Immaculee Ilibagiza

Imagine you are in your home on a peaceful afternoon. You are looking through the fridge for a midday snack. Then you hear an enormous bang right outside your window, followed by hundreds of screaming voices. You are instantly converted to panic mode. “The Hutu’s are attacking!!” You realize what is happening. Immaculee Ilibagiza is a Rwandan genocide survivor and also a hero to many. She lost her entire family and life as she knew it, she forgave the attackers that took everything, and ultimately, she shared her story with the world, and encouraged millions to be a part of something bigger.

Immaculee grew up an average little girl in Rwanda, Africa. In spring of 1994, while she was home on a visit home from college, war broke out. The genocide was an attack on her native Tutsis by the Hutus. A call came over the radio for all Hutus to kill their Tutsi neighbors. Immaculee ran from her home and was ushered into the home of a local priest, who was Hutu. There she hid for three months in a crowded 3’x4’ bathroom with seven other women. While they hid, the rest of the country was at war. Her neighbors, friends, and family were all taken from their homes, and were tortured, raped, and violently murdered. Once she emerged from the cramped bathroom three months later, she went to a refugee camp run by the French. She later found out that she had lost her parents, grandparents, and three brothers. Everything she owned had been destroyed.

Once the war was over, and the authorities took control once again, the officials caught the man responsible for the death of each of her family members. They brought this news to Immaculee and gladly offered to have him killed, but Immaculee said no. She asked them instead to take her to the man so she could see him. When she went to the prison to see the man, she told him, “I forgive you, for everything.” The man was so shocked at her quick forgiveness that he broke down and cried. Forgiveness is hard with things as small as insignificant fights between friends. The ability she had to tell this man that she forgave him is incredible.

While she was still healing from the hundred day confinement, Immaculee worked with the UN in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali. After a while, she moved to America, obtaining a position at the UN in Manhattan, NY. Today, she travels all over the states giving speeches on the power of forgiveness. She also started a fund called the “Left to Tell Charitable Fund”, founded to aid Rwandan orphans that also survived the genocide. Her book, Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust has sold billions of copies, and has made a great amount of money for the orphan fund.

Immaculee Ilibagiza is a stunning, inspiring, and incredible person. She found forgiveness in God and overcame the devastation of losing her whole world by finding herself in His. She continues to tell her story every day with the hope that someday, her country will once again be the peaceful, and beautiful country it was when she was a little girl. Not only Rwanda either, she wants that for all places in this world. She believes that it is every human's job to strive for the peace of humanity. Her work towards the complete healing of her country is a light to our sometimes dark, unforgiving world.