AN OVERVIEW
'LEFT to tell' is a book explaining the circumstances surrounding the 1994 Rwanda holocaust and also how the author 'Immaculee Ilibagiza discovered God in the midst of the genocide. The worst thing that can happen in a country has to be inter tribal war, no where to run to, no where to hide, friends turn enemies, it seems like the whole world is against you. The book is a published history of what Immaculee faced for aost 3 months while she struggled to survive. How the tutsi were segregated from the Hutus who wants to claim all power, the look of disdain amongst members of the same country who display inhumanity to their fellow neighbors all because they are from a different tribe. Coming to spend Easter holiday with her family being a catholic, the death of the Rwanda's Hutu president caused the genocide to happen which killed over a million Tutsis.
That's the bathroom they had to hide in, all 8women
At some point the killers were suspicious that the pastor was hiding "cockroaches" as the hutus referred to the tutsi, they searched intensely and at some point, Immaculee suggested to the pastor to block the bathroom door with the cupboard.
The way and manner the book was written gives a sense of belonging, like one was actually present during the course of the event. Imagining how people were slaughtered with machete by the Hutus interahanwe killers. Her account of the genocide survival was throughly astonishing, while hiding away in a Hutu pastor's small bathroom with 7 other women all cramped together and starving for over 3 months, she was still able to encounter God. The fact that a pastor had the guts to rescue them and hide them in his family house and being a Hutu tribe accounts for the fact that there are people with kind hearts in every situation we find ourselves. The killing was so intense that while narrating how her brother Damascene died, the killers literally busted his head open claimed they had want to know how the brain of a masters student looks like.
The ruins of her family house
While the story accounts for her experience of the terrible experience encountered with killers, the other experience reveals how she encountered God with a pure and contrite heart and it worked for her. She was dependent on God and mother prayer by praying fervently withe the little red rosary her father passed on to her before sending her off to go hide somewhere safe.
In her book, we get to ask questions like why the segregation in one country in the first place? Is it a crime that the tutsis height gave them away, because it was easy to recognize the tutsis as they were very tall. In all, it is said that we encounter God in mysterious places and in mysterious ways, Immaculee experienced God in a mysterious way and she fully absorbed his faithfulness as he became her father when other members of her family was killed except her elder brother who was out of the country. She even had to fight her heart to forgive her killers and even pray for them.
Note: all pictures were taken by me from the book.