Miracle in Rwanda is a remarkable story of faith and survival. The play, which will be coming to the Chatelech Secondary School Theatre on Feb. 19, is based on the true experience of a young, educated, African woman, Immaculee Ilibagiza, who lived for three months during the worst of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda hidden in a tiny bathroom with seven other starving women while killers searched the house many times bent on their extermination. She survived by praying to God who she believed with every particle of her being would save her. She also visualized her future life beyond the terror of Rwanda and her visions, miraculously, came true.
Though Ilibagiza's family was slaughtered in unspeakably horrific ways, she not only survived but managed to forgive their murderers, knowing that only forgiveness could end the cycle of vengeance and hatred.
After the war she worked for the United Nations in New York and met Dr. Wayne Dyer, motivational speaker, who encouraged her to write her story. The book Left to Tell (written with Steve Erwin) is subtitled Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust. It could make a believer out of the most hardened atheist.
In 2006 it so impressed one reader, performer Leslie Lewis Sword, that she determined to create a play. She met Ilibagiza and they travelled to Rwanda to develop the story. The resulting one-woman play, Miracle in Rwanda, directed by Edward Vilga, has been to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and was performed in the U.S. but has never been seen in Canada. It will have its Canadian premiere in Sechelt brought to the Coast by a volunteer team.
As is the case with miracles, their effects spread like ripples and touch many others. The story of Ilibagiza came to the attention of Carolyn Spence, now vice principal at Elphinstone Secondary School and the chair of a society, Kids For Kids (K4K), an organization that provides sponsorships for children's education in African countries such as Kenya and Rwanda.
Coast resident Brenda Rowe had helped to launch a supportive effort, Project Hope, from West Sechelt Elementary School in 2005. In a goal to encourage Canadian students to think globally, the school partnered with a school near Nairobi, Kenya, following a visit by then principal Spence.
"Project Hope was so successful that we wondered what else we could do," Rowe said.
The answer was an ongoing kids to kids project in which West Sechelt continues to help the Kenyan school grow and Chatelech sponsors a primary school in Kigeme, Rwanda. Other Coast schools have also taken on sponsorships that assist kids, many of whom were orphaned by the 1994 war, to get an education.
Spence has visited Africa every summer for the last five years to see the projects in action. It feels like a second home to her. In fact, she read Left to Tell while she was staying in Rwanda, an experience that affected her profoundly.
"I'd like to share my passion for Rwanda," she said. "It's the resiliency of the people and the love that they have."
When she learned that it would be possible to bring Sword's play to Canada, she became convinced that the production was meant to be, and she thanks the Coast community for being so generous in their support and for their willingness to look outside their own country to learn about others. Miracle in Rwanda runs Feb. 19 to 21 at 7 p.m. at Chatelech with students assisting with lights and sound. The subject matter is intended for a mature audience of 14 or over. Doors open at 6 to allow people to browse an African marketplace in the lobby. It's a costly event to put on, but it is both a fundraiser and an awareness raiser. Tickets cost $30 adults, $20 students, with profits going toward Kids For Kids Promoting Education Society. Tickets are at the Daily Roast in Sechelt, Coast Books in Gibsons, Roberts Creek General Store and the Copper Sky Gallery in Pender Harbour. More about the society is at www.k4kpromotingeducation.com.
