August 31 at 5 p.m. Mass, followed by dinner at 6 and the Speaker at 7p.m. On September 1, Brunch at 10 am is followed by the Speaker at 11 am. The cost for the dinner and Speaker on August 31 is $75 and the Breakfast with Speaker on September 1 is $50 for a total of $125 for both events.
Immaculée Ilibagiza
Immaculée Ilibagiza was born and raised in a small village in Rwanda, Africa. It was while she was home from school on Easter break in 1994 that Immaculée’s life was transformed forever.
On April 6 of that year, the Rwandan President’s plane was shot down over the capital city of Kigali. This assassination of the Hutu president sparked months of massacres of Tutsi tribe members throughout the country.
To protect his only daughter from rape and murder, Immaculée’s father told her to run to a local pastor’s house for protection. The pastor quickly sheltered Immaculée and seven other women in a hidden 3 x 4 foot bathroom. For the next 91 days, Immaculée and the other women huddled silently in this small room, while the genocide raged outside the home and throughout the country.
While in hiding, anger and resentment were destroying Immaculée’s mind, body and spirit. It was then that Immaculée turned to prayer. She began to pray the rosary as a way of drowning out the anger inside her, and the evil outside the house. It was that turning point towards God and away from hate that saved Immaculée.
After 91 days, Immaculée was finally liberated from her hiding place only to face a horrific reality. Immaculée emerged from that small bathroom weighing just 65 pounds, and finding her entire family brutally murdered, with the exception of one brother who was studying abroad. She also found nearly one million of her extended family, friends, neighbors and fellow Rwandans massacred.
After the genocide, Immaculée came face-to-face with the man who killed her mother and one of her brothers. After enduring months of physical, mental and spiritual suffering, Immaculée was still able to offer the unthinkable, telling the man, “I forgive you.”
In 1998, Immaculée emigrated from Rwanda to the United States where she continued her work for peace through the United Nations. During that time, she shared her story with co-workers and friends who were so impacted by her testimony they insisted she write it down.
Immaculée’s first book, Left to Tell; Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust (Hay House has been translated into over twenty languages and has sold over two million copies.
Immaculée has written six additional books in recent years – Led by Faith: Rising from the Ashes of the Rwandan Genocide, Our Lady of Kibeho, If Only We Had Listened, Visit from Heaven, and The Boy Who Met Jesus, and The Rosary.
Today, Immaculée is regarded as one of world’s leading speakers on faith, hope and forgiveness.
A major motion picture of her life are currently under development.
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VIDEO LINKS OF INTEREST:
60 Minutes
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=3004020n
CBS Early Show
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4824136n
07/2020