Hi everyone. It is such a joy to be here in Medjugorje. Especially to be here in the name of Our Lord and Our Lady, Our Mother. Like many of you who love Medjugorje. I grew up in Rwanda, actually in a place where Our Lady appeared too, a place called Kibeho. It was exactly the same time as here, 1981. November 28 it has started. You are very blessed to have the Blessed Mother visiting today. Now the apparitions have ended in Rwanda, we miss Her very much. But She promised us She will always be there. So we still go to Kibeho to pray in the shrine. She is very special. She tried to protect us from the genocide, but we were too distracted. She even cried. She told the visionaries: ‘Tell My children all over the world, especially here: LISTEN, LOVE ONE ANOTHER, FORGIVE ONE ANOTHER, PRAY YOUR ROSARIES, GO TO CONFESSION, RESPECT THE COMMANDMENTS OF GOD’. And we did not listen. Until it was too late in 1994. Now we wish we had listened.
Any time I come here in Medjugorje, and I have come here many times, I feel at home. I feel the embrace of Our Mother. If we didn’t listen in Rwanda, at least we can listen today. I want to share with you the story of how I survived the genocide, by the grace of God. The strength I had it is what I got from prayer. I am so grateful that Our Lady had prepared us.
Rwanda is a small country in the Central East Africa. The genocide started in 1994. I was a student in a college. And I was home for Easter Holiday. It was Wednesday the 7th of April. When I woke up my brother was in my room. He told me the president of the country died that night.
In Rwanda we have two main tribes. And the tribe I belong to was not well loved. We knew already, Our Lady had prepared us, warned us, and I knew politically my tribe was not loved, so when I got the news that the president died I knew something terrible was about to happen. I went outside, I met my parents, we heard the news that actually they have started to kill the people of my tribe. The government have blocked the borders of the country, no one could go outside. And they were killing family by family. ‘Ten children, and mom and dad, eight children and mom and dad’, they were reporting on the radio, [naming those] who have been killed. My parents asked me to go to hide. I had three brothers, I was one girl among three brothers. My parents were teachers. And everyone wanted to see me safe because I was the one girl they had. They sent me away alone. And this was just the second day after the genocide had started. So they sent me to a neighbor who was from the other tribe. The man who was a good guy.
I remember when I was leaving my father gave me a rosary. And in that moment I felt like he was telling me, ‘Take this, because you will not see me again’. When he gave me the rosary, I felt like he was telling me, ‘When you can’t have me to give you what you want, you pick up this and you pray to God’.
I left but in my mind I thought I was coming back in two or three days. But I remember when I was leaving, something inside my heart was telling me, ‘Look at them, you will never see them again’. And I fought that idea. I did not want to accept it.
