Emmanuel, "God with us"

I have not written much about my students at Sonrise individually because I want to protect their privacy and preserve the trust that I have built with them. However, the students at this school are among the most inspiring, unbelievable people I have ever met in my life. They are all wonderful, but there is a handful at which I am absolutely amazed at their faith, maturity, brilliance, humility, dedication, persistence….and the list goes on and on. I want to share with you one of them, sweet Emmanuel (who gave me permission to write this). He might be one of the most amazing human beings I have ever met in my life. I won’t share specifics, but he has been dealt an incredibly tough hand in life, yet has come out to be this brilliant, poetic leader who will no doubtedly someday change the world. I have had some of the deepest conversations of my life with this 18 year old Rwandan student. He is overflowing with wisdom from real life experiences that you and I could never dream of and always has some bit of inspiration to share. He is a strong leader at Sonrise, earning the respect of every student and teacher. I will never forget a conversation I had with him when he told me “you are no longer a friend or a teacher, you are now family”. I deem it a huge compliment to be considered family by him.

Emmanuel’s future is limitless. This boy could do anything that he puts his mind to, whether it be electrical engineering, a career in politics, or the future “Bishop of Rwanda”. I hope you will be blessed by a couple of his poems I have included.

Emmanuel, meaning "God with us", is a perfectly suited name for him. Everytime I spend time with him I feel as though I have been close to God Himself.

“I AM MY ENEMY!!!!!”
Resentment, fear, grief,
Sadness, gloom
The five are emotions,
They are emotions of pain
They are psychological, thus
brain torture.

They are the ghosts.
In fact satire ghosts,
Sarcastically, they confront.
They cast their victims
Desperately in a separate
World and sometimes
Thrust one insane.

Man is their main harbor,
He is the host, they parasitically suck him up
And yet he would have cursed and cast them.

Good example. Ask Jesus on the cross.
The fives I guess knocked to his heart
But boldly and silently he cursed them up
And came out of his nut shell and saved the world.

You and I have hate ourselves, woefully,
We cling to doom, after we are hurt.
Out of the frying pan into the fire, we act.
But there is this, if we want to not continue hating ourselves,
Then let’s fly to the mind of God,
To bible, where despair dissolves in
Promises and desperate ones burst into laughter.


“WHO IS IN CHARGE?”

Almost every thing is at risk.
Life itself is at stake!
Almost all creation is pulling up stakes

The longer the world lives the harder the life becomes,
Yet the more technology comes.
Prior to new inventions, solemn the world comes, so as if it’s
Reborn- reborn to harm.

The more we enter the civilization era, the greater life expectancy
Reduces almost to nor years compared to BC

The question remains, who is charge?
For those who believe, we are born to live and live happily
But why the world full sorrow? And we can’t!!

Who is in charge? Is still the challenge!

We ask, what have they done, I wonder who?
But ignore what have I done?

Here is my mind, I don’t know what you think! But here is what I think
Although, many things in life are beyond one’s control,
You and I do have a great deal of control- more than most of us
Are willing to acknowledge over circumstances and conditions .

We can control our attitudes, concerns and worries, response
And reactions,
how much energy and effort you give to each task you undertake,
Thoughts, and imaginations, you can choose to speak or remain silent.
If you choose to speak you can choose your words and your tone of voice.

A great deal of things we can control.

Your commitments and your time and your penny and conduct.
But the born and created still suffer our negative approach.

And the question is who is in charge?


BY MANIRAKIZA Emmanuel