On Tuesday, December 13, 2011, Immaculée Ilibagiza, a Rwandan genocide survivor, visited Holy Trinity Catholic Secondary School.
Immaculée brought her message of God’s incredible power to heal and transform to the students of Holy Trinity CSS and guests from Bishop Reding, Christ the King, and Corpus Christi Catholic Secondary Schools.
Immaculée had the full attention of the audience of over 800 for more than an hour as she recalled her experiences first hand and outlined how God can help all of us deal with whatever we might be struggling with if only we would take the time to seek Him and be open to Him.
Immaculée, Tutsi tribe member, grew up somewhat unaware of the Tutsi/Hutu tribal tensions in Rwanda. However, soon she learned a harsh lesson in the reality of a hate that had been festering away in the country she described as “paradise”.
This was a difficult thing for her to comprehend because as far as she could tell, “We had virtually the same culture; we sang the same songs, farmed the same land, attended the same churches and worshipped the same God. We lived in the same villages, on the same streets and often in the same houses.” But this all seemed to be forgotten by many in her country when the Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana, a Hutu tribe member, was assassinated. The government run Hutu tribe unleashed a brutal campaign of death that lasted for three months and cost the lives of approximately one million people, including both of her parents and two of her brothers.
About four years ago, the Religion and Family Life Department at Holy Trinity CSS added Immaculée's auto-biography Left To Tell to the Grade 12 reading list. Left to Tell is the heart-wrenching story of Immaculée and her struggle for survival during the Rwandan genocide of 1994. In her memoir, Immaculée states that she truly believes that the only thing that saved her from certain death was the intervening hand of God.
In her book, Immaculée recalls when she was hiding in the bathroom of a Hutu pastor who was an acquaintance of her father, she spent almost every minute in prayer and she asked God to save her and the seven other women with her hiding in that bathroom. At one point one of the killers had his hand on the doorknob of the bathroom door but he decided that the homeowner was trustworthy and chose not to search it. But what perhaps is an even greater miracle is that Immaculée found the courage and strength to forgive those who were carrying out the slaughter.
Simon O’Carroll, Department of Religious Education at Holy Trinity Catholic Secondary School, noted that, “This visit from Immaculée Ilibagiza has been one of the highlights of my teaching career and from the conversations I have had with students since her visit, it has been for them as well. Students have said reading Left to Tell has been a life changing experience and hearing her story in person has intensified that. As students lined up to meet her there were more tears and over and over again we heard the refrain “I am so honoured to meet you.”