During the genocide, most of Ilibagiza's family (her mother, her father, and her two brothers Damascene and Vianney) was killed by Hutu Interahamwe soldiers.

Ilibagiza shares how her Catholic faith guided her through her ordeal and describes her eventual forgiveness and compassion toward her family's killers.

It describes how her faith in God kept her going as she struggled to find her place in the world again, and it also shows how she sought out and encouraged many of the orphans who were equally lost.

[3] She was featured on one of Wayne Dyer's PBS programs, and also on a December 3, 2006, segment of 60 Minutes (which re-aired on July 1, 2007) Ilibagiza speaks all over the world and is the recipient of the 2007 Mahatma Gandhi Reconciliation and Peace Award.

In 2012 she was the June 9 speaker for the Robert E. and Bonnie Cone Hooper Plenary Address of the Christian Scholars Conference at Lipscomb University.