Latest / The Lila Rose Show / E185: She Forgave Her Family's Murderers w/Immaculee Ilibagiza

Transcript

E185: She Forgave Her Family's Murderers w/Immaculee Ilibagiza · The Lila Rose Show

• 0:00
  I lived in Rwanda during the genocide and I belong to the
• 0:02
  tribe that was being killed. They have a given order to kill
• 0:05
  everyone of our tribe. How did you stay in a three by 4
• 0:08
  foot bathroom? 88 women 8.
• 0:10
  People, we sat on top of each other.
• 0:12
  When I went in the bathroom, I was 115 lbs and when I came out,
• 0:16
  I was 65 lbs. Three months later when I came
• 0:19
  out, a million people was killed, and among them, my
• 0:22
  parents, my mom was killed, my dad, my two brothers, everybody
• 0:25
  was killed. And I remember reading the Bible
• 0:28
  and I reached to this part. Forgive them, they don't know
• 0:30
  what they do. Everything changed in that
• 0:32
  moment, literally. So Immaculate.
• 0:36
  Thank you so much for joining the podcast.
• 0:38
  Thank you so much for having me. I'm really happy to be here.
• 0:41
  It's such an honor and privilege to sit down with you.
• 0:44
  And I think I read your book, Left to Tell 15 years ago when
• 0:49
  it was around first coming out, and I was incredibly inspired
• 0:54
  and moved and to get to sit down with you is such an honor and
• 0:58
  privilege. So thank you for making the time
• 1:00
  for this and telling your story. Thank you.
• 1:03
  Thank you. Yeah, I I know.
• 1:05
  I remember when I wrote the book, I was really surprised by
• 1:08
  the how this, it touched people. The outcome was very shocking
• 1:14
  because I guess when you go through things in your heart,
• 1:17
  you think you are alone. By then you realize that you are
• 1:21
  not alone. I thought I'm the person who
• 1:23
  struggled to forgive the people who are, you know, killing my
• 1:27
  family then and now the stories I hear are thank you for that
• 1:31
  story because to have helped me to also open my heart.
• 1:35
  So it's really nice. Now I I realize why our Lord
• 1:38
  have taught the world in the parables and you know in the
• 1:41
  telling stories, because the story has such a power to open
• 1:45
  your heart. For those who are getting to
• 1:48
  know you for the first time, or maybe they've read read your
• 1:51
  book but they haven't heard from you directly, I'd love to hear
• 1:54
  your background. Thank you.
• 1:57
  Thank you. Yeah.
• 1:58
  So I come from Rwanda. I live in America now.
• 2:00
  I live in the USA and I have a family.
• 2:03
  I have children. I have a family but so I lived
• 2:07
  in Rwanda. The story I wrote about in 2000
• 2:10
  that came out and left to tell 2006.
• 2:13
  I lived in Rwanda during the genocide and before the
• 2:16
  genocide. So I belonged to Rwanda, had two
• 2:20
  main tribes which is Hutu and Tutsi, and I belonged to the
• 2:24
  tribe that was being killed. So in 1994 I was a student in
• 2:29
  the college and I happened to be home for Easter holiday.
• 2:32
  One morning. I always say 1 morning because
• 2:36
  it really to this day reminds me that every day such a time and a
• 2:40
  day to be grateful because you just don't know what can happen.
• 2:44
  One morning, like now, no other morning, my brother came to my
• 2:48
  room and he told me that the president of the country was
• 2:51
  killed that night. So we knew that before whenever
• 2:54
  they were cool like that, they would always kill people.
• 2:58
  And sadly or the words I remember, they kill people who
• 3:01
  are tribe and what was behind it was the grid of power.
• 3:05
  If we get this, then we can, we never have them, we never share
• 3:09
  the power. It was terrible.
• 3:11
  So my brother told me in the morning, one morning, and I
• 3:14
  remember opening the door, the window, and I thought it was an
• 3:18
  end of the world for us. So I came outside of the room, I
• 3:22
  met my parents and we heard on radio that the leaders of the
• 3:25
  country have literally said like 15 minutes after that president
• 3:29
  was in power, died. They have a given order to kill
• 3:32
  everyone of our tribe. But it was something they
• 3:35
  prepared. We prepared it for like 30
• 3:37
  years. And we?
• 3:39
  So, so, so I'm so sorry to interrupt.
• 3:41
  So but between the two tribes, you're saying one of the tribes
• 3:45
  assassinated the president, he was of the other tribe took
• 3:49
  power of the government and then declared war on every member of
• 3:52
  the. Other this is all believe in the
• 3:54
  country that the story so the person who was in power did not
• 3:58
  want to was not my tribe was the tribe that was killing.
• 4:03
  However, he did not agree with his surrounding to kill everyone
• 4:08
  under his his leadership. So the people around him, them,
• 4:12
  they wanted to do a genocide. So they thought if we kill him,
• 4:17
  then we can make excuse that, you know, they killed him.
• 4:22
  So they blamed the little children.
• 4:24
  They blamed it on US students. I mean, 1,000,000 people was
• 4:29
  killed just because of that. But it was something we knew
• 4:32
  that it was going to be. I still remember, I mean, about
• 4:36
  a year before the genocide, there was a radio where the
• 4:39
  journalist, they used to act like they were drunk.
• 4:41
  So they would say things like one day we're going to kill
• 4:44
  those people. They are not humans.
• 4:46
  Oh, look at them. They're too tall.
• 4:48
  They're too this. So it was just like, wow, why?
• 4:51
  Nobody's doing this. So and that's how they were
• 4:54
  spreading hatred between the two tribes because people among the
• 4:58
  people, they really didn't hate each other.
• 5:00
  To this day, one of my best friend is from the Hutu tribe
• 5:03
  and we talk about this and she talk, if she talks to me, she's
• 5:07
  how, how, how can they do that? Look what they did, how they
• 5:10
  hold us and then they put us against each other.
• 5:14
  How terrible this was. So it was in the hands of the
• 5:16
  leaders who were using people saying we hate you.
• 5:19
  We so it sounded, it felt like everyone from that tribe hated
• 5:24
  us, but it was really a number of the strong leaders who were,
• 5:28
  who had the radio, who had the TV, who had all the media who
• 5:32
  were giving the message they wanted people to hear.
• 5:35
  So they, they prepared it. They killed their president so
• 5:39
  they can blame it on people, then they can start killing.
• 5:42
  So that was one thing that prepared us was the the radio
• 5:46
  again that was there for like a year, private radio just was
• 5:49
  insulting us. Then something is beautiful
• 5:52
  happened to Rwanda that we knew Our Lady, the Blessed Mother,
• 5:55
  the mother of Jesus, you know, as we know it in the Bible
• 5:58
  appeared 12 years before the genocide, just like she appeared
• 6:02
  in Lourdes in France. I mean a beautiful event that
• 6:06
  she, you know, like just took over the country and she
• 6:09
  appeared in Fatima in Portugal. So Kibeho, which is in Rwanda,
• 6:14
  is one of the seven places the Catholic Church have approved in
• 6:17
  the world, and it is only one on the continent of Africa that Our
• 6:22
  Lady appeared and had been approved by the Vatican.
• 6:25
  So she appeared 12 years before the genocide.
• 6:28
  And one of the things she said was that a terrible thing is
• 6:31
  going to happen to country if you don't come back to God to
• 6:35
  love each other. And she said I am here as a
• 6:38
  messenger of God, not as a Catholic, not even.
• 6:43
  She never said I'm a Christian. She came as the mother of Jesus
• 6:47
  who is God, turning to our children to bring them to God.
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  If she said if I'm speaking here, it does not mean that my
• 6:55
  message only concerns Rwanda, but the whole world.
• 6:58
  So the weapons she was giving us to defeat what was coming.
• 7:02
  Because she said if you listen, we can change what is coming.
• 7:05
  She was telling us, pray, come back to God, read the Bible,
• 7:09
  practice the word of God, the commandment of God, respect
• 7:12
  them. If you do enough people pray,
• 7:15
  pray the rosary, which is really the Bible.
• 7:17
  If you do, what is coming would not happen.
• 7:19
  So we knew everything. I remember one time it was
• 7:23
  August 15, 2019, 82 the kids she appeared to she showed them
• 7:29
  people killing each other with machetes, just exactly how it
• 7:32
  happened. She.
• 7:33
  Appeared to Rwandan children. Yeah, 3 kids so far who have
• 7:37
  been approved by the Vatican in high school in the place called
• 7:40
  Quebeco. I wrote about this too.
• 7:42
  So she said this is coming. So people used to say, but Mary,
• 7:45
  she can't talk about politics. I'm like, she's the mother of
• 7:49
  God. If she says politicians are
• 7:51
  making decisions that can hurt people, of course God is going
• 7:55
  to be concerned. Of course mother of God is going
• 7:58
  to be concerned. So some people didn't want to
• 8:00
  listen. But I, I saw what she predicted
• 8:04
  come through 1994, twelve years later.
• 8:09
  And again, she was saying, see each other as flowers of God,
• 8:12
  just gentle. And mother see, you are the
• 8:15
  children of God. You are the flowers of God.
• 8:18
  If flowers look different, it's not that they're bad, they're
• 8:22
  just different flowers. And that is as human beings,
• 8:25
  that is different tribes, that is different race races, you
• 8:29
  know, that's how they should, we should see them.
• 8:32
  And she said the only difference between flowers is the state of
• 8:36
  the flower. So she would show the children
• 8:39
  who saw her people flowers that are beautiful, different
• 8:42
  flowers, flowers that are weak, different flowers that are dry.
• 8:46
  And she said that is the state of the soul.
• 8:49
  If you have love, if you love one another, you respect God, of
• 8:52
  course you're a beautiful flower, no matter what type that
• 8:55
  flower is. So it was really beautiful.
• 8:57
  So I knew all this before the genocide started.
• 9:00
  So were there are a lot of Rwandans like yourself who were
• 9:04
  Catholic that knew about the aberration of Mary or were there
• 9:08
  Does the whole country know about this?
• 9:09
  The whole country. And they knew that there was
• 9:13
  this miraculous event there where the Mother of God was
• 9:16
  saying love each other and there's going to be a big
• 9:19
  catastrophe. And she actually showed a vision
• 9:21
  of people with machetes killing each other.
• 9:23
  So that and and everyone knew this.
• 9:26
  Everybody knew because was in every paper.
• 9:28
  It's what you have taken over the country.
• 9:30
  I mean, 100,000 people would go to see because when she came,
• 9:34
  she said, let's say she would say something like I'm coming
• 9:37
  August 15 at three. People will be there standing on
• 9:41
  their cars. They will be all over.
• 9:44
  And I mean, the radio or national radio in Rwanda, they
• 9:47
  came and put speakers everywhere in the trees so people can hear.
• 9:51
  I mean, somebody from heaven is talking to people.
• 9:54
  This is not just like anybody. So it was something that have
• 9:57
  changed the country. But, you know, this is also this
• 10:00
  what made her cry. She said many people would
• 10:02
  listen, but they won't apply. People come to be shocked.
• 10:07
  Wow, wow. But they won't do it.
• 10:10
  They won't respect those commandments.
• 10:12
  They won't go home and look at each other and change their
• 10:15
  hearts. It's just telling people change,
• 10:18
  repent, respect God's commandment, be kind to one
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  another, be be little respect, don't kill, don't commit
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  adultery or this will lead you to bad.
• 10:31
  Don't hate each other, forgive each other just as Jesus is
• 10:34
  saying. So we knew this, but how many
• 10:37
  people who prayed the rosary? I was one of the people who used
• 10:40
  to hear the messages and then I would she would say pray the
• 10:43
  rosary every day, connect to God, pray, pray, pray, repent.
• 10:47
  And I would God, I would start to pray the rosary, you know,
• 10:50
  every day and a month later I would stop.
• 10:54
  And so there are many people who we're really trying, but weekly,
• 10:59
  as I was that time, but the other people also were there to
• 11:03
  destroy it. What does she mean we should
• 11:05
  love each other? I can love that tribe.
• 11:08
  Why? What was the where did?
• 11:10
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• 11:13
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  check it out. Why there was so much enmity
• 13:20
  between the two tribes in Rwanda, so much hatred?
• 13:23
  Yeah, that's a good question. So I would really again insist
• 13:26
  on all the animosity that came was being governed or being a
• 13:33
  pushed by leaders of the country for their own interest.
• 13:37
  And when you see anywhere in the world where there is this
• 13:39
  divisions between people, there's always at the head of it
• 13:43
  people who are for their own self-interest, who are dividing
• 13:47
  people. I mean, I went to the island in
• 13:50
  the north where the he's still fighting.
• 13:52
  There's a war between Protestant and Catholics.
• 13:54
  I'm like, what? This is the same evil that came
• 13:57
  to us. But when you see behind that
• 14:00
  there's politicians, when you go to different places that races,
• 14:05
  what happened there is people who serve interests.
• 14:07
  So in Rwanda, first of all, we were all Rwandans at one time.
• 14:11
  Now we're back. Could the new government now are
• 14:14
  saying no more tribes? We have to look at each other as
• 14:17
  the key children of Rwanda. And they're really succeeding, I
• 14:21
  think because, I mean, for the first time in 30 years, we
• 14:24
  didn't have a war against each other.
• 14:27
  So what happened? We used to have a king.
• 14:30
  And with the colonialization of Belgians who came to colonize in
• 14:34
  19130, they they I mean, in 1900, yeah.
• 14:39
  In 1000, in 19 thirty, 19130, they divided the people.
• 14:45
  They literally shoot identity cards because what was behind it
• 14:49
  was we can't run the country if they get along this much.
• 14:54
  You know, it was yeah, for whatever group that was there
• 14:57
  that colonized, they wanted to divide and conquer.
• 15:00
  Yeah, this is small group. I always and you know, they
• 15:03
  killed us during the genocide saying them tutti, tutti.
• 15:06
  So I really try in my life not to generalize people.
• 15:09
  If somebody did wrong, they did wrong.
• 15:11
  Don't tell me the whole country, don't put it on the whole group
• 15:15
  of people and the whole state. So I really like to go like you
• 15:18
  did wrong. Don't say we you did unless you
• 15:22
  have a group of you who helped you but did so anyway.
• 15:25
  The group that was there at that time, the Belgians, they divided
• 15:30
  the people. They issued identity cards.
• 15:32
  They created the tribes. And then they said to make the
• 15:35
  tribes fight each other. And they would say, oh, those
• 15:39
  ones, they think they're better looking.
• 15:41
  And then the other what? So then they would talk to the
• 15:44
  people on radio. People start to feel like we're
• 15:46
  different than them. And they're the ones who did it.
• 15:49
  They would take literally the height.
• 15:51
  And they would say the people who are this tall, they would go
• 15:54
  in one category. They would take the size of the
• 15:56
  nose, the, the, the size between the eyes, like things like that.
• 16:01
  And then they created 2 categories, too many categories
• 16:05
  and they give the names. So before Tutsi and Hutu they
• 16:09
  used to exist those words but was more social economic.
• 16:13
  So if you had a cows you were Tutsi, but if you didn't want to
• 16:17
  be Tutsi and you wanted to work in the field, then you became
• 16:19
  Hutu. So by this time they say no, you
• 16:22
  are this. So from there they start to make
• 16:24
  people go like it against each other.
• 16:26
  So they would say let's vote for somebody from that tribe.
• 16:30
  Then of course everyone from their tribe will vote for that.
• 16:33
  So people started to really go against each other.
• 16:36
  So in 1994 we have had already 2 wars where they have, they were
• 16:41
  killing Tutsis. We never had that before where
• 16:43
  people were killing each other, but it was again because of the
• 16:46
  politicians. But then when they started to
• 16:49
  say on the radio or they think they're better, all of a sudden
• 16:52
  new friends start to feel like hey you guys, you think you, you
• 16:55
  look better than us. So little by little, they start
• 16:58
  to make people hate each other. And during the genocide, we were
• 17:02
  there. We thought, OK.
• 17:03
  And I mean, I couldn't believe, couldn't even think that
• 17:07
  somebody know can want to kill you, I mean.
• 17:11
  Someone you knew. You knew?
• 17:12
  Yeah. Did you know you knew people
• 17:14
  personally that tried to kill you?
• 17:15
  Oh, they did. I I knew.
• 17:17
  So when they started, my parents asked me to go to hide to a
• 17:20
  neighbor who was from the tribe of Hutu and who was a good man
• 17:24
  among many who were. But it was a time when the good
• 17:28
  guy have to be quiet. Only the brave one.
• 17:31
  We speak in times like that. The good Hutus were quiet,
• 17:34
  couldn't say word. The bad ones were on the street.
• 17:37
  So my parents sent me there and the only thing my father gave me
• 17:41
  was a rosary. He said go, take this.
• 17:44
  So I'm like, what about you? Is it go?
• 17:48
  I would come to pick you up myself.
• 17:50
  In my heart I knew that was it. I would never see them.
• 17:54
  People come home and my dad was a director of Catholic schools
• 17:58
  in the area. The people loved him and
• 17:59
  respected him, so people were running to him.
• 18:03
  By the time I left, the second day of the genocide, we had
• 18:06
  about 10,000 people. But still you don't understand.
• 18:10
  10,000 people who were coming. To my parents asking them what
• 18:13
  to do because they just thought he would have an idea what to do
• 18:17
  better. And he really stood there as a
• 18:21
  man of God, I would say, and, and brave.
• 18:23
  I, I remember when the last image I remember he, he held the
• 18:27
  rosary and he told everyone and he was speaking to different
• 18:30
  religions. This was not just Catholics, but
• 18:33
  because we're Catholics, we, we practice our faith.
• 18:36
  So he held the rosary and he said, if it is a matter of a
• 18:39
  small group that is trying to do this, because we already have
• 18:42
  heard they have started to kill people.
• 18:45
  So if it's a matter of a small group, we will defeat them.
• 18:48
  Do not be scared. And then he said, however, if it
• 18:51
  is the government, I can't lie to you, they already blocked the
• 18:55
  borders of the country. They have the military, they
• 18:58
  have the police. If it's them who are planning to
• 19:01
  do planning to kill us, they will kill us.
• 19:04
  And I remember thinking like, Dad, you, you just don't tell
• 19:06
  people they're going to die. And then he says something
• 19:09
  really that change the way I see life.
• 19:12
  He said even if it was a government, let's take this as a
• 19:15
  chance, God is giving us to repent our sins so we can go to
• 19:19
  heaven. In the end, everyone will die.
• 19:22
  So if this is our time, then this is our chance to reconcile
• 19:26
  with God. And everybody kept quiet.
• 19:29
  I was so worried for my dad. I loved him very much.
• 19:33
  I was one daughter among three boys, so I was very close to my
• 19:36
  dad. I loved prayer because of his
• 19:38
  example, his leadership home, You know, we never went to sleep
• 19:41
  without praying together. And he was always the one who
• 19:44
  led the prayers. So I was so close to him.
• 19:46
  I'm like, dad, people are going to be scared.
• 19:49
  And then they listened to him and after that he came.
• 19:52
  He said take the nursery and he got to the neighbor.
• 19:55
  So I went to the neighbor thinking again, it is going to
• 19:58
  be 2-3 days. The neighbors put him in the
• 20:01
  bathroom and he brought other seven women.
• 20:06
  We were eight people. First he brought 5, later he
• 20:08
  brought two more. We became eight people in 3 by 4
• 20:11
  feet. Even that I was like, but what
• 20:14
  have we done? We are innocent.
• 20:16
  What did you do? How did you say in that?
• 20:19
  Did you buy a four foot bathroom?
• 20:20
  88 women 8. People to these days, I went
• 20:23
  back many times. I go back, I sometimes I take
• 20:26
  groups to go to visit. So I went back the first time I
• 20:29
  said, Are you sure this was it? He's like, yeah, that's it.
• 20:34
  Did you change the color? Did you push it?
• 20:36
  Many smaller? He's like, Oh no, that was it.
• 20:39
  I never touched it. I never even changed the color.
• 20:42
  So how can you feed like that when you are surviving?
• 20:46
  Oh, we sat on top of each other and with time we we lost weight.
• 20:50
  I remember when I went in the bathroom I was 115 lbs.
• 20:54
  I was always skinny, but when I came out I was 65 lbs. 65 lbs.
• 21:00
  Every bone was out. I literally remember counting
• 21:03
  from here to the finger. I'm like, oh, we have a tiny
• 21:06
  bone here. From here to here.
• 21:08
  I was like O2 bones that are separated.
• 21:11
  I can see the space between and yet my heart have grown.
• 21:15
  My heart was big. I was like almost like watching
• 21:18
  myself from far. I'm like, wow, this is how these
• 21:21
  people, this is how we are. I remember that was 65 because
• 21:25
  the first doctor I saw, he checked me and he said you will
• 21:30
  never be normal. You didn't survive.
• 21:33
  He was a French doctor. He said you didn't survive, all
• 21:36
  you organs are dried, you didn't, you would have had a
• 21:40
  problem, you would have this and that.
• 21:42
  And I remember holding my rosary, this is after three
• 21:44
  months and I said the God who protected me from that, he would
• 21:48
  not let me go through the consequences if he, he saved me
• 21:52
  then he really saved me not to save me for consequences to kill
• 21:55
  me then. And and I truly after 30 years,
• 21:58
  I have never had any consequence in my health because of that.
• 22:02
  So the three months we stayed in that bathroom.
• 22:06
  So I went through such change. And it is really the reason why
• 22:10
  I write. I can't even speak to you
• 22:12
  otherwise. Yeah.
• 22:13
  There's a difference between surviving and being saved and
• 22:17
  being saved literally to truly survive.
• 22:20
  And. And I was somewhere I knew if I
• 22:23
  did not come back to God, I always feel like I was pushed in
• 22:27
  the corner so that I can practice what I knew in words
• 22:31
  fully to come back to God. To come back to God.
• 22:34
  Yeah. What happened in those three
• 22:37
  months when you were in the bathroom with eight women?
• 22:40
  For your hiding, for your life. I know it is really hard for
• 22:43
  eight women to be together, not to be able to talk.
• 22:45
  However, one of the things that was crucial, the man told us not
• 22:49
  to talk to each other. He said one word can be enough.
• 22:53
  So he put us in the first day. He said, I'm going to tell my
• 22:56
  children that I, I, I sent you out because if I say 1 and
• 23:01
  somebody discussed with somebody, you don't know who to
• 23:03
  trust, to trust in times like that.
• 23:06
  So he said, I won't even tell them you're here.
• 23:08
  So be quiet. This was a four bedroom house.
• 23:11
  This is a small, I mean a small village, but also it really was
• 23:16
  very poor. I'm in a still poor to this day.
• 23:18
  But he said don't make any noise, and this was a big home
• 23:22
  or 4 bedrooms. If you do, you don't know who
• 23:25
  can say something. So we had to sit on top of each
• 23:27
  other quietly. We will literally stand up to
• 23:30
  change spaces. And then the youngest was seven
• 23:33
  years old, the older was 55, others were teenagers.
• 23:36
  So we would make space so that the other person would sit on
• 23:40
  top of each other. And then we were sitting on the
• 23:44
  bathroom, the toilet. I didn't have a sink because
• 23:47
  this is 3 by 4 feet. It was a small place.
• 23:49
  Like now when I go back my feet touch the other wall.
• 23:53
  How this is how this happened. However during what changed a
• 23:57
  lot it is really what I wrote and left to tell is my heart and
• 24:01
  it is everything I remember thinking wow we have a big world
• 24:05
  here inside and this is really what matters in my heart.
• 24:09
  I I was first emotions and every bad emotions they hurt and they
• 24:14
  hurt differently. I remember changing from anger.
• 24:17
  I was so angry. I can die out of anger.
• 24:21
  I couldn't remember how to smile out of anger.
• 24:24
  I would think about the what they're doing to us.
• 24:26
  I would Why did I ever even love them?
• 24:29
  Why did I ever trust any one of them?
• 24:32
  And I was hating the whole tribe, meaning including maybe
• 24:36
  the man was hiding me. Children who are not born yet,
• 24:39
  that is a danger. When you hate everybody, you
• 24:42
  hate people who are not even guilty.
• 24:44
  So. But I was blinded by my anger.
• 24:47
  I would be angry. My blood will be running faster.
• 24:49
  Then I would think about things I do, I can do and that and
• 24:52
  that. And the worst thing about anger,
• 24:54
  it becomes obsessive. It becomes like a sickness.
• 24:57
  So you think you are done thinking about it or you are not
• 25:00
  done. Now you start to think again.
• 25:02
  And then and then I can do this. I can be a soldier and then I
• 25:05
  can revenge. I'm like, what am I going to do?
• 25:08
  I wish I can be innocent again, not even think.
• 25:12
  Then I would move from anger to fear.
• 25:14
  What if they find me? They would kill me.
• 25:16
  They would cut him in pieces. They would rape me.
• 25:18
  They would keep me, maybe in their homes and just wait until
• 25:22
  they torture me. That will burn like my stomach
• 25:26
  will be on fire. Then I would move from that
• 25:28
  impatience. I can't take it, not one more
• 25:31
  day. I mean, even prisoners, at least
• 25:34
  they go to a cell on their own. I'm in a cell with eight people,
• 25:38
  maybe half of the cell, and I'm an innocent.
• 25:41
  And that is the worst thing to think that you're innocent.
• 25:44
  You want to justify the evil, You want to make sense of the
• 25:47
  evil, and evil doesn't make sense.
• 25:50
  It's only fought by goodness. It's only fought by prayer.
• 25:54
  You can't try to understand. And that what I was trying.
• 25:57
  I'm like, why? Why is it they can't see me that
• 26:00
  I'm innocent? Because that what evil does.
• 26:03
  Evil is there to destroy. You have to fight other ways.
• 26:06
  What can I do now with what I have but pray?
• 26:10
  So one of the best and the worst thing that happened in that
• 26:13
  bathroom. They came to search so on.
• 26:17
  Not only they killed people in stadiums, in churches, but they
• 26:20
  came to search home by home. So one day all my anger,
• 26:25
  impatience thinking I'm dying out of anger my face had become
• 26:30
  twisted. I'm just like this is melancholy
• 26:32
  angry person and I I couldn't even recognize myself with the
• 26:36
  angry and fear. So they came to search and I
• 26:39
  still have the rosary. I couldn't even pray before I
• 26:42
  would say our father and I would stop.
• 26:44
  The anxiety would take me to so many thoughts.
• 26:46
  But this time they came to search and I knew my life was
• 26:49
  over. And I start to feel as if I had
• 26:52
  voices above my shoulders. And I always say, tell people
• 26:56
  these voices are not strange. This is like me being
• 26:59
  reasonable. But there's always like a two
• 27:01
  side of the story. When you're facing a challenge,
• 27:03
  do it. Don't do it, Be brave.
• 27:06
  No, don't do it or give up. Don't give up in this contrary
• 27:10
  voice. But it was much louder for me.
• 27:13
  I feel like one voice was telling me, open the door and
• 27:16
  the torture is too much. You can't take it.
• 27:19
  And again, that sounds like me being reasonable, but there was
• 27:22
  another voice that was calling me.
• 27:24
  Trust God, ask him, keep praying, don't stop praying.
• 27:29
  Don't open the door and keep asking him to help you.
• 27:33
  Remember, ask shall be given. Like these words are going
• 27:36
  through my heart. Knock, the door will be open.
• 27:38
  Keep asking Jesus. But I'm like, maybe it's too
• 27:41
  late. Can God hear me?
• 27:43
  They're right here. I mean, there were 3 to 400
• 27:46
  people searching for bedrooms, dressed in banana leaves, all
• 27:51
  kind of machetes all over their body.
• 27:53
  I saw them through the little window.
• 27:55
  But this was a Hootie's house. Yes.
• 27:57
  And they still searched it, even though they were Hootie's.
• 27:59
  Yes, and so they would. They knew that they might be
• 28:02
  hiding. Yes, that's what I mean.
• 28:04
  Yes, there's really no such a bad people as a whole group of
• 28:07
  people. And they were smart.
• 28:09
  The killers they knew, sent by the government, they knew that
• 28:13
  in their own people's tribe, they're good people who would
• 28:15
  not do what they're doing. How did 200 of these men missed
• 28:23
  the bathroom? That's why I am.
• 28:26
  I'm in love with God because of the I saw him in a worse
• 28:30
  situation when things are still going well, you still give
• 28:34
  yourself credit. Like, yeah, maybe it's because
• 28:36
  of my effort. But when you see like, there is
• 28:38
  no way, that's when you know this is not me.
• 28:41
  It was God. And then blessed are those who
• 28:44
  can believe in him, because you know he's everything.
• 28:47
  Everylife.com is America's pro-life baby diaper and wipes
• 28:51
  company and I'm so excited to share about their new products
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• 29:59
  As I was there now fighting this voice how they stopped to how
• 30:02
  they didn't find us. I literally felt God was asking
• 30:06
  me keep praying or my my guardian Angel keep praying.
• 30:12
  So I'm praying and remember asking God for a sign.
• 30:16
  If you are there, just give me a sign so that at least I know
• 30:20
  even if I die, there's heaven. It doesn't end here.
• 30:23
  I realized that maybe I didn't believe enough.
• 30:26
  So I asked God for sign and the sign I asked.
• 30:29
  I said don't let the killers open the door of the bathroom
• 30:33
  just today. And again, in my human
• 30:36
  imagination, there's no way they won't find us.
• 30:39
  And this was a painful time because you think like any
• 30:42
  second to open the door, put a knife in your back or shoot you.
• 30:46
  So I'm like, it was like 1000 needles are still going through
• 30:49
  my body. And I'm asking God, just show me
• 30:51
  you are there. You can do all the things.
• 30:53
  You parted the water, you resurrected the dead.
• 30:56
  There's no way that you can, you cannot stop this man.
• 30:59
  Just show me you are there because now I'm not even sure.
• 31:02
  So after I ask God, don't let them open the door of the
• 31:05
  bathroom. If only you are there to show
• 31:07
  me. I fainted.
• 31:09
  I didn't hear anything until five hours later.
• 31:12
  The man opened the door and we thought it was them.
• 31:15
  I jumped we or jumped. We couldn't talk.
• 31:18
  Then he says, oh, they left. They left how long ago?
• 31:23
  I I thought it was like 5 minutes, but he told us it had
• 31:26
  been five hours. So he told us what happened.
• 31:29
  They went around the house 200, like there were 3 to 400, he
• 31:33
  said. So a bigger number went around
• 31:36
  the house to make sure no one would jump out of the window.
• 31:38
  Another number went in every room under the beds.
• 31:41
  They opened the closet, They went in the ceiling of the house
• 31:44
  with flashlights. They even opened suitcases to
• 31:47
  make sure there were no babies hiding.
• 31:49
  And then he told us they came right to the door of the
• 31:51
  bathroom. This is really what convinced
• 31:53
  me. God it's amazing.
• 31:56
  I wish everyone can love him and just count on him.
• 31:59
  Even when they're trouble. You will see his hand if you
• 32:02
  just hold on to him. Don't give up.
• 32:04
  So he told us one of the killers touched the handle and the man
• 32:08
  said I was sweating, I was shaking.
• 32:10
  They could have looked in my face.
• 32:11
  I don't understand why they stopped here.
• 32:13
  So before he pulled, he looked at him and said, you know what,
• 32:17
  we trust you. You are one of us.
• 32:19
  You cannot hide these bad people.
• 32:22
  And he turned around and they left.
• 32:25
  He said you are leaving when you have just arrived where they
• 32:28
  are. So when the man told us, in my
• 32:31
  heart I knew there is no way. That is only God who can do
• 32:34
  that. And this is not to say the
• 32:36
  people who died or they didn't pray.
• 32:38
  I really also realized that some people who died, at least some
• 32:42
  people I know, including my brother, they were prepared
• 32:45
  somehow they came to an agreement.
• 32:48
  The people, especially those who pray, they came to place where
• 32:51
  God convinced their hearts, this is your time for me.
• 32:54
  Not one minute. I was keep telling God not like
• 32:58
  this, not now, please, please not now.
• 33:00
  Why did I want to leave? I don't even understand.
• 33:03
  But like one brother who was killed, my brother, he wrote me
• 33:06
  a letter before we killed him and I put in my book left to
• 33:09
  tear a copy of that letter. And he said, if I die, don't
• 33:14
  worry, I'm going to try to cross the border so I can run.
• 33:17
  But if I die, don't worry, I'm prepared for heaven.
• 33:22
  I'll be fine. All I know is that we will see
• 33:25
  each other, if not in this life in the next.
• 33:28
  Who says that? So that's why I know that many
• 33:32
  people. God works with everyone.
• 33:34
  If there's a descend your heart, you go for it.
• 33:36
  If you want to leave, don't give up.
• 33:38
  He would be with you. He'll protect you, maybe for his
• 33:41
  purpose. And actually now when I look
• 33:43
  back, I'm like, gosh, my whole family work Saints, maybe it's
• 33:46
  me who needed to stay behind so that I can, you know, be
• 33:49
  concerned. We've got more in the work for
• 33:51
  heaven as they were pure. So even if I can't go to tell
• 33:56
  myself, like if there's something I can condemn myself I
• 33:58
  was doing. But still, I really, I mean,
• 34:01
  every day we look in our hearts like I can be better, I can be
• 34:04
  better. I'm keep growing.
• 34:06
  So anyway, they did that what they did once.
• 34:09
  I just described they did it 8 times and.
• 34:13
  Come to the door of the bathroom 8.
• 34:15
  Times and I described in the next time they came I asked the
• 34:20
  man who was hiding us to put the wardrobe in front of the door
• 34:24
  and the next time they came in wardrobe a different group would
• 34:27
  come. So it was it was really God.
• 34:31
  So I had so another big thing that happened during that time
• 34:34
  in the bathroom. The pain of course that I can't
• 34:37
  put in words. It was now I was convinced that
• 34:41
  I needed to forgive people and this was not easy.
• 34:46
  Why? Because the moment I knew God
• 34:47
  was read because after they didn't find us the first time, I
• 34:51
  truly knew that God is 100% read.
• 34:53
  But what do you do when you know God is read?
• 34:55
  You start praying, start seeking him even in that bathroom.
• 34:59
  So I asked the man who was hiding us so give me a Bible.
• 35:02
  He was actually a Protestant pastor.
• 35:04
  So he gave me the Bible and I had the resume I have given me
• 35:08
  and I started to read Making sense of life.
• 35:10
  Where do we go when we die? What are we supposed to do?
• 35:13
  And everything was pointing back forgive how many times 770 times
• 35:19
  and I thought I can't even forgive once, you know now look
• 35:22
  at me like got to keep pointing to forgive.
• 35:25
  So I said to pray the rosary, which is where the rosary is the
• 35:28
  summary of the Bible is you come back again to the events of the
• 35:31
  Bible and I remember anytime I we pray our Lord is prayer,
• 35:36
  which is a part of the rosary. I prayed all day I would feel
• 35:39
  that God is telling that you're lying to God when you whenever I
• 35:42
  say forgive us our trespasses as we forgive.
• 35:47
  I just lied. I just lied.
• 35:48
  It's all there was convinced like I'm lying to God and if you
• 35:51
  lied to somebody you love, how can you expect them to just be
• 35:55
  true to you and you you are not willing to be true to them.
• 35:58
  So that was like a something that was really bothering me and
• 36:01
  all of a sudden I start to shift things and then I put it to God.
• 36:06
  I remember starting even to skip that part of the prayer because
• 36:09
  I couldn't didn't want to lie to God and I couldn't forgive.
• 36:13
  How do you forgive somebody who is trying to look for you, who
• 36:16
  is looking for you to kill you? They're not even done yet.
• 36:19
  They're still doing it and you want to forgive them.
• 36:22
  But God was almost telling into my heart truly many times in the
• 36:26
  dreams, let go, give it to me. I'm a just God.
• 36:31
  I will deal with it. When we forgive people, it's not
• 36:34
  that we just give them a pass like OK, fine, all you did is
• 36:37
  write or no consequences. You just take it out of your
• 36:42
  hands, you give it to God, then you don't put yourself in
• 36:44
  trouble making judgments that are not based on love, you know,
• 36:48
  then making even more mistakes. So I started to skip the part.
• 36:52
  After time I realized, wait, it's Jesus who gave those words
• 36:56
  and Jesus cannot make a mistake. And I did not want my Jesus to
• 37:00
  make a mistake. Maybe I would have manipulated
• 37:03
  it if it was going to help me. However, I realized that if then
• 37:07
  I can't trust one word Jesus said, then I don't have the
• 37:11
  right to trust everything else. And I'm counting on him.
• 37:14
  So he better be right everything he says.
• 37:17
  So I'm like, OK, if you say those words, they have to be
• 37:19
  true. That's how I can trust what else
• 37:22
  you said. Knock, it will be open.
• 37:25
  Ask should be given for those who believe all things work
• 37:28
  together for the best. So how can I believe that if I
• 37:31
  don't believe that? And that's what everything I
• 37:34
  had. So I put back the pray, the
• 37:37
  prayer, knowing it was Jesus who gave the words.
• 37:39
  And one time I just went to my knees and said, help me, tell me
• 37:43
  to forgive. If you can protect me in that
• 37:47
  bathroom, why can't you change my heart?
• 37:50
  So I realized it was me who was not trusting him and not
• 37:53
  trusting him, even my anger to change my heart.
• 37:56
  It was the best place to be. And the moment happened.
• 37:59
  I remember I was meditating on 1/5 sorrowful mystery part of
• 38:03
  the rosary when you you meditate on the event of Jesus dying on
• 38:07
  the cross and I'm there, I'm reading the Bible.
• 38:09
  What happened? I'm like, why did you do that?
• 38:12
  I feel like you were speaking to my heart because I love you.
• 38:16
  I wanted to save you, but why didn't you do the better way?
• 38:20
  You know, come like a Pope, you know, dress nice and bodyguards.
• 38:24
  Why did you have to go through the cross?
• 38:26
  And I truly feel like Jesus was speaking back again because I
• 38:30
  wanted to show you if you ever go through anything too close to
• 38:34
  what I have gone through, if you ever go through anything close
• 38:37
  to what I have gone through, I was there before you.
• 38:40
  Learn from me. Don't hate, give it to me.
• 38:45
  I was on the cross, I had nails in my body and I forgive them.
• 38:49
  So I'm like, what? And I remember reading the Bible
• 38:52
  and I reached to this part. Forgive them.
• 38:54
  They don't know what they do. Pray for them instead, because
• 38:57
  they're also my children and I'm losing them.
• 39:00
  And if you love me enough, pray for my children whom I'm losing.
• 39:05
  Everything changed in that moment, literally.
• 39:08
  So after that I was a new person, I completely forgive and
• 39:12
  I prayed for people, I prayed to change and I realized if I can
• 39:16
  change then anyone can change. So that means I can pray more
• 39:19
  for them instead of condemning and insulting, you know they
• 39:24
  doing wrong. You can't change that.
• 39:26
  But I can do something about it that can change things for the
• 39:29
  better. So I said to pray for them.
• 39:32
  And I remember having a dream before I came outside of the
• 39:35
  bathroom and the dream was Jesus telling me if you continue to
• 39:39
  love me, He said when you come out you will find out the whole
• 39:42
  family had been killed and I thought they were still hiding.
• 39:46
  And he said if you continue to love me and to trust me, those
• 39:49
  two things I always tell people, find a way that you can feel
• 39:53
  like you are loving Jesus, you are trusting him.
• 39:55
  If you do that, the rest you will take care of it.
• 39:57
  Just go out and do the best you can and use the strength he
• 40:01
  gives you, but love him, trust Him.
• 40:04
  He said if you continue to love me and to trust me.
• 40:08
  I will be there for you and I will do for you more than what
• 40:11
  your parents could have been able to do for you.
• 40:14
  In the dream I said, if you take care of me, who else do I need?
• 40:18
  You are God. And then when I wake up, I said
• 40:21
  what I said yes to, that I should have asked him to protect
• 40:24
  them too. And I commenced myself to us a
• 40:27
  dream. But three months later, when I
• 40:30
  came out, I found out it was not just a dream.
• 40:33
  A million people was killed, and among them my parents.
• 40:37
  My mom was killed, my dad, my two brothers, my grandma, my
• 40:41
  grandpa, my neighbors, my schoolmates, my best friends.
• 40:44
  Everybody was killed. A million people were killed in
• 40:47
  a period of three months. Dead bodies were everywhere.
• 40:50
  Our homes were destroyed, banks were emptied.
• 40:54
  It was like, am I? Is this the end of the world?
• 40:57
  Is it the beginning of the world?
• 40:58
  What is going on every people was out there's nothing good in
• 41:03
  the world. There's nothing good.
• 41:05
  It's terrible and there's nothing good in doing evil and
• 41:09
  how do I know what is evil Whatever is against God is not
• 41:13
  good is holding on yourselves. And I remember screaming and
• 41:17
  crying and and I I used truly. I mean, I still feel that in
• 41:22
  prayer. God's hand were right there.
• 41:25
  I feel like God was literally giving me a choice.
• 41:29
  From now on it's up to you what do you choose to live.
• 41:32
  You have your freedom, but what do you do is up to you.
• 41:36
  And remember, your life is moment by moment because you
• 41:39
  don't know if you're going to live one day, one year, 10/20/30
• 41:43
  and that is for all of us. What do you have is the capacity
• 41:46
  to choose what you do moment by moment and how you use either to
• 41:51
  love or to hate, to be kind or be mean, to do what is good, be
• 41:55
  courageous, defend what is right or careless, use your strength
• 42:00
  or be lazy. If you choose love, if you
• 42:03
  choose to defend what is good, if you what is right, if you,
• 42:06
  you choose to use your life or to love, I am with you.
• 42:11
  Ask me for everything, anything you need.
• 42:13
  And I felt like God was always telling me.
• 42:16
  And to this day you don't have to ask for too much, just ask
• 42:19
  for what you need. Because if tomorrow you are
• 42:21
  still there, I will be there too.
• 42:23
  You can ask me for them from there.
• 42:26
  I remember waking up and taking a pen, you know, asking the
• 42:30
  soldiers were protecting us like give me a pen and I would write
• 42:33
  the test to God and give him a list of what I needed.
• 42:36
  I need close to change. I took nothing for granted.
• 42:41
  I just was like, I'm going to ask what I need today.
• 42:43
  Not a house because I would not know how to manage a house right
• 42:47
  now. I just need a bed.
• 42:49
  If you give make somebody give me a bed to sleep in, I'm I'm
• 42:52
  grateful. But then I would need a bed
• 42:54
  sheets and I would need a blanket and I would need a
• 42:57
  pillow. I gave him like 150 list of what
• 43:00
  I needed a comb, you know, little cream lotion for my skin.
• 43:06
  And every day I saw one little thing come.
• 43:09
  Oh wow, God answered me one by one.
• 43:12
  So the genocide was horrible, but the joy to to come to God,
• 43:17
  to love him, to depend on him, to see his hands and to
• 43:21
  acknowledge that every blessing comes from him and really also
• 43:25
  realize that I need to stand in him how I do, how I think, how I
• 43:29
  act. I need to at least to know in my
• 43:31
  heart I'm doing something that he can say, OK, that's good.
• 43:35
  Because anything that you think God will not bless your effort
• 43:40
  is worthless. Sometimes we have things can
• 43:43
  even work against ourselves. So but what do you do for love
• 43:47
  of another? And love is really that's the
• 43:50
  goal. That's it.
• 43:51
  That's the whole, I think the task and not the goal, the task
• 43:55
  of every human being to me with different skills.
• 43:57
  Of course, you know, I always say today the challenges I have
• 44:01
  to love is different than I would I had been, but the same
• 44:04
  task is the same to love. You know, sometimes I am in
• 44:07
  sitting this tiny seats in the plane and for hours and I just
• 44:12
  have to push my bag to love somebody who's sitting beside me
• 44:15
  so that he can have enough room. Don't go on your phone so you
• 44:19
  don't make noise for them. Be silent a little bit.
• 44:21
  Give them a break. And that's love how you talk to
• 44:25
  people because we can hate by how we look at people.
• 44:28
  We can hate how we act, the tone of her voice, you know, or we
• 44:32
  can love and sometimes we can love tough ways, but it's love.
• 44:37
  So love is this task. And as much as I try to love, I
• 44:41
  realize how much I feel or so. And I'm Catholic.
• 44:44
  I go to confession every two weeks.
• 44:46
  No matter how much I try, every time I look back in my heart,
• 44:49
  I'm like, I need to go to confession.
• 44:51
  I would have done. I should have done better.
• 44:53
  Yeah. So yeah, that was my story.
• 44:55
  But I really look forward to heaven, you know?
• 45:00
  I hope when I wrote my book Left to Tell, it took me 3 weeks.
• 45:04
  Three weeks only to write your book.
• 45:06
  Three weeks. The first draft, the second
• 45:08
  draft took me 3 months. I was on fire.
• 45:11
  Just wanted to share with people this was a goal.
• 45:13
  I just wanted to to remind another person there's hope.
• 45:17
  I mean, I know the work you do you.
• 45:18
  Thank you so much for protecting the unborn.
• 45:22
  And the part of my book and my story really is just to remind a
• 45:25
  woman who is thinking the only way out is abortion.
• 45:28
  Don't do it. Count on Jesus.
• 45:31
  Don't do what is not good in his eyes.
• 45:33
  I promise you through that child you will be so blessed.
• 45:37
  If you taking a decision to be betrayal to another friend, to
• 45:41
  do something bad so you can get all you want, don't do it, it's
• 45:44
  not worth it. Just hold on to Jesus.
• 45:47
  Give yourself if another person is happy, don't be jealous, be
• 45:50
  happy with them, enjoy their joy and if they're sad, be there for
• 45:54
  them to hold on to God. In the end, one day to be gone
• 45:59
  just like that. And the only thing we be judged
• 46:02
  about how much we have loved, how much, how brave we were to
• 46:08
  defend what is right, not to follow the whole group, not to
• 46:11
  follow the friends, but to defend on what was good.
• 46:14
  And if you fall, you fell, of course, go to compassion, ask
• 46:18
  God to forgive you. We really have it easy, at least
• 46:22
  as Christians, as a Christian, we have it easy.
• 46:24
  God is just said, come back. You can start all over.
• 46:28
  As long as you leave, you can change everything.
• 46:31
  The people we have in the Bible, David, what he he did and he he
• 46:35
  just apologized so well and he's a man.
• 46:38
  God said a man after my heart, Abraham have sinned.
• 46:41
  But look at the man who men who knew how to come back to God and
• 46:44
  say I'm sorry. So it's really among the
• 46:48
  killers. I have met people who killed my
• 46:49
  family. Yeah, he went to prison and met
• 46:52
  one man. And I truly and I wanted to see
• 46:54
  how I feel. People used to tell me you can't
• 46:57
  forgive them so quickly. It's not possible.
• 47:00
  It's not like I say they're right, but I don't understand
• 47:03
  what that forgiveness even was. What I know is that my heart was
• 47:06
  in love of Jesus and these people, in their weakness where
• 47:09
  they are, I'm praying for them. And I'm not saying take them out
• 47:12
  of the prison because somebody's trying to kill.
• 47:15
  If you take them out of the prison before they repent, then
• 47:18
  we continue to do the same. So it's not that I meant it's a
• 47:22
  forgiveness that I see this person, a human being.
• 47:24
  You bless them, you wish them good, but where they are.
• 47:28
  Cindy, I went to meet this man. How did they know it was the man
• 47:31
  that had killed your family? So in Rwanda, killing, was it on
• 47:34
  fashion? It wasn't something that they
• 47:36
  were hiding. The man, the people used to come
• 47:39
  to search for us. I remember them outside of the
• 47:41
  door and they said he sent us, he sent us and we must find her.
• 47:46
  She's the only one we're missing in the whole family.
• 47:49
  So they were specifically looking for you.
• 47:52
  Oh, they did, yeah. And, and so, and who were these
• 47:55
  people exactly? Were they people that you knew?
• 47:57
  Were they? Knew who were friends of the
• 47:59
  family. The people that came to kill you
• 48:01
  in the bathroom, you knew them. I knew.
• 48:03
  They recognize their voice. Recognize their voice.
• 48:05
  I saw them through the window. I recognized their faces, their
• 48:07
  people. I knew.
• 48:09
  And had they been like a next door neighbor?
• 48:11
  How? Or in the town.
• 48:12
  Yeah, they were all neighbors. Some of them I went to school
• 48:14
  with who were in the group. So they were younger people.
• 48:17
  Too young people, 30 yard, 3020 something 40.
• 48:21
  But the man who was older, who was the head of the group, was a
• 48:24
  friend of my father. He was like in his 40s.
• 48:27
  He was a man who had a great job.
• 48:29
  His children were my age. He was like a father to me and I
• 48:32
  met him in the prison. What do you make of that?
• 48:35
  How how do you think you talked about earlier the media
• 48:40
  fomenting hatred between the groups, seeing the others as the
• 48:44
  other. You know, they're not one of us
• 48:46
  and and but that seems so. I mean, in the United States, we
• 48:50
  have divisiveness right here, the politics and the media
• 48:53
  fomenting. But you know the to imagine, you
• 48:58
  open, you know you, you leave your home because there's an
• 49:00
  assassination of a of a president, and then you go to
• 49:03
  war with your neighbors to intentionally murder your
• 49:06
  neighbors. It is serious, yeah.
• 49:08
  It wasn't all the neighbors and I always say out of a, let's say
• 49:12
  million Hutu, 200 or 100,000 killed.
• 49:16
  So it wasn't everyone of the other tribe, however.
• 49:18
  So 1/5 of the entire. Tribe, Yeah, was killing.
• 49:22
  They were killing and it was against us, not against each
• 49:26
  other. And how many of the Tutsis
• 49:28
  survived? I truly don't really, you know,
• 49:33
  Yeah, let's say 1%. So a million they were
• 49:37
  completely. Extended, yeah.
• 49:39
  And that what they were saying. I remember when a government
• 49:42
  minister said don't forget children, don't forget elder
• 49:44
  people. It's a cleansing.
• 49:46
  So now this is a really aggressive God.
• 49:49
  We have more than a million Tutsis now in Rwanda.
• 49:51
  Why? Because during the course of 30
• 49:54
  years, when they were persecuting us, they used to
• 49:57
  chase us away from the country. So if you had a good diploma,
• 49:59
  they'd kill you or they would chase you away from the country,
• 50:02
  persecute you. So with that, after the
• 50:05
  genocide, they all came back inside the country.
• 50:07
  Wow, so you're. What they felt safe to come
• 50:09
  back. Yeah, they felt safe because the
• 50:11
  people who stopped the genocide were refugees who run to Uganda.
• 50:15
  So they came fighting for three months.
• 50:17
  They were like, we're coming, we're coming.
• 50:19
  We cannot let our brothers continue to be killed.
• 50:22
  We're coming. And they were laid with the man
• 50:24
  now who became the president of the country.
• 50:27
  And truly, we love him when he's a father.
• 50:30
  And that's how they stopped the genocide.
• 50:32
  So they had did they have to put 200,000 of the killers in jail?
• 50:37
  How did that work? So many people, yeah, many
• 50:39
  people went to jail or is more than because hotels were like 7
• 50:42
  million. So many thousands of them went
• 50:45
  to prison and then thousands, millions run away from the
• 50:48
  country. And to this day the doors are
• 50:51
  open, the country tells them come back.
• 50:53
  As long as you're wondering, however, you would have to be
• 50:56
  tried if you killed. So they don't come back.
• 50:59
  Then Conger in Congo, next door to our country.
• 51:02
  So and then after, because of so many people in the prison, they
• 51:06
  also did something, the Koruga Church.
• 51:09
  So it's a court, local court where the government said, OK,
• 51:13
  anyone who only killed once, let's take it like they will lie
• 51:18
  to So if you killed once or. They killed one person.
• 51:21
  Yeah, no, once, once. Meaning during the genocide,
• 51:25
  even if you killed many people, but you never had any other
• 51:27
  crime. Let's say you took yourself like
• 51:29
  a soldier, like that's why you did.
• 51:32
  That's how they kind of. But you have to admit it and you
• 51:35
  have to apologize and you have to answer the questions of the
• 51:38
  people who survived. You killed their people in their
• 51:41
  family. So they will bring them to court
• 51:44
  and they took the elders in the area and they will say judge if
• 51:47
  this person deserves to come back to the village and if you
• 51:51
  don't find them worthy then they go back to prison.
• 51:54
  So if you think they're lying, they can still harm people, then
• 51:56
  they have to go back to prison. So they laid out like 40,000
• 52:00
  people, all of the prison who killed people.
• 52:02
  Men, women and children. Too.
• 52:04
  Yeah, one which was not easy for many people to accept, but still
• 52:08
  because they brought them a lot to confess over months of
• 52:12
  confession. So people were able to accept it
• 52:15
  because they would go and ask them questions because many
• 52:18
  survivors were saying take us to prison, feed us.
• 52:21
  You're feeding them, you're giving them everything.
• 52:24
  But we're struggling with pain with everything.
• 52:27
  So they they let them out, but let them out after confessing a
• 52:31
  lot. So one of them, for example, I
• 52:33
  met him. So there's one I made in the
• 52:35
  prison who killed my brother, who was the head of the one who
• 52:38
  was looking for me too. And I truly offered him
• 52:41
  forgiveness. You can just fit this man once.
• 52:43
  Whatever he's fighting inside is not him.
• 52:46
  And it's him, of course, but I don't have to compete with him
• 52:49
  with whatever even that was fighting him.
• 52:52
  So when I forgave him, he covered his eyes.
• 52:54
  So that was one. And then later he died in
• 52:56
  prison. But there's another man who was
• 52:58
  outside who came out, who killed some of my cousins.
• 53:01
  I went to look for him. I mean, I met him and then he
• 53:05
  came to me. He's ripped in my eyes.
• 53:06
  He said I know you forgive, but I have a problem.
• 53:10
  I'm like, what? First he asked me to help his
• 53:13
  children to go to school. I know.
• 53:15
  And I did. I mean, he did.
• 53:17
  I really did. Yeah.
• 53:18
  You didn't feel that that was for a man who had literally
• 53:21
  slaughtered with machetes your cousins just to tell you, Can
• 53:25
  you help my kids go to school now?
• 53:27
  It's it's a person by person. That child also is a victim as I
• 53:31
  am, you know, to his father. It's not like is what they eat
• 53:35
  in the house, You know, the blood that run through them is
• 53:38
  really the decision his father did.
• 53:40
  So that was one. And then after I said, can I ask
• 53:44
  you something? You pray I don't sleep.
• 53:48
  I know you forgive us, but I don't sleep.
• 53:50
  I mean, what do you mean you don't sleep?
• 53:52
  He says, I sleep. And then the faces of people I
• 53:55
  killed, they come back to me. So I literally I saw him like
• 53:59
  tormented like that. He said, I don't know what to
• 54:02
  do. I was like, OK, this what do you
• 54:04
  do? You go to church, you go to the
• 54:06
  statue of Our Lady Mary, the mother of Jesus, and you tell
• 54:09
  her how you feel and ask her to pray for mercy for you so that
• 54:13
  your conscience can be clean. I mean, doing evil is not the
• 54:17
  worst thing because when we do bad, our conscience is tainted
• 54:22
  and it's going to suffer if we don't repent.
• 54:24
  Out of that. I saw this man.
• 54:26
  I'm like, I don't want to be in his shoes.
• 54:29
  He's he's now suffering. He said when he was in prison,
• 54:32
  it was better for him. He said, so at least I was
• 54:35
  paying for my sins. But now I'm like, I don't know
• 54:38
  who I am. I don't even deserve to be here.
• 54:41
  Then I can't sleep. He's like, you think.
• 54:43
  You think if I go to church and I ask God to to give me a
• 54:46
  peaceful heart, it's possible. I'm like, yeah, I'm like, lend
• 54:51
  the rosary. Go to a lady.
• 54:53
  Ask God to pray for you. She can she can pray for you and
• 54:56
  and earn you a new heart and and and more peaceful heart.
• 55:00
  But it was just like, I mean, when you look at him, you you
• 55:03
  realize that he's fighting. And like you said many times we
• 55:06
  think if we revenge then like equal or we fix anything.
• 55:11
  You don't fix anything except that you harm yourself too.
• 55:15
  You know, so yeah. What happened?
• 55:17
  Did he go and ask for forgiveness?
• 55:19
  And I've seen. I think he have done.
• 55:21
  We meet today. He's still he's still in misery.
• 55:24
  In misery. I don't think he he prays much.
• 55:28
  You know, any time I go to my village, I see him again.
• 55:31
  He come to me. He's limping.
• 55:32
  He come to me, you know, he look at me.
• 55:34
  He's again the children. This my wife is sick.
• 55:37
  He always tell me the problem he's going through, like asking
• 55:39
  for help. And I truly.
• 55:41
  Yeah, he. Yeah, you, you say something
• 55:44
  good about government sometimes, like radio media.
• 55:47
  There's one thing I saw in people who killed.
• 55:51
  They haven't come on because everyone was listening.
• 55:54
  So how come it was only that 10% that went to kill?
• 55:59
  Why not 50? Why not 90?
• 56:01
  The people who responded to that hate are people who were already
• 56:05
  inclined in doing bad. It was already people who didn't
• 56:10
  have God, the people who were strong in their faith, people
• 56:14
  who were like really strong in their faith.
• 56:16
  Because sometimes I in wonder, some people were going to
• 56:20
  church, they killed who were attending church.
• 56:23
  Some priests, Catholic priests killed their own brothers.
• 56:27
  Some Protestant pastors killed their own Protestant brothers,
• 56:32
  some Muslim rabbi, they killed their own.
• 56:35
  So it was never about just because I got to church, but it
• 56:39
  was the people who are truly trying to be true to God.
• 56:42
  So it really gave me a new love for my, my religion and my faith
• 56:45
  too, because I realized that it's about faith.
• 56:49
  Faith is real. It's not belonging.
• 56:51
  It's not like a political party. You just believe what they
• 56:53
  believe is what you do is how you read the Bible trying to
• 56:57
  practice, you know, trying to respect God's commandments.
• 57:01
  So I it truly is only faith can save us.
• 57:04
  And again, that work can save. I mean, we live in a world that
• 57:08
  I live in America for 25 years. I've seen the country shifting,
• 57:12
  you know, people united of us and then they're divided.
• 57:15
  You can smell something like that.
• 57:18
  And I'm like, I'm screaming like I just feeling inside like I
• 57:21
  want to scream like please don't fall into this.
• 57:23
  Nobody wins when we hold each other.
• 57:25
  That's one second. Please be faithful.
• 57:28
  Hold on to God. The media can do what they want,
• 57:31
  they can insult how they want, but in the end it's you.
• 57:34
  It is you who is going to suffer or he's not going to.
• 57:37
  The decision they make can follow you.
• 57:40
  So hold on to God, think, use your judgement.
• 57:45
  What is right more than OK, They tell me to do this, to believe
• 57:49
  that. Also ask yourself is that that
• 57:51
  sounds like true because we all have a God inside.
• 57:55
  If we pay attention to that instinct or we even try to find
• 57:58
  the truth, we will find it. And you don't have to be.
• 58:01
  We're humans. We're all made by God.
• 58:04
  So what another person says, either it rings true or you
• 58:08
  know, it's not. And then you can decide just to
• 58:11
  follow because maybe you admire, I don't know.
• 58:13
  But you, you can feel the truth inside.
• 58:16
  I really wish and I pray that people can be brave enough to
• 58:20
  seek truth. And truth is God to seek your
• 58:23
  faith, to be strong into their in their love and in their
• 58:26
  hearts. Yeah.
• 58:27
  Were there any signs that you saw?
• 58:30
  You said this 110th of the people went out to kill, which
• 58:34
  is still a tremendous amount of people.
• 58:36
  And I'm asking this from the perspective of an American who
• 58:41
  knows that our country is boiling right now.
• 58:45
  And I'm not saying we're about to do a civil war or something,
• 58:48
  but God forbid, I don't think. But I think that there is
• 58:53
  tendencies towards division that are not of God and for the
• 58:57
  people of faith to navigate. How do we have moral clarity
• 59:01
  about what is right and what is wrong without the hatred that
• 59:04
  can be so corrupting? So I'm curious if you can share
• 59:11
  the people that you said they didn't have, They weren't strong
• 59:13
  in God. Those were the people that would
• 59:14
  go to kill, even though everyone was getting the propaganda.
• 59:16
  Everyone was getting the messages of hate and kill, but
• 59:19
  the ones that killed it was the ones that already had maybe a
• 59:22
  distance from God. Was there something?
• 59:24
  Was there any other commonality that you saw in the way they
• 59:27
  were living their lives or the way they even, you know, talked
• 59:30
  about other people that was an indication of that, that seed in
• 59:35
  their heart that they were maybe in a place where they would go
• 59:38
  kill if they were given that command.
• 59:40
  Does that does that question make sense?
• 59:41
  Yes, you make very much sense. You know, this is actually one
• 59:44
  of the scary thing for me is like, you can't judge people
• 59:47
  from how they're dressed. You can't even judge people from
• 59:51
  how they look or even how they talk.
• 59:55
  I mean like tone of the voice, you know, because people can
• 59:57
  learn how to say things and how to behave, how to stand.
• 1:00:01
  You judge them because you live with them.
• 1:00:03
  Maybe because you have watched what they say outside of the
• 1:00:06
  script, you know, and then you can like, oh, OK, I can see how
• 1:00:09
  this person think that's how you end up knowing them.
• 1:00:12
  But people can very much see what they have in their hearts.
• 1:00:15
  One of the thing Mary used to tell us, she said, my children,
• 1:00:19
  God have hidden given you something.
• 1:00:22
  Nobody can know what is in somebody's heart unless they
• 1:00:25
  reveal it to them. And with that, pray to God to
• 1:00:29
  change what is not going well in other people's hearts.
• 1:00:32
  So you can't really say like, I know for sure 100%.
• 1:00:36
  And again, all these things where we like our own, we say
• 1:00:39
  our own because we have from this state, we're from this way.
• 1:00:42
  You know, we like to make groups, but somebody from your
• 1:00:45
  own home can harm you. And yet we like to make groups
• 1:00:48
  instead of being attracted by the truth, instead of being
• 1:00:52
  attracted by what we hear. That is good.
• 1:00:54
  That sounds right. It sounds true.
• 1:00:57
  So sometimes it's easier to just like just some people you dress,
• 1:01:00
  oh, you say 1 little thing, oh, then that you believe.
• 1:01:03
  So in Rwanda, the people, for example, there's one guy I went
• 1:01:07
  to school with in college and of course I know that he was not
• 1:01:10
  strong in his faith. You know, you can see at the
• 1:01:12
  judgement he makes because of when the same school or his
• 1:01:16
  anger would come out, you know, you know, wow, this person.
• 1:01:20
  But he was very nice, just knew how to behave like everybody.
• 1:01:24
  And one time we used to do school together work because our
• 1:01:27
  name we almost close to each other.
• 1:01:29
  And then one time he told me like Immaculate, I love you and
• 1:01:33
  you helped me a lot in my my work and I I'm really happy that
• 1:01:37
  we work together a lot. But when the war starts, don't
• 1:01:40
  come to me, I will kill you. Wow, I remember figuring you
• 1:01:46
  can't do that. I haven't done anything because
• 1:01:49
  like we become animals when that happened when the our government
• 1:01:54
  says go, you just run, you regret letter that you don't
• 1:01:58
  think and a man like that who love God who is trying to be
• 1:02:03
  faithful to God. We never speak like that.
• 1:02:05
  He knows God is looking inside so he knew what he can do.
• 1:02:08
  But if you saw him outside, he walk very slowly, dress very
• 1:02:12
  properly. That people we should fear is
• 1:02:14
  not necessarily those who are dressed bad or who are again,
• 1:02:18
  like looking different in the face like who you know, again,
• 1:02:22
  it's easy to judge from outside. It's really the heart of people.
• 1:02:26
  And I really call people to pray because prayer can change
• 1:02:29
  everything. And that's what Our Lady married
• 1:02:31
  mother of Jesus was telling us and wonder pray and she even
• 1:02:35
  said because of the few that have already accepted my message
• 1:02:40
  and we're trying reading the word of God every day trying to
• 1:02:44
  apply because of that this country we rise again if it goes
• 1:02:48
  down. So now we see the wonder people
• 1:02:51
  go like what it happened here. Everything have changed and is
• 1:02:54
  changing for the better. Maybe people will tell you is
• 1:02:57
  the most peaceful country in the world after only 30 years,
• 1:03:00
  Rwanda, Rwanda, yeah. Rebuilt and maybe 100 times more
• 1:03:05
  better than it used to be than how they destroyed.
• 1:03:08
  Because of prayer, you think. Actually, because of prayer and
• 1:03:10
  and prayer bear good leaders, prayer change things.
• 1:03:15
  Prayer brings good ideas too, brings protection.
• 1:03:18
  So prayer has a way to do a lot. And I said prayer because I
• 1:03:22
  prayed for things when I didn't have any way out.
• 1:03:25
  I mean, you would see my book left to tell.
• 1:03:27
  I I have a website, market.com. People can always get them
• 1:03:30
  there. I send them signed being led by
• 1:03:33
  faith. It's sick or to see the hand of
• 1:03:36
  God in my life. It was more like what and
• 1:03:39
  actually believe that prayer is acting this country in the USAI
• 1:03:44
  think like that a lot of things happening because of people are
• 1:03:47
  praying who are not giving up and I think goodness is is
• 1:03:51
  happening otherwise, like you said, like sometimes you feel
• 1:03:54
  like you are on the verge of of for war.
• 1:03:57
  You know, so people think change happened.
• 1:04:01
  I mean, I, I remember one time one of the simple thing like I,
• 1:04:05
  I wrote to God, I'm like, oh, I want some clothes to change
• 1:04:08
  right after the genocide. I don't know where my clothes
• 1:04:11
  can come from. There's no market open, have no
• 1:04:13
  money. Where is it going to come from?
• 1:04:15
  People cleaning their bodies on the floor.
• 1:04:18
  And I got an envelope from a soldier who came to help from
• 1:04:22
  Belgium. He brought an envelope.
• 1:04:24
  And this envelope was a friend of mine who got a scholarship to
• 1:04:27
  Belgium before the genocide. And this what she said, I'm
• 1:04:31
  sending you a few clothes because I've asked my friends if
• 1:04:36
  we have seen no if you are dead or alive, but nobody had
• 1:04:39
  confirmed that you are dead. In case you are still alive, you
• 1:04:43
  must need some clothes to change.
• 1:04:45
  So she she's sending me a jeans AT shirt and a dress in an
• 1:04:48
  envelope with no address. So the soldier brought it like
• 1:04:52
  this really said everyone knows each other here, so somebody
• 1:04:55
  might find it the person. So drop it in refugee camp.
• 1:04:59
  And I went, it's mine. So the girl just took envelope
• 1:05:03
  to the airport Did. You like the dress?
• 1:05:05
  It defeats me completely. It was beautiful.
• 1:05:07
  So you got like, wow, Jesus, you are amazing.
• 1:05:10
  I'm praying and I see this how I got my first job in it was in
• 1:05:15
  the United Nations when I got my first, where I got my first job.
• 1:05:18
  A woman who knew my mother took me from refugee camp and she was
• 1:05:21
  right next door to the UN. It was only place I can go to.
• 1:05:24
  I didn't have money and somebody who helped me to get a job run
• 1:05:28
  after me, confuse me of somebody, a friend of his who
• 1:05:32
  died during the genocide. And I was crying because they
• 1:05:34
  kept telling me there's no job. And I'm like, how am I going to
• 1:05:37
  have any living? And there's no I can go to find
• 1:05:40
  a job. I don't have money for taxi, for
• 1:05:42
  bus. So this man asked me to come to
• 1:05:45
  his office who was an old man who was a spokesman of the
• 1:05:48
  United Nations in Rwanda. So when he asked me, he goes
• 1:05:51
  like, I don't know why he stopped you, but tell me, who
• 1:05:54
  are you? I told him where I am.
• 1:05:56
  And he goes, like, what? Your parents, they were killed.
• 1:05:59
  And how did you survive? I told him.
• 1:06:01
  And then he goes like, So what is your income?
• 1:06:03
  I'm like, I have no income. And his money goes like I won't
• 1:06:07
  give you any money, but I will find you a job.
• 1:06:10
  And a friend of his came in right in the building and she in
• 1:06:13
  the in the his office grabbed me from the back.
• 1:06:15
  She started crying. She's like Pascaline.
• 1:06:18
  We have been looking for you. We have been looking for you,
• 1:06:20
  America. I'm not Pascaline.
• 1:06:22
  What is going on? And the man said, you see what
• 1:06:26
  happened? I saw her.
• 1:06:28
  I thought it was Pascaline. And when I looked in her face,
• 1:06:30
  she was crying. And I find myself asking her to
• 1:06:33
  come here. Now she's here.
• 1:06:35
  She told me she have just lost her family.
• 1:06:37
  We must find hydrop every day. I would pray the rosary and read
• 1:06:42
  the Bible and especially in this passage of the Bible where you
• 1:06:45
  know, Peter when he was Simon, when he was fishing and our Lord
• 1:06:50
  came and couldn't find fish and then he goes like go back.
• 1:06:54
  That was always inspiring me to go back.
• 1:06:58
  Our Lord doesn't say, Jesus doesn't say go somewhere else.
• 1:07:01
  Don't you know there's no fish in there?
• 1:07:03
  He just said go back where you missed this time you will find
• 1:07:08
  them because I say so because he's got so he went back and the
• 1:07:13
  network breaking. So every time I went to this
• 1:07:16
  office, they would say there's no job here.
• 1:07:19
  I'm like, let me just apply and then we go back home and I'll
• 1:07:22
  pray my rosary. I will read the passage, go
• 1:07:24
  back. I will go back again and there
• 1:07:27
  will be a different security guard outside and oh, sorry, we
• 1:07:31
  have no job. I mean, I was like by that time,
• 1:07:33
  like 80 lbs. We've won the clothes for the
• 1:07:35
  past four months. I mean, these are people who are
• 1:07:37
  following us dressing suits or nice, and I'm looking for Tobias
• 1:07:41
  Bones and dirty. But I trusted God knew it was
• 1:07:46
  not that I wanted to look like that.
• 1:07:47
  It was what would have happened. It's him.
• 1:07:49
  I'm trusting that he will fix it.
• 1:07:52
  So it was complete forgiving everybody in my heart because
• 1:07:56
  you have to forgive to let the light God of God come in forgive
• 1:07:59
  everyone. I love everyone you know, look
• 1:08:02
  at people kindly, you know, help where was living the best I can.
• 1:08:06
  I pray my rosary, read the Bible and go back and then we said no.
• 1:08:10
  So the eighth time that's when I made this man.
• 1:08:12
  I mean, this man went out of his way find his secretary to teach
• 1:08:17
  me the computer and within a week I came back, I did the
• 1:08:20
  examine past and I got the job. So I really can't emphasize
• 1:08:24
  enough how prayer and trying to appeal to God inside because
• 1:08:28
  he's the one who looks inside. How amazing dream anything you
• 1:08:32
  want, but love, apply what he says, care for the neighbor.
• 1:08:37
  Don't just care for you and how you can go ahead ahead of
• 1:08:40
  everybody, share what you have your knowledge, your kindness,
• 1:08:44
  you know, be a contribution. I always tell people I you know,
• 1:08:48
  I live, I lived in I'm in Rwanda and I I have a lot of charity in
• 1:08:51
  Rwanda. You know, of course, I'm among
• 1:08:53
  many I'm one of the few people who can speak in this beautiful
• 1:08:56
  country. And I take Americans who go to
• 1:08:59
  visit my country to see what what I talk about.
• 1:09:02
  And I have kids and I'm sponsoring in schools.
• 1:09:05
  And you know, schools are broking down, breaking down.
• 1:09:08
  And I fix our churches. And I mean, any charge to me
• 1:09:12
  where they're praying to a Christ and I'm willing to do
• 1:09:15
  something and I do, however, saying that I'm also a part of
• 1:09:18
  this country and actually I, I take ownership.
• 1:09:22
  Oh my God, you put me here. I will pray like I'm American
• 1:09:26
  and this is who I am and I wish the best for this country.
• 1:09:29
  I pray for this country because this is God choice that I'm
• 1:09:33
  here. And so I'm a part of this.
• 1:09:36
  And I just feel like we have many responsibilities.
• 1:09:39
  We have to to just stand in them and be what you can be best I
• 1:09:43
  meaning and loving others in in contribution and giving you
• 1:09:48
  strength your voice as you are doing, you know, just do
• 1:09:52
  something that build up the country.
• 1:09:54
  I always say in Rwanda, one man is one who prepared the genocide
• 1:09:58
  who started it. Actually this what happened one
• 1:10:00
  time the refugees Tutsis who were outside, they were begging
• 1:10:05
  to come back inside. This is before the genocide and
• 1:10:09
  our president that time he went to meet them with the United
• 1:10:12
  Nations there in towards a, you know, in the official meetings
• 1:10:17
  and they were saying how can we help that you come back?
• 1:10:20
  So after they convinced them we need to come to a home, they
• 1:10:23
  shook hands and they said OK to this agreement of peace, let's
• 1:10:28
  bring you back home or anyone who want to come.
• 1:10:30
  But that time if you were to refugee outside of the country
• 1:10:33
  and you try to come back, they killed you.
• 1:10:35
  It was horrible. So they.
• 1:10:38
  Before the genocide. Before the genocide and.
• 1:10:40
  Why was that? Why did they?
• 1:10:41
  Because they always were scared that they would they would take
• 1:10:43
  the power. They were scared that they have
• 1:10:46
  done many wrong. To them, if we let them come,
• 1:10:49
  they would take over. So it was all about power.
• 1:10:51
  So they shook hands. And one man who was the head of
• 1:10:54
  military at that time, he went outside of the room and he told
• 1:10:57
  the journalist, I am going to prepare apocalypse in Rwanda,
• 1:11:03
  apocalypse of Tutsis in Rwanda. So this is the man who went and
• 1:11:07
  prepared a genocide. So I always say if this man
• 1:11:10
  succeeded actually to do that, what a good mad person who
• 1:11:15
  decide for good can accomplish. One heart can change the world
• 1:11:19
  for the best. We put a strength.
• 1:11:22
  God is with you. We can defeat the devil.
• 1:11:25
  So I just always want to do the smartest thing I can do.
• 1:11:29
  If somebody's suffering, I'm going to sit with them.
• 1:11:32
  If a friend says like going through the pregnant, I want to
• 1:11:35
  convince them don't have abortion.
• 1:11:37
  I would take it on me as it is myself.
• 1:11:40
  If a family is having trouble and I I want to help to just
• 1:11:44
  advise so that they don't break. I go the way.
• 1:11:48
  If it happens, OK, I try my best at least if a friend is
• 1:11:52
  suffering, I I would care as if this is the only person because
• 1:11:56
  one person is enough and is everything.
• 1:11:59
  So just to encourage people, please pray.
• 1:12:03
  I mean, the number one message Mary was giving us was pray,
• 1:12:06
  pray, pray, pray, pray, pray. Through prayer, miracles happen.
• 1:12:10
  True prayers, light would come true prayers will help would
• 1:12:13
  come true prayers things can, things can change.
• 1:12:17
  I'm like, it's all about prayer. And I saw that during the
• 1:12:20
  genocide. After the genocide, when the
• 1:12:22
  soldiers took us out, I saw a huge miracle one time.
• 1:12:27
  So the soldiers who who took US1 time, they dropped us in the
• 1:12:31
  middle of the killers and they said they heard people shooting
• 1:12:34
  so they didn't want to take a chance.
• 1:12:35
  This was when you were rescued, but that war was still
• 1:12:39
  happening. It was almost over, but it was
• 1:12:42
  never over fully because they were like killing here and
• 1:12:44
  there. So they took us to go, to give
• 1:12:46
  us to the new government, to the new area that was peaceful.
• 1:12:49
  So there was a French group of soldiers.
• 1:12:52
  I wrote it and left to tell. So when they took us, they said,
• 1:12:55
  oh, we heard somebody shooting, we drop you here.
• 1:12:58
  We're like 50 people. They protected us for three
• 1:13:01
  weeks and I begged them, please don't do this.
• 1:13:04
  Don't do this. Why would you protect us and
• 1:13:06
  leave us here? Like no, we just got orders from
• 1:13:10
  this whoever leader that they have to dropped us there.
• 1:13:13
  I remember saying, OK, God, I have to remember.
• 1:13:15
  It's you I've been talking to. Anyway, I say, OK, fine.
• 1:13:19
  We came outside. We're all together people were
• 1:13:22
  like we have been missing you. You are the people who were
• 1:13:25
  we're looking for. They have machetes in the middle
• 1:13:28
  of the dead bodies. And I had my rosary and one of
• 1:13:32
  the killer came right to my face like this much, this cross.
• 1:13:35
  And then he said you are the only one missing and I looked at
• 1:13:39
  him. I held the rosary.
• 1:13:41
  I know blink my eyes. We look at each other for what I
• 1:13:44
  thought about eternity, but maybe it was like a few minutes
• 1:13:48
  I guess, but I know we look at each other and I start to pray
• 1:13:51
  for him. I knew if I start to chastise
• 1:13:54
  here in my head like you're bad, you're evil.
• 1:13:57
  That's not how you talk to somebody who belongs to God too.
• 1:14:00
  Even if you do evil, you're still the child of God.
• 1:14:02
  That was just a talk to the devil in him.
• 1:14:05
  Devil come out, come out. This is the child of God.
• 1:14:07
  I'm praying for him. I'm praying for him like Jesus,
• 1:14:10
  you are stronger than any evil Holy Spirit.
• 1:14:13
  Come, come, wrap yourself around me, around him.
• 1:14:16
  The man have a machete. All of a sudden he started
• 1:14:18
  blinking down and I swear, you know how they say this eyes are
• 1:14:22
  the source of the spirit. I feel like something inside he
• 1:14:26
  was talking to himself, like what am I doing?
• 1:14:29
  What am I doing? This is human being like me.
• 1:14:32
  And all of a sudden he turned around and he left.
• 1:14:35
  So I have seen so many miracles of God through prayer, just like
• 1:14:40
  hold them to pray and again, refusing evil.
• 1:14:43
  If you fall, come back to God. And then people inspire each
• 1:14:46
  other. And I've been speaking to the
• 1:14:48
  world now. I mean, I am invited to speak in
• 1:14:51
  different places, different schools and groups and jobs,
• 1:14:55
  people. You invited me to speak.
• 1:14:57
  And I just love to be able to even share because our words can
• 1:15:00
  inspire each other. We really do.
• 1:15:03
  One lady recently I met, she told me among many, many emails
• 1:15:06
  I get. One lady recently she told me,
• 1:15:08
  she said one day she was about to commit suicide.
• 1:15:12
  And she some would have given her my book left to tell, but
• 1:15:15
  she put on a site. She's like, it's too bad, it's
• 1:15:17
  too sad. And that's really the reason why
• 1:15:20
  I wrote. I wrote to inspire other people
• 1:15:21
  told them to God that she said she she glimpsed it before she
• 1:15:25
  took the prison and then she have written letters to her
• 1:15:28
  family. She took she glimpsed my booklet
• 1:15:31
  to tell, she said she took it and she started reading just
• 1:15:33
  she's like, let me read it since I'm dying anyway.
• 1:15:36
  She says she read it and read it, read it until the morning.
• 1:15:40
  And this is what she told her. She said in the next morning I
• 1:15:43
  said I am going to follow the God who saved this woman.
• 1:15:49
  If he can be there for her then he can be there for me too.
• 1:15:53
  Literally in the morning she woke up and started to go knock
• 1:15:55
  doors and ask him what is the charge so she can start to pray.
• 1:15:59
  And she came to a retreat. I was giving and she said you
• 1:16:02
  God saved my life and now I'm married and her husband was
• 1:16:07
  there. Like say, say, say what
• 1:16:09
  happened? And so we, we, we, we inspire
• 1:16:12
  each other. And I really want to thank you
• 1:16:14
  again for what do you do? The good you do to inspire
• 1:16:17
  others to respect life, to love life and loving life is to let
• 1:16:22
  God be God and not be us. Be the ones who are become God.
• 1:16:27
  And he will give you the joy if you choose him.
• 1:16:30
  So yeah. Immaculate.
• 1:16:31
  I wish everybody could hear. And I mean, millions people,
• 1:16:34
  millions of people have, but it's just, it is, it's a story
• 1:16:38
  of our faith. It's, it's heaven.
• 1:16:42
  It's, it's, it's what life is all about, what you're
• 1:16:44
  describing. And I cannot thank you enough
• 1:16:47
  for being God's amazing instrument.
• 1:16:51
  I mean, it's just incredible what you are able to share of
• 1:16:55
  his love with other people. Do you have in your life now?
• 1:17:00
  Do you live every day the same way or does it I?
• 1:17:04
  I'm curious now because you know, you've spoken on some of
• 1:17:06
  the biggest stages. You've written several other
• 1:17:08
  books. You know your first book, Love
• 1:17:10
  to Tell, was sold over 2,000,000 times.
• 1:17:13
  You've traveled the world. People are so inspired by your
• 1:17:16
  story. Your life today is of course
• 1:17:18
  very different than the days after that horrific during and
• 1:17:23
  after that horrific genocide. What is your faith like now and
• 1:17:27
  how do you approach our Lord now?
• 1:17:29
  Thank you. Yeah.
• 1:17:30
  My faith for sure is, is strong. It is strong.
• 1:17:33
  And I, I know what it means to to love God and to hold on to
• 1:17:37
  him. And really, if you might say
• 1:17:39
  that my life is different than then, and it's true in many
• 1:17:42
  ways. It is however it's almost like I
• 1:17:45
  still feel like it's a little bit the same after at least I'm
• 1:17:48
  not being looked for to be killed.
• 1:17:50
  It's almost the same because it's a day by day is God is
• 1:17:55
  giving you what you can true what you can work on today to
• 1:17:59
  love another human being. So it's almost like the task is
• 1:18:02
  the same. It just comes in different ways.
• 1:18:05
  Today I'm a wife, I'm a mother, you know, have to, I mean, I
• 1:18:08
  have one brother who was outside of the country.
• 1:18:10
  So I'm still a sister and aunt, these children today.
• 1:18:13
  I'm an American and I live in America.
• 1:18:15
  I I go through the challenges Americans go through.
• 1:18:18
  I pray for the direction of the country just like so it's just
• 1:18:22
  that you wake up in different places.
• 1:18:25
  Otherwise it's really almost the same and I'm in Rwanda.
• 1:18:28
  You just hope that peace, love. But prayer.
• 1:18:32
  I pray my rosary every day. I mean to pray rosary, treat
• 1:18:36
  rosaries at least joyful, sorrowful, glorious.
• 1:18:39
  Takes like an hour and a half. I have a prayer group.
• 1:18:42
  So if there's any fear in my heart, the fear to lose my
• 1:18:46
  faith, that is only fear. I have to lose my faith and the
• 1:18:51
  fear not to pray. God help me never to be too busy
• 1:18:54
  to pray because it's not that when you're in Rwanda, you
• 1:18:58
  suffer. I mean, I take groups in America
• 1:19:00
  from through one other like, wow, this is a paradise.
• 1:19:02
  I'm like, well, I feel also a paradise in America.
• 1:19:05
  But you are in the paradise as much as you are happy in your
• 1:19:09
  heart, so you can be happy anywhere you are.
• 1:19:13
  So I take it that wherever I am is, is a is a mission of God.
• 1:19:17
  I, I'm in this country as a mission of God and I have to
• 1:19:21
  love and give myself the best I can.
• 1:19:23
  And but my faith is the most important thing for sure.
• 1:19:27
  I read the Bible daily. The first thing in the morning I
• 1:19:30
  had to do the sign of the cross. I was and that's what I was
• 1:19:32
  doing in the bathroom. I remember thinking if I woke up
• 1:19:36
  and I wasn't, I mean, I woke up where I was sitting and I didn't
• 1:19:39
  do the sign of the cross. I feel like the devil find a way
• 1:19:42
  to start quinking my thoughts. I went today.
• 1:19:45
  To this day, I do the sign of the cross.
• 1:19:47
  I'm like the devil, you are out. So the day belongs to God.
• 1:19:50
  And then whatever I'm thinking, I'm like, OK, God, So what are
• 1:19:53
  we going to do today? So like I said, you, you find it
• 1:19:57
  is it is the same almost, however, again, in different
• 1:20:00
  places. And yeah, I have to learn how to
• 1:20:03
  live in the cold and when I don't have winter.
• 1:20:07
  It wasn't easy. But again, is, you know, Merry,
• 1:20:11
  I love her very much. She used to tell us, I wrote a
• 1:20:14
  book about Our Lady of Quebeho, which is exactly that, Our Lady
• 1:20:16
  of Quebeho. So she used to tell us, my
• 1:20:19
  children, every single person in life have a cross to bear.
• 1:20:23
  When you see somebody don't think their life is all amazing,
• 1:20:27
  so great that they have no pain or they haven't had no pain.
• 1:20:30
  So she will always tell us, pray for one another.
• 1:20:34
  If you see somebody happy, be happy for them because you don't
• 1:20:36
  know what they have survived or what they're surviving.
• 1:20:39
  And if you see somebody crying, cry with them, go and support
• 1:20:43
  them. So that also have shaped me to
• 1:20:46
  know that as much as there's a lot like saying in this country
• 1:20:50
  is very beautiful and very powerful, it's a big
• 1:20:53
  responsibility too. People have, you know, and they
• 1:20:57
  care for the world. And again, you can be hated and
• 1:21:00
  be killed literally, you know, like everywhere and one life is
• 1:21:04
  enough. So I am definitely here as a,
• 1:21:07
  an, a person. I can, I love my country.
• 1:21:09
  That's why I was born. That's why I go back and, and
• 1:21:12
  see and see the need that is there.
• 1:21:14
  But the fate is the same. I I just feel like I'm a little
• 1:21:17
  bit wiser, you know, as a person and my fate grows.
• 1:21:22
  I am more like go to the Bible. I'm like, what do you want?
• 1:21:25
  I just want to do whatever you say and I highlight to my cookie
• 1:21:28
  good and I love really to read about in revelation about
• 1:21:31
  heaven. That's what attracts me a lot
• 1:21:34
  and keep me going also. And I read a lot the the story
• 1:21:39
  of the people who have gone near that experience, especially some
• 1:21:43
  of them. I really read and you read them
• 1:21:45
  like, OK, this is a reminder that we, we are fighting for
• 1:21:49
  something that is read. I don't want to do something
• 1:21:51
  that offend God. And if I do, if I of course, I
• 1:21:54
  fail. We are humans.
• 1:21:55
  I, I have to pick myself quickly and, and, you know, apologize
• 1:22:00
  and try to make good friends and hear people like you and be
• 1:22:04
  inspired because we all need each other.
• 1:22:07
  I think there's so many pieces. God, it gives us different
• 1:22:09
  skills so we can complete each other.
• 1:22:12
  But I, I admire really brave people who who go out to know
• 1:22:15
  that we have to go in the vineyard, We have to work, you
• 1:22:19
  know, and not just for me, but get other people to go with us
• 1:22:22
  to heaven because God is a father.
• 1:22:25
  And if you love a father, you're not going to watch their
• 1:22:27
  children kill themselves and just be there and like it's
• 1:22:30
  them. No, you have to work.
• 1:22:33
  You have to help. How can I help, you know, so
• 1:22:35
  that I can help my dad so his other children will not also get
• 1:22:39
  lost? In the end, he's the one who
• 1:22:41
  judge, but at least we try our best.
• 1:22:44
  Yeah. Are you in touch Immaculate with
• 1:22:46
  the other people who were in the bathroom with you?
• 1:22:48
  I am but like 2 of them two of us died and one I must have.
• 1:22:56
  I feel like it's 21 body like that and we're 8 so 2 have died.
• 1:23:00
  There's like one girl who who still have really have mental
• 1:23:04
  problems. She kind of forgets everything
• 1:23:06
  that she ever talk to. Like I think she had a memory of
• 1:23:10
  24 hours. I've tried to bring her to see a
• 1:23:14
  doctor here. They have family didn't want,
• 1:23:16
  you know, they said it's OK. They just be like that.
• 1:23:18
  They have tried and I saw the others we will meet.
• 1:23:22
  But it's a very fun relationship.
• 1:23:25
  I love them with my heart. I mean, one of them told me she
• 1:23:28
  wanted to go to do her masters. I'm like, I will help, you know,
• 1:23:31
  I wrote a book, you know, I can anything.
• 1:23:33
  Another one told me she wanted to start a business.
• 1:23:35
  I'm like, I can do it. You know, I got truly think like
• 1:23:38
  they are almost like my my brothers and my sisters, but we
• 1:23:42
  we don't have a connection like you would wish to have with
• 1:23:45
  somebody who's waiting. They have faith.
• 1:23:48
  They do. They have faith.
• 1:23:49
  The one who passed away one time, she was really mad at me.
• 1:23:53
  She's like, you forgive them because we never talked so
• 1:23:56
  nobody knew what was going on inside the heart.
• 1:23:59
  You forgive them. You did you forget what they did
• 1:24:02
  to us? Are you crazy?
• 1:24:04
  So I'm like, okay, I know I where I was.
• 1:24:08
  If you told me to forgive before I forgive I I would not have
• 1:24:13
  taken it well. So I only share my story when I
• 1:24:16
  went through this, the truth, I mean, 60 minutes came through
• 1:24:18
  wonder. They took them and the bathroom
• 1:24:21
  and did interview. That's how we met.
• 1:24:23
  I never even knew their their names.
• 1:24:25
  We we lived together for three months without talking.
• 1:24:28
  So I feel like we're supposed to be best friends, but I have to
• 1:24:32
  also take a step back and say introduce myself again because
• 1:24:36
  we never talked to someone of us.
• 1:24:38
  Actually, she's very funny. So in time, she jokes, I'm like,
• 1:24:42
  I feel like I know you, but I guess I don't.
• 1:24:44
  I never hold you joke. You're very funny.
• 1:24:48
  And we made a very short time because of course, I go through
• 1:24:50
  wander with most of the time with pilgrims because I take
• 1:24:54
  groups of Americans to visit. And then we made a very short
• 1:24:57
  time and I come back and but yeah, I'm, I'm definitely very.
• 1:25:01
  I love them with my heart. Yeah.
• 1:25:03
  Immaculate. There's so much incredible love
• 1:25:07
  in your story and I know people listening are so moved.
• 1:25:11
  I'm so moved. This is a reminder for me to
• 1:25:14
  trust our Lord again every day and like you said, do everything
• 1:25:17
  in love. My my husband this morning,
• 1:25:19
  actually the kids coming to our bed in the morning and you know,
• 1:25:23
  he said to my son, my oldest son, don't forget, do everything
• 1:25:27
  in love, everything you say. So I think that's a message God
• 1:25:30
  wanted me to hear again specifically today.
• 1:25:33
  So thank you. I do I would love with the time
• 1:25:37
  you have left with us. I know you're going to catch a
• 1:25:39
  flight soon. I would love to hear your take
• 1:25:42
  on American media. You shared some thoughts about
• 1:25:45
  America. You think is there's conversions
• 1:25:47
  happening. More people are praying.
• 1:25:48
  So you're hopeful for our country to have peace?
• 1:25:52
  I do think media has such a powerful role to play in
• 1:25:55
  corrupting the mind towards division, towards hatred,
• 1:26:00
  towards sin, or to give inspiration to see what is good,
• 1:26:05
  what is true, what is beautiful, and we hope bring them back to
• 1:26:08
  God. And so that's the project of
• 1:26:10
  this podcast in our own little way is we want this to be a
• 1:26:13
  place for that inspiration to do the good not to, and to reject
• 1:26:16
  what is evil and to have to know what is true.
• 1:26:19
  So I'm curious what you think about the state of American
• 1:26:21
  media and social media, too, because I think that's where
• 1:26:26
  some of the, you know, bad things can happen, quite
• 1:26:29
  frankly. And then with the issue of
• 1:26:31
  abortion, there is a tremendous amount of propaganda
• 1:26:35
  dehumanizing the baby, telling women they need abortions.
• 1:26:39
  And then just generally politically, culturally, there
• 1:26:41
  are all of these wars that are happening and confusion is
• 1:26:46
  happening around very important moral issues.
• 1:26:49
  So would love any thoughts that you have about on, on all of
• 1:26:52
  that. And ultimately, how we as people
• 1:26:56
  of faith who want to trust in God, how we can be discerning
• 1:27:00
  even about the media we're listening to and the way that we
• 1:27:04
  share media and and spread these messages in a way that will
• 1:27:09
  ultimately bring people back to Jesus.
• 1:27:10
  Yes. Oh, thank you.
• 1:27:12
  Wow, That's a very good question.
• 1:27:13
  And again, I'm here and in America, I've seen things
• 1:27:17
  changing. I've seen the media used to
• 1:27:20
  almost say the same thing, like, you know, it's cold in
• 1:27:23
  California. Yeah, it's cold in California.
• 1:27:25
  Or the media will be like, yeah, cold, but not too cold, but
• 1:27:28
  cold. Now he's like, it's hot in
• 1:27:29
  California and I don't want to. It's cold in California.
• 1:27:32
  I'm like, what is going on? Who do you trust?
• 1:27:34
  So I feel like the media have acted, it is many medias, you
• 1:27:39
  know, some channels have showed themselves that they're not
• 1:27:43
  anymore trying to share the truth except more than fighting
• 1:27:47
  each other or share what you want to share literally to
• 1:27:50
  manipulate people very openly, not to see that you have tried.
• 1:27:55
  And it really you cannot undermine the people of God.
• 1:27:58
  You can food them as much as you want but one day they wake up
• 1:28:02
  especially when you have gone too far.
• 1:28:04
  And I think the media have gone too far to a point where now
• 1:28:07
  people are waking up saying wait, what is the truth now?
• 1:28:11
  So one grace God have given in America in the time I have seen
• 1:28:15
  again this last days few years, He opened people eyes to become
• 1:28:20
  the media, not necessary to have the main media but also like you
• 1:28:26
  people open podcasts and they can share the truth.
• 1:28:29
  So with that, it is really huge grace that happened here that
• 1:28:33
  where people are literally choosing who to listen to, not
• 1:28:36
  necessarily those, you know, like a personal media like here
• 1:28:40
  again. So I think what it have done is
• 1:28:43
  really terrible to share a lot of corrupting and lying and you
• 1:28:48
  know, two different and and of course we don't know what is
• 1:28:52
  going on then you don't know what to follow or not to do.
• 1:28:55
  But with that confusion came people who say enough is enough.
• 1:28:59
  Now I need to find myself. I need to check myself.
• 1:29:03
  I have found faith in America is getting stronger than ever
• 1:29:06
  before. I've seen people who have seen
• 1:29:09
  how far the evil can be and then who are saying, wait, if if this
• 1:29:13
  much can happen in evil way evil can happen, then I there is God.
• 1:29:17
  I need somewhere I need the rock to hold on to businesses, people
• 1:29:20
  who maybe to put their trust in how much money they have and
• 1:29:24
  they saw the account growing like wow, look at how powerful
• 1:29:27
  how good I am. And Rosa didn't like wait, this
• 1:29:29
  is not it. This is not everything.
• 1:29:32
  Yes, that is a grace, but I need somewhere to hold on to if you
• 1:29:35
  do that and yet all the values are crumbling down around you,
• 1:29:39
  you're losing your family, you're losing yourself.
• 1:29:42
  What is good about So again, without mentioning details and
• 1:29:47
  people and this I have seen people shifting because the evil
• 1:29:51
  have had is there and now people are becoming stronger in their
• 1:29:55
  faith in in America. And I truly feel that there have
• 1:29:59
  been miracles happen in this past months, like a huge
• 1:30:02
  miracles that you just in the hand of God.
• 1:30:05
  People are not anymore on the fence when it comes to God.
• 1:30:09
  Either you are choosing the devil or either you are choosing
• 1:30:11
  God because it's becoming really clear.
• 1:30:15
  So there are many people, of course, who are going to the
• 1:30:17
  outside of the evil we choose and it's easy to to get what you
• 1:30:20
  want quickly. But the other people who say no,
• 1:30:23
  the truth matters and yes, how can people discern to that
• 1:30:28
  question to learn about what is the truth?
• 1:30:31
  Again, people have God inside. One time there's one visionary I
• 1:30:36
  wrote the book about this called the boy who met Jesus.
• 1:30:39
  So I he'd really have wow. He had the paration of Jesus,
• 1:30:42
  you know, just like we're here in a needed experience.
• 1:30:46
  But this is something that was much longer much real because
• 1:30:49
  the boy was 14 years old. He died during the genocide.
• 1:30:52
  They killed him, but from 14 to 28 Jesus will tell him, I would
• 1:30:56
  come to see you at N8 at 3:00 and they would talk for three
• 1:31:01
  hours and people would come. So they pushed them.
• 1:31:03
  They investigated him. They they did so much so that
• 1:31:07
  they can to check if it is real. And all he was saying is again
• 1:31:11
  in the Bible, everything was what the Bible was saying.
• 1:31:14
  And Jesus was reminding people, remember, I would come back.
• 1:31:17
  This doesn't end here. Remember on I am on my way.
• 1:31:21
  And remember you will die and you don't know when you will
• 1:31:23
  die. So get prepared.
• 1:31:24
  Always be ready. What do I want to say about
• 1:31:27
  this? So one time alone, the boy asked
• 1:31:30
  alone and I go, but how people? What about people who never knew
• 1:31:34
  you? What about people who are born
• 1:31:35
  in a place when they they never heard you?
• 1:31:37
  And I would say those who know much will be asked for much.
• 1:31:41
  However, God lives in everybody's heart.
• 1:31:45
  God have put that breath of his in our hearts and with that
• 1:31:49
  breath we know the sense of truth or not.
• 1:31:54
  If when good it is given to everyone.
• 1:31:56
  And with that people, of course, unless you are mentally sick,
• 1:32:00
  you know, or like really very deformed and you know conscience
• 1:32:04
  and deformed, you never knew the truth.
• 1:32:06
  I don't know, but Jesus said I am in the heart of people and
• 1:32:10
  there are many Saints who are not Christians, many who never
• 1:32:13
  heard about it. Why?
• 1:32:15
  Because it's what they have known.
• 1:32:17
  I would judge them from what they know.
• 1:32:20
  If you were born a place where they never let you know about
• 1:32:22
  Jesus, how would you do Jesus? Then you, you go to hell because
• 1:32:25
  you never heard. And there are people like that.
• 1:32:28
  If you're born and you die right away, what happened?
• 1:32:30
  So God is in every heart, and God would judge people from
• 1:32:33
  where they are. And what?
• 1:32:34
  What do I want to say about that?
• 1:32:37
  Again, don't undermine the people of God.
• 1:32:39
  You can fool them, you can say this, but if you decide I'm
• 1:32:43
  going to discern what is the truth, the wind of heaven will
• 1:32:46
  help you. God will give us the hell.
• 1:32:48
  Exactly. Many times we have to say yes to
• 1:32:50
  this corruption because of our self-interest anyway.
• 1:32:54
  Oh let me do that because I want to be liked.
• 1:32:57
  I want to be accepted. That is you who is using your
• 1:33:00
  free will to literally reject the truth because you want to be
• 1:33:03
  liked better, you want to be seen better, you want to gain
• 1:33:06
  more. And sometimes people make those
• 1:33:08
  decisions and then become sinful to me.
• 1:33:10
  But if you're really seeking the truth, you will find it.
• 1:33:15
  If it is not that, of course you are sick and mentally not OK,
• 1:33:19
  you will find it. The truth is there.
• 1:33:21
  So I will encourage people, please listen to your heart.
• 1:33:25
  If it makes sense, yes, follow. If it doesn't make sense in the
• 1:33:29
  eyes of God, don't and in your in your heart like this is a
• 1:33:33
  time of we need to revive our common sense that too much
• 1:33:38
  things are just to make sense and people are giving in for the
• 1:33:43
  self-interest for their jobs, for the likes again to belong to
• 1:33:48
  Phil or you can say no, no, no, that's not the truth.
• 1:33:52
  And I just never seen. I mean, in 25 years.
• 1:33:56
  I am in this country. I see people waking up.
• 1:33:59
  Wow yeah, I really do. I see young people.
• 1:34:02
  Yeah, yeah, be young and I love again this social media like OK,
• 1:34:06
  fine, evil is really there, but there is a God is really there
• 1:34:09
  too. If there is like a.
• 1:34:12
  God is God can use social media to spread his words and His
• 1:34:15
  truth, yes. In the social media the evil is
• 1:34:17
  finding a way to come in and re spreading evil.
• 1:34:20
  But if there's 100 posts, I mean 100 channels that are talking
• 1:34:24
  about evil misleading people, there is 300 that are talking
• 1:34:27
  about God. Amazing.
• 1:34:28
  Yeah. And the people they know it.
• 1:34:30
  When is that? That is the truth.
• 1:34:32
  So to love, to love and to to contribute.
• 1:34:35
  And loving is not just words to speak nicely.
• 1:34:38
  This love is more about acting in love, you know, and the
• 1:34:43
  thinking of love and caring for the people who need and if God
• 1:34:48
  is putting in your heart, you have this social media or since
• 1:34:52
  this is there, we have to use it or have this speak media, talk
• 1:34:58
  about truth, do it. God will be there for you.
• 1:35:02
  God will help you as long as we can.
• 1:35:05
  We just we give in. We give in.
• 1:35:08
  That is a problem and we don't pray enough to be protected.
• 1:35:11
  That devil is acting for sure, but God is stronger.
• 1:35:14
  When you say we give in meaning we're not.
• 1:35:15
  Giving to the evil. We're not going.
• 1:35:17
  We're going on our own strength, not on God.
• 1:35:19
  We're doing our own way and not God.
• 1:35:22
  'S yes. I mean, yeah, you know yourself
• 1:35:25
  when you're eating too much chocolate and you're like, it's
• 1:35:28
  not good, but it is so good. So you are giving in, You know,
• 1:35:33
  like, OK, all my people, all my friends are doing it, so I guess
• 1:35:37
  I'm going to do it. But in your heart, you just not
• 1:35:39
  like you just made the choice that is not based on truth.
• 1:35:42
  I would just encourage people love truth and think and
• 1:35:47
  question and please protect your mind because there's so much of
• 1:35:52
  people drinking, smoking, taking things that kind of put you to
• 1:35:56
  sleep that you're not fully engaging and to with the truth
• 1:36:01
  even in your own mind, the capacity God gives you.
• 1:36:04
  So I would just encourage people love the truth, seek the truth,
• 1:36:08
  read, but question. Don't just put your trust in any
• 1:36:11
  human being like they have all the solutions.
• 1:36:14
  Pray for them, even the ones that you know because they see
• 1:36:17
  humans. I remember before the genocide,
• 1:36:20
  I really loved my parents, but I also trusted them.
• 1:36:22
  They were good people. They were teachers and one of
• 1:36:26
  the crazy thing I trusted them with.
• 1:36:29
  I thought they would be there forever.
• 1:36:31
  I never just thought of them dying.
• 1:36:33
  My my worst nightmare was to think about who can die first in
• 1:36:37
  my family. My mom.
• 1:36:38
  Oh my God, if she dies, we'll die.
• 1:36:40
  Who will take care of us? Who who is going to know
• 1:36:43
  everything? My Mama, just you are sick.
• 1:36:46
  Oh, Mom, I'm sick. Oh, mom, what do I dress?
• 1:36:48
  Mom, what do I eat? I'm like one person who took
• 1:36:51
  care of everybody and my three brothers and my dad.
• 1:36:54
  And then my dad dies on my We will be dead.
• 1:36:57
  Who will take care of us? Who would support the family?
• 1:37:00
  Who would send us to school? Dad can't die.
• 1:37:04
  And then they died at the same time.
• 1:37:07
  I was that kind of child, even if they taught me prayer, they
• 1:37:11
  taught me to work hard to serve, to care for everyone.
• 1:37:14
  But if I went to look for a passport, my brother or my hat
• 1:37:18
  to go with me because they just thought I can do it.
• 1:37:22
  And then they all died. If I went to sleep anywhere, my
• 1:37:25
  mom knows what time I'm getting there, what time I'm coming back
• 1:37:29
  with the people. She would always send them gifts
• 1:37:31
  like something to eat like a beans, bananas, you know, like
• 1:37:35
  potatoes so that I can support them for thank them for.
• 1:37:39
  So they were just involved. People cared and then one day
• 1:37:43
  they have no idea where you are. So it was not them choosing
• 1:37:48
  that, but it was a reminder that it was never them.
• 1:37:51
  Who are your parents really? Yes, they are you guardian, but
• 1:37:55
  your dad is God who would see you everywhere and knows what
• 1:37:59
  his new heart. So I was mad at them.
• 1:38:01
  You never told me. You never told me you were just
• 1:38:04
  a gift. You were not like forever
• 1:38:07
  people. But how can I ask them that?
• 1:38:10
  I never tell them anything or either.
• 1:38:12
  But yeah, I try to remind my my children.
• 1:38:15
  They're like, let's not look for the flaws in each other as a
• 1:38:19
  family. Let's look for the gift we have
• 1:38:21
  for each other. My brothers, you know, we used
• 1:38:23
  to fight, but every time there was something good like, hey,
• 1:38:27
  come, I need to talk to you, you know?
• 1:38:29
  OK, guess what? This happened.
• 1:38:30
  Is she or the joy? And then all of a sudden they're
• 1:38:33
  gone and some type of you are focusing on the fight you had.
• 1:38:37
  And I'm like, who do I talk to? Who will protect you?
• 1:38:40
  Who loves you like a family? They were gone.
• 1:38:43
  Who would love you like mom? Nobody.
• 1:38:46
  Who would be there like your father?
• 1:38:47
  Nobody. The father's love is something
• 1:38:50
  very special. And then you you realize you
• 1:38:53
  took it for granted. So just to remind people to take
• 1:38:57
  each other, not for granted to love each other, but to remind
• 1:39:00
  each other that we really belong God, to be to God beyond
• 1:39:05
  everything and anyone. And just to see each other as a
• 1:39:08
  gift. Yeah, and and also appreciate
• 1:39:11
  the people, but pray for them. Remember, they are they are
• 1:39:14
  mortality anybody. And of course, go behind people
• 1:39:18
  you love who are who are doing the truth, who have the truth,
• 1:39:22
  who are leading, you know, pray for your family, for your
• 1:39:25
  parents, you know, root for them, support them, respect them
• 1:39:30
  because God put them there to be there for you.
• 1:39:33
  So even among the people, I think, yeah, I, I am awake for
• 1:39:38
  sure. Yeah.
• 1:39:38
  I, I check everything. I watch politics.
• 1:39:41
  I watch what is going on so I can know where to put my
• 1:39:44
  strength and my prayers and to support what is good.
• 1:39:47
  Yeah, the best I can. I really think you traveling and
• 1:39:51
  speaking again and again, I know you've been so generous and
• 1:39:55
  sharing your story again and again with so many people.
• 1:39:58
  I do think that's one of the reasons for what you're seeing
• 1:40:02
  that there's this resurgence of prayer in our country and a
• 1:40:06
  willingness to see God because his missionaries like you are
• 1:40:09
  out there. So thank you, Immaculate.
• 1:40:11
  It's just, it's just a gift, a direct gift from God.
• 1:40:15
  You are a direct gift from God. Thank you.
• 1:40:17
  Thank you. Many people in Rwanda Day, they
• 1:40:19
  see America through the lens of the the media, you know, the
• 1:40:22
  international media especially. So I love when I take people and
• 1:40:27
  to visit and all of a sudden like they're praying, you know,
• 1:40:30
  we go to pray, go to Quebeco on a pilgrimage, they can't believe
• 1:40:34
  it. And then of course, now the
• 1:40:35
  social media, this is what you have done on YouTube.
• 1:40:38
  You know, people are going to go on YouTube and check like look
• 1:40:41
  at these Americans who are praying for three days retreats.
• 1:40:45
  So I really believe that as much as there is one extreme that
• 1:40:49
  does even in this group, America, and I don't know who
• 1:40:51
  they are, but however we can see the values where they die in one
• 1:40:55
  extreme. There's also an extreme of the
• 1:40:57
  best people in this beautiful country, powerful, not necessary
• 1:41:01
  politicians, but who are really good, who are prayerful, who are
• 1:41:06
  the backbone of this country and who gives such a good example
• 1:41:09
  and who are leading this country to continue to be a leader in
• 1:41:12
  the world because of the powerful, prayerful people, not
• 1:41:16
  necessarily the money. The money comes as a gift.
• 1:41:18
  You know, if you have the money to to do something beautiful,
• 1:41:21
  oh, you need it. But even that to be is because
• 1:41:25
  of the people. I pray for people who are
• 1:41:27
  holding on to God and he blesses this country and chooses it to
• 1:41:31
  to be an example to many. You mean no.
• 1:41:34
  When you go to Europe, you see fate have died.
• 1:41:36
  It's really bad. When you see the declining of
• 1:41:39
  fate is sad. But when you come here, it's
• 1:41:43
  like equal. And now I feel like the
• 1:41:45
  prayerful people are picking it up behind.
• 1:41:49
  Yeah. Immaculate.
• 1:41:50
  Where can people find you and your books and your work and see
• 1:41:54
  where you're going to be speaking next?
• 1:41:56
  So I, I do, I am on my website inmarket.com and I have
• 1:42:00
  Instagram. I think it's my last name, Atili
• 1:42:03
  Bagiza at ILI Bagiza in market.com.
• 1:42:06
  I mean, that's Instagram. But on my websites, especially
• 1:42:09
  in market.com, I take pilgrimages to make you go here
• 1:42:13
  to a lady of Guadalupe and to Kibeho, which I love.
• 1:42:17
  And I already used to say my children help me, help me bring
• 1:42:20
  my children here, teach them what I have said.
• 1:42:23
  I need to go with you, take my kids.
• 1:42:25
  I'll. Be so happy to help you.
• 1:42:27
  Rwanda is very peaceful. So you will be shocked really so
• 1:42:30
  people come come with their families and my books I, I,
• 1:42:34
  they're also on my website and I send them signed.
• 1:42:36
  So I am really happy to be able to have that thank you thank you
• 1:42:41
  for what you do. I really hope to have a podcast
• 1:42:44
  soon because we have to to bangelize the best we can.
• 1:42:48
  Oh, we love whatever we can do to help you with the podcast.
• 1:42:51
  We need you talking every day about your love for God and how
• 1:42:54
  you trust in him every day. We just need to have that
• 1:42:58
  message every day. If the people of God, you just
• 1:43:00
  remember today I will say Jesus, I want to obey you and Jesus I
• 1:43:05
  trust in you. Jesus, let the light in, you
• 1:43:08
  know, here I am exactly. It'll change the.
• 1:43:11
  World yeah, because it's like you just it is that we have this
• 1:43:14
  energy of God that we if if the good people stop.
• 1:43:18
  I mean our Lord said if good people stop, even the stone can
• 1:43:21
  speak. However, if the good people
• 1:43:23
  stop. That's how we die, you know, and
• 1:43:26
  those who have something to say that is uplifting speak anytime
• 1:43:30
  I see more people like yes, yes, yes, there are more people who
• 1:43:33
  are doing good. You know, people is God is
• 1:43:36
  raising his army. You just hope that we are brave
• 1:43:39
  enough not to shy away, not, you know, to help each other just to
• 1:43:42
  be there. And one word sometimes is one
• 1:43:45
  word you say that saved somebody's life like that girl
• 1:43:48
  was going to commit suicide. One word can be enough.
• 1:43:51
  Like I didn't think in that way. So I praise God for the many
• 1:43:56
  heroes in this beautiful country in America.
• 1:43:58
  Amen. Thank you so much.
• 1:44:00
  Immaculate. Thank you.
• 1:44:01
  Thank you. What a gift you are.
• 1:44:04
  Thank you SO. Amazing.
• 1:44:06
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• 1:44:11
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• 1:44:14
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• 1:44:17
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