineering, when she came home during an Easter break.
(Courtesy of Immaculee Ilibagiza)
That’s when the April 1994 assassination of the Hutu president sparked months of massacres of Tutsi tribe members throughout the country.
To spare his daughter from rape and murder, Ilibagiza’s father told her to run to the home of a Hutu pastor, who was a family friend.
The pastor hid Ilibagiza and seven other women in a 3-foot-by-4-foot bathroom for 91 days.
“My faith was crushed and challenged, when I was in that bathroom,” said Ilibagiza, who will be giving two talks at St. Timothy Catholic Church in Lutz this week.
“I felt there’s nothing out there. I’m dying and life is over, and how can this be?”
“Any tiny noise could have been the end of our life,” Ilibagiza said.
The Hutu killers heard that some Tutsi women had been seen near the pastor’s house, so they stormed in and searched through it.
“They went in the ceiling of that house. In the roof of the house. Under the beds.
“Every reasonable thing said, ‘It’s over,” Ilibagiza said.
She held onto the rosary her father had given her, and had her Bible, too.
As she feared for her life, she prayed God: “If there’s anything beyond this, please give me a sign. Don’t let them find the door, just today, in this house.”
In a 60 Minutes interview, the pastor said the intruders put his hand on the doorknob to the bathroom, but didn’t turn it.
Ilibagiza recalls that moment: “You are literally counting, on the grace of God, for them not to open that door,” she said.
She believes they were saved by God’s grace.
When she went into hiding, she weighed 115 pounds. When she emerged, she weighed 65. “We were like bones,” she said.
When she was able to escape, she learned that her family, with the exception of a brother who was abroad studying, had been murdered.
She said the faith that she discovered through prayer during her ordeal, enabled her to let go of the anger, resentment and hate, and to instead feel hope, forgiveness and peace.
She emigrated to the United States in 1998 and shared her story with some co-workers at the United Nations, who encouraged her to write it down, she said.
Just a few days later after she finished writing her story, she said she met internationally known Wayne Dyer at a conference and book signing.
That meeting led to Dyer’s involvement in the publication of her book.
The two became friends, frequently sharing the stage during Dyer’s inspirational talks.
The story of Ilibagiza’s life is expected to be made into a movie, with filming slated to begin this year.
“Realistically, my prayer has been, I hope they do a good job — something that will inspire people. I don’t just want a movie to make noise,” Ilibagiza said. Rather, she hopes the movie will help people to have better lives.
Her talks on Jan. 27 and Jan. 28 at St. Timothy Catholic Church, 17512 Lakeshore Road, will be “sharing from one human heart to another,” she said.
“I will share what I have lived,” she said. “I will speak about forgiveness.
“I want to share with people with the way I met God, how I came closer,” she said. She also wants to help people embrace “forgiveness, prayer and the power of prayer.”
She wants to encourage people to get closer to Mary, the mother of Jesus.
“Talk to her as a mother,” she said.
Ilibagiza said she also wants to share the lesson that her life and faith have taught her: “If you love one another, if you forgive one another, you will have peace.”
What: Immaculee Ilibagiza speaks on “Faith, Hope and Forgiveness.”
Where: St. Timothy Catholic Church, 17512 Lakeshore Road in Lutz
When: Jan. 27 at 7 p.m., and Jan. 28 at 10 a.m., a Mass will precede each talk
How much: Admission is free
Published January 27, 2016
