Rwandan genocide survivor impacts teens

 
  “God has a plan for you, but you have to be ready to listen and do good things so God can point you on the right path,” Rwandan genocide survivor Immaculée Ilibagiza told more than 700 teens and young adults attending her first-ever teen retreat Dec. 13 at Mount Carmel Academy.
   
   Ilibagiza asked them to open their hearts so they could know who to turn to – like she did – when in their darkest moments. “What he did for me, he can do for anyone,” Ilibagiza said.
   She told them of her experience in 1994 of hiding in a 3-by-4-foot bathroom with seven other women for 91 days, recounted in her book “Left to Tell.” She emphasized how her life changed when she emerged to find her entire family killed and her village annihilated during the rebellion.
   Praying to Mary on rosary beads given by her father before she hid kept her spirit and faith intact. She hoped the teens, too, could learn to turn to God when troubled and discouraged.
 
  “I try to help the kids come close to God, the Eucharist and to Mary, our mother,” Ilibagiza said. “If you have a problem, you can run to God. I know I can run to the rosary and pray. It’s important to have that personal relationship with God.”
   Ilibagiza gave suggestions on how to prepare for heaven:
    Do not judge people, instead approach them with an open heart. One never knows whom the Lord will send when needed. Her father trusted her life with a minister of another tribe, and he saved her life. Her mother gave a small kindness to a woman, who ended up helping Ilibagiza after she lost her family.
    Turn to the rosary, trust God and ask him for needs. She kept her faith in God and he heard her cries and led her through multiple trials – not being found in the bathroom by soldiers, getting her passport stamped so she could travel. “God is Almighty … he can do anything.”
    Read the Bible and learn about heaven. “Ask him about heaven, a paradise,” she said. God told her the path to heaven is following the Ten Commandments and loving one another.
    Be thankful. Someone could be going through something worse.
    Don’t hold anger. It is a “shadow on your soul that blocks God from coming in. Anger is bitterness, and it hurts. Forgiveness is peace, freedom.” She learned to pray the rosary for peace in her heart, praying as many as 27 rosaries, 40 Divine Chaplets and 200 Our Fathers a day when in hiding. “When things don’t go your way, go to God, who can do everything, and ask God to help you.”
    Choose the world of love, not the world of hate. When she chose to love others, even those who had hurt her, she felt a burden lifted and good things started happening.
    Choose to do the right things; do not do anything wrong for gain. Pray, fast and be strong. “We have God. We have Jesus. We have Mary. We have the angels and they are watching us.”
   Ella Jourdan and Grace Lagalante of Mandeville Junior High heard Ilibagiza’s message and plan to pray more.
   “If you’re stressed out, God can help you through it if you ask him and talk to him,” Jourdan said.
   Others in the crowd included St. Katharine Drexel’s Voices of Praise choir who performed, and Archbishop Chapelle High School’s Justice for All Club who volunteered.
   “I thought it was important for our students to get a more global perspective on some of the issues that we talk about (and to hear Ilibagiza’s story),” said Phillip Berns, Archbishop Chapelle’s club moderator and religion teacher.
   Many students from Vandebilt Catholic High School in Houma heard Ilibagiza a second time. She had previously spoken at their school and students had completed a book study on “Left to Tell,” said Wendy Couvillon, moderator of Vandebilt’s Sisters in Christ and a religion teacher.
   Couvillon said students could learn from how Ilibagiza held on to her faith during her agonizing months of hiding.
   “That no matter what they are going through, they can feel that sense of hope,” she said.
   The retreat impacted many. Mount Carmel’s religion teacher and event co-organizer Jane Mickal said non-Catholic youth in attendance told her they wanted to know more about Mary and the rosary.
   “They said Immaculee’s message touched them, and they were overwhelmed,” Mickal said.
 
  Ilibagiza places value in education and awarded two $500 scholarships by random drawing to Mount Carmel Academy’s Kayla Guillot and Brother Martin’s Luke Talbert, both 11th graders. She also gave a copy of her favorite book, “Imitation of Christ” and a rosary to students who vowed to pray and possibly accompany her to Rwanda.
   At the retreat’s close, Ilibagiza urged them to think about how they are living their lives since no one knows when he or she will die.
   “I want you to open your life,” Ilibagiza said. “I am begging you. How you can change your life to be a good Christian?”
   Ilibagiza also gave an all-ages retreat with Mass celebrated by Father Robert Cavalier for more than 300 people the next day at Mount Carmel. She will return to Thibodaux March 7-8. To learn more, visit www.immaculee.com.
            Christine Bordelon can be reached at [email protected]