#105: Emmanuel Ntibonera

This Thursday bring some new or good used shoes to NCS breakfast – as many children’s shoes, men’s shoes, women’s shoes as you can donate so we can send them  to the Congo.   And meet Emmanuel Ntibonera who will tell us his story and why he is collecting shoes.   Emmanuel was born in eastern Congo (then called Zaire) near Rwanda. His first seven years were peaceful. Then rebels terrorized his town and his family fled. “As my bare feet carried me, my eyes and ears absorbed horrors I’ll never forget. Limp bodies painted with dry blood on the side of the road. Women’s screams turned my stomach. Children were looking for their parents, tears streaming down their faces. Through the madness, Dad warned us, over and over as we fled, ‘Don’t look back.’”   Eventually the Ntibonera family all received refugee status and came to the U.S. where Emmanuel went to Liberty University and built his own life. One day he returned to his homeland and what he discovered there – disease, extreme poverty, deficient infrastructure, and a spirit of hopelessness – changed his life forever. He has taken more than 125,000 pairs of shoes to people in Congo, giving children confidence, pride in their well-being, and safety from foot infection.   Emmanuel is on the staff of Exile International, a Nashville organization serving child soldiers and children orphaned by war in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.   Brothers, I encourage you to hear Emmanuel’s story this Thursday. His experiences are unlike those of most of us. But through it all, his family had faith like that of George Müller. They believed God would provide . . . and He did. They experienced miracles.