took and mixed in with three measures of flour until
all of it was leavened." Matthew 13:33
From the December 2006/January 2007 Issue
Left to Tell
Melissa Monheim
Melissa Monheim is a lawyer and a member of Leaven’s board.
Proving that heroes and saints truly walk among us, Immaculée Ilibagiza spoke to a Denver audience at the University of Denver on November 13, 2006. Immaculée, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide, was raised by her parents to not feel hatred nor to know the supposed differences between the Hutu and Tutsi tribes in her country. Sadly, the love of her family and community was not enough to shield them from the murderous genocide. In 1994, almost one million Tutsis were slaughtered in the course of one hundred days, beginning on Easter Sunday. Immaculée lost her parents, brothers, grandparents, and most of her extended family. She, however, was left to tell their story.
At the direction of her father, an influential man within their village, Immaculée went into hiding at the home of a local pastor. With seven other women, Immaculée hid for three months in a bathroom that was about four feet long and three feet wide. During that time, Immaculée prayed incessantly—finding special comfort in the rosary. Immaculée found a place in the bathroom to call her own: a small corner of her heart in which she found peace and strength. She spent hours contemplating the meaning of words such as forgiveness, faith, and hope.
During her time of physical captivity, Immaculée’s heart was transformed. At first she would pray but remained angry at the Hutu killers who murdered her family and came to the pastor’s house hunting for her, calling out her name. She would pray the rosary but refused to say “forgive those who trespass against us” because the pain was so raw. Eventually, Immaculée meditated on the power of Jesus’ prayer, “Forgive them Father for they know not what they do,” while he himself was being innocently killed. She begged God to show her how to forgive and to reveal to her how Jesus was able to pray those words.
With time, “the pain of hating people came out of her chest.” Immaculée realized that all people, regardless of their actions or tribe, were God’s children. She came to believe that God, like any parent, suffered while watching children they love do wrong. She realized that the killers were God’s children as much as she and her family were, and therefore, God must be suffering the pain of a betrayed parent. As God’s children, we can only help by trying to love everyone. And through loving even those who might be most difficult to love, we see everything falling into place according to God’s plan.
Slowly, Immaculée began to be able to pray for those who were coming to kill her, who hunted her daily, and who had killed her family. She realized that the killers did not know what they were doing; that they were profoundly blind to the true nature of their actions. It became a simple, but profound realization: if we cannot love ourselves, then we cannot love others. By learning to love and forgive ourselves, we can expand that love to encompass those around us, especially those who challenge us the most, to see God in them.
Immaculée’s spiritual development reached beyond those three months of hiding in the bathroom. She was eventually able to face the man who brutally and publicly killed her father and she forgave him, even when those around her demanded vengeance. She worked with the children orphaned by the genocide. She married and had children of her own, teaching them how to love unconditionally. Immaculée began to see that we are all connected and we are one person; that when we hurt one person we all hurt. When we hurt the poor, the sick, the elderly, we hurt ourselves.
But she also began to see the genocide in a different light. For her, the pain of the genocide would be worth it if we, as the children of God, learned to love and to forgive ourselves and one another. She started to see the life of her family as a sacrifice so people could be touched by her story and learn how to forgive. Therefore, she started to tell her story.
She has spoken with people throughout the country and wrote the book, Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust. The focus of a documentary that has been nominated for an Academy Award®, she has started a foundation to help the children orphaned by the genocide. But most importantly, she shared her pain with others so that they may, in turn, see through their own pain and be able to forgive and love others. Really, there is no greater gift of faith than to love and be loved.