Council for Health and Human Service Ministries

Word and Deed: Thoughts on Faith-Based Leadership

Left to Tell—A Journey from the Depths of Hell

For thousands of years, the word gold has connoted something of beauty or value. These images are derived from two properties of gold: its color and its chemical stability. The same can be said of diamonds, which go through a process of refinement that involves hot molten liquids to clean them before they're presented as marketable. From a spiritual perspective, adverse situations are sometimes viewed as a process of mining for gold or diamonds and we sense that pain and suffering is a path to draw us closer to God in order to experience life more fully.

Immaculèe Ilibagiza was born in the western Rwandan province of Kibuyè, in the village of Mataba. Her name (Ilibagiza) means "shining and beautiful in body and soul". In her book, Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust, you will discover an extraordinary woman whose name typifies the substance of her soul--strength, beauty, stability, and an indomitable spirit that has endured hardship beyond our darkest atrocities.

In Left to Tell, Ilibagiza tells her story of surviving the 1994 genocide in which, according to Rwandan government estimates, more than one million people were murdered in roughly 100 days. Included in that number were most of her family members; mother, father and two brothers as well as numerous relatives. Her one remaining brother was away at college when the massacre occurred and although he was spared, lives with the agony, as well as the helplessness and guilt that undoubtedly engulfed him since he received little or no news of his family's demise until it was practically over.

While he was suffering the torments of mental anguish, his sister's fate was incomprehensible in comparison. Forced to survive by hiding in a small bathroom with six other women for 91 days (3 ft. x 4 ft.), she found solace in the midst of chaos and uncertainty through fervent prayer and meditation. Throughout the entire time period they were not able to speak for fear of being overheard by rebel tribes bent on extinguishing every one of their kind and anyone who moderately showed support or compassion.

Their level of torture went beyond the lack of adequate space to move, food, water, cleanliness and health. They were subjected to many episodes in which their perpetrators came back to search the home in which they were hiding and, by the grace of God, did not find them. Having to stifle screams of hysteria laden with fear while soldiers poked and prodded and shouted out her name, Ilibagiza managed to endure and survived each day with the help of a rosary that her father had given her and hope for a better life. Positive prayer, meditation, and a will to survive so that she could tell her story were anchors in the midst of her storm—an unbelievable nightmare that wiped out generations of people.

Hell has many faces and forms and none are palatable regardless of the depth of our faith. However, if you can get through the fire, you may have a testimony that is beyond any leadership training course you will ever take, and that provides a source of inspiration and healing to others. Although our lives are filled with various levels of adversity, I pray that none of us will ever have to embrace anything remotely similar in order to broaden our spiritual walk and open up to the magnificence of God's grace and mercy. However, I believe Immaculèe Ilibagiza lived to tell her story for that very reason and, in spite of the ordeal, her spirit shines forth like diamonds and gold.

Shirley Nelson

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