A tale of terror, survival, faith, forgiveness, and God's odd priorities

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	• Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst The Rwandan Holocaust Immaculee Ilibagiza Hay House, 2006 average customer review:based on 421 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Inspiring

This is a book for all Christians to read. It is a wonderful story of how letting God in to your heart enables you to have a heart for forgiveness. It is also a wonderful story about how God still uses us for His glory even when tragic, horrible events occur in our lives.

Story - good. book - bad.

I would recommend anyone interested in great moving stories, Memoirs, recollections of war in Africa, to read this book. Thats what I have to say about this story.

Everyone says don't judge a book by its cover. I have to say that I don't know anyone who doesn't... literally speaking. As an artist it was really hard for me to want to read this book because not only is the book too large, but the design is atrocious. The paper it is printed on is ghastly white, low quality paper. The design of the text layout in within the pages is terrible and distracting. Normally I would submit this part of the review to the editor, but I haven't gotten that far yet. So excuse me for this harsh criticism of the visual aspects. I had to get it out somewhere.

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A tale of terror, survival, faith, forgiveness, and God's odd priorities

If this book had been presented as fiction it would be dismissed as unbelievable: that former neighbors could turn on one another with machetes, that six (and then eight) women could hide in silence for three months in a bathroom 3 by 4 feet, and that a woman could look in the face of the killer who *literally* butchered her family and offer her forgiveness. By sharing her incredible story, Immaculee Ilibagiza gives us a great gift: lessons--or at least reminders--of how class envy, propaganda, fear, and the mob mentality can drive even apparently pleasant people (such as her former friends) to commit unthinkable atrocities; and how the vicious cycle of violence can be broken only with forgiveness. (That is, once the tables of military power have turned and the former victims have the option to inflict vengeance but choose forgiveness instead.)

One of the things that drew me to this book was its subtitle: "Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust"--a theme which does indeed permeate the book, as Ms. Ilibagiza frequently speaks of how her belief in God allowed her to retreat from the world around her gone mad. On page 95, for example, she writes:

"I entered my special place through prayer ... it was my sacred garden, where I spoke with God, meditated on His words, and nurtured my spiritual self. When I meditated, I touched the source of my faith and strengthened the core of my soul. While horror swirled around me, I found refuge in a world that became more welcoming and wonderful with each visit. Even as my body shriveled, my soul was nourished through my deepening relationship with God" (p. 95). [NOTE: Ms. Ilibagiza's weight went from 115 lbs. down to 65.]

And Ms. Ilibagiza finds God not only through the sensation of a spiritual connection--she also sees God taking a participatory role here on our material earth throughout every step of her nightmare:

* God, knowing what horrors lay ahead, takes the preparatory steps of inspiring the architect to put an extra bathroom in Pastor Murinzi's house and prompting the pastor to buy a wardrobe with the right dimensions to hide the bathroom door (p. 84).
* God sends a message to Ms. Ilibagiza to push the wardrobe in front of the bathroom door ("I thanked God for saving us and for giving me the idea to put the wardrobe in front of the bathroom door. That was so smart of You, God." - p. 93)
* God takes care that the wardrobe won't make much noise when moved ("There was a rug beneath the wardrobe that muffled the sound of the movement, so again, God was looking out for us." - pp. 83-84).
* God repeatedly protects Ms. Ilibagiza (and select associates) from the machete-wielding hunters: inside the pastor's house, and on the Hutu-occupied road to the Tutsi refugee camp ("I never stopped thanking God for saving us on that road!" - p. 173).
* God even guides Ms. Ilibagiza's fingers on a United Nations typing test (p. 190).

The belief that we have a Creator that takes an active role in assisting at least *some* people leads, of course, to the challenge of trying to fathom God's priorities. Why would an Omnipotent Deity help with a typing test, but be passive in the face of children being forced to watch their mother's rape and murder? And is it plausible to believe that a kindly Omniscient Deity's "action plan" for a country's pending bloodbath includes making sure that eight terrified and starved women will have a tiny bathroom to hide in?

Page 93 contains a vivid example of Ms. Ilibagiza's portrayal of a Deity with odd priorities--she thanks God for His "hands-on approach" in telling her to put the wardrobe in front of the bathroom door, and several paragraphs later she gives a chilling account of an abandoned baby's gruesome demise (an incident in which God apparently takes the "hands-off approach"):

"One night I heard screaming not far from the house, and then a baby crying. The killers must have slain the mother and left her infant to die in the road. The child wailed all night; by morning, its cries were feeble and sporadic, and by nightfall, it was silent. I heard dogs snarling nearby and shivered as I thought about how that baby's life had ended." (p. 93)

Ms. Ilibagiza does not dwell on trying to reconcile such horrors with her belief in an All-Powerful and Benign Deity, or spend much time speculating about how God makes His "to intervene or not to intervene" decisions. Yet she does, on several occasions, reveal why such issues do not cause her to doubt her faith:

THE ROOT CAUSE OF SUFFERING AND EVIL: sometimes it's the devil (p. 86); sometimes it's human ignorance (p. 94).
THE GRISLY DEATHS OF THE INNOCENT: No need to contemplate this, because they're now enjoying the bliss of heaven (God speaks to her about the above baby: "the baby is with Me now" [p. 94]. From Ms. Ilibagiza's dream of Jesus' words to her: "Don't mourn too long for your family, Immaculee. They are with me now, and they have joy" [p. 111].)
THOSE CHOSEN TO SURVIVE: God has a plan for them.

Those who read the subtitle and expect a philosophical treatise on how to reconcile belief in a Caring God with the existence of suffering (including suffering that's unrelated to human misbehavior: earthquakes, malaria-spreading mosquitoes, the way predators are designed to survive by devouring their prey alive, etc.) will find those expectations unmet. Yet Ms. Ilibagiza offers something no less powerful: her experience of an unimaginable hell on earth as seen through the lens of her faith, and a testimony to the extraordinary survival value of that faith.

Todd Allen Gates
author of Dialogue with a Christian Proselytizer

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The Power of Pure, Undeterred Faith in God

Immaculee Ilibagiza's "Left to Tell" is a powerful book detailing the miracle of Ilibagiza's survival during the Hutus led Rwandan genocide (over one million Tutsi slaughtered) of the early 1990s. For three months, Ilibagiza and five other Tutsi women were protected by a Christian pastor, a Hutus, who, at great personal risk, allowed the women to stay hidden in a small bathroom in his home four feet long and three feet wide. The women could not use the toilets or the shower as death squads were in the area hacking to death any Tutsi they found. The squads searched the house unannounced throughout the three months only to leave empty handed each time.

With the exception of her brother who was out of the country, Ilibagiza's immediate family was killed during the genocide. Her father, in their last meeting, gave her his rosary, which became her spiritual lifeline. She prayed and meditated on the rosary from morning to night, 15 to 20 hours each day. At one time when she was in great danger, she saw a cross on the door, a symbol of God's presence. She never experienced fear again.

Ilibagiza found her salvation through prayer. Her faith deepened, she experienced miracles and God's presence. "Left to Tell" is a book you will find hard to put down. It very well might change how you feel about prayer, miracles, and God. Ilibagiza shows us how one person with the power of pure, undeterred faith can indeed work to create miracles.

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Left to Tell

Every person could benefit from reading this powerful account of a survivor of the Rwandan genocide. Immaculee Ilibagiza's experiences - and what she chose to do because of them - is an inspirational lesson that teaches we all choose how our circumstances will affect us, either positively or negatively. This is a life-changing book.

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