"I will prepare and someday my chance will come." Abraham Lincoln

I have posted several times about one of my students at Sonrise, Emmanuel. I have known from the beginning that he is special….I was just waiting for the rest of the world to discover him. And they finally have. If you read the previous post on him, you remember me talking about all of the hardships that Emmanuel has endured in his 18 years. Just a brief history…Emmanuel is a double orphan from the genocide. His mother died in a refugee camp in the Congo right after the genocide, and then he was separated from his sisters in the camp. He literally wandered alone through the bushes of the Congo…when he was about 5 years old….dodging bullets, running from rebels and wild animals, and surviving off the little food he could find. After several years he made his way back to Rwanda and was miraculously reunited with his sisters, destined to live a life of poverty and despair with no parents. But God had bigger plans for Emmanuel. Emmanuel was chosen as one of the neediest children in the country to attend Sonrise School the year that it started.
So fast-forward a few years. Emmanuel is in S5 (11th grade) and is the top student in his class. He is well known around Sonrise for his incredible leadership, his talent in preaching and public speaking, and most of all his love and compassion for his fellow students. There is not a student or staff member at Sonrise that does not love him dearly. Most students know that he is an orphan, but they have no idea the hardships that he has had to endure. He takes every opportunity that comes his way and seizes it, having no excuses or self-pity for the troubles he has faced.

And the opportunity arose for Emmanuel to apply to the best academy in Africa. African Leadership Academy located in Johannesburg, South Africa focuses on teaching leadership and entrepreneurship skills to the top African students for their last two years of high school. Every year they choose the top students from every country in the continent to train as future leaders of Africa. This year they chose 3 students from Rwanda….and one of those students was Emmanuel. Amazingly enough, another of those students was one of Emmanuel’s best friends from Sonrise and one of my other students, Dieudonne. Two students from Sonrise were chosen out of the thousands of applicants all over the continent!

Just imagine….a little orphaned boy trying to survive on his own in the harsh jungles of the Congo to a student in the best academy on the continent and destined to become a leader. Emmanuel also received a $50,000 scholarship to attend the academy, which is a lot of money to anyone but to him is absolutely unfathomable.
It has been a process to get him ready to go to school, as he has had to do things such as choosing a date for his official birthday (he has no idea when his real birthday is), applying for a visa, passport, and identification card, getting numerous immunizations, and coming to the realization that he will be stepping on an airplane for the first time in a few weeks to begin a new life.

I have tears in my eyes as I am writing this, as I have grown to love Emmanuel as my own family. He has the purest heart of any person I have ever known. He is pure goodness, wisdom, and compassion. He can win the love of any small child or entertain the intellectual thoughts of any grown man. I have to admit that I selfishly am a little bittersweet about his leaving. I feel like a mother sending her child off to college. Emmanuel told me some of the sweetest words I have ever heard the other day... “Thank you for being the mother I never had and for doing all the things for me that my mother would have done.” But the funny thing is that he is the one who encourages me and gives me a renewed passion everyday for what I am doing here in Rwanda. Words cannot describe him; you just have to meet him. Someday you will….because mark my word, someday he will change the world!

His name is Manirakiza Emmanuel, “God heals, God with us”…his life is a true testament to these two faithful promises from God.

Thank you to the entire B2R team and to everyone who has helped to prepare Emmanuel for ALA!