We came to Kenya to help start a Christian Family Medicine Program, so young East African doctors could take the Gospel and better medicine to their people. We prayed (and many of you prayed) that the Lord would bring such young, motivated doctors here. And we came without knowing whether the prospective residents would come. And we have learned again that when the Lord is up to something, you can trust him with the personnel issues.
We recently went through the resident selection process. I am most very glad to announce that Boaz Niyinyumvu is our first resident. Here is his story.
My name is Boaz Niyinyumva.
I am 31 years old. I am the fifth
child in a family of seven, three girls and four boys. All my sisters are married. I am an uncle of seven children. My youngest brothers are still in high
school. There is a difference of nine
years between myself and my next youngest sibling. They were not expected to come. I was born in Bujumbura, the capital of
Burundi, in a small city called Kanyosha.
I grew up in a Christian family with a normal middle-class life. I grew up with a Christian education. I loved going to school. When I was 3-5, I was following the older
kids going to school, and I wanted to go, but they would always bring me
back. I had to wait until I was 7 years
old. According to my mother, I was an
active boy, running everywhere, and according to my mother I was smart, asking
questions of the old people. At 7 years
I went to school and started primary school. So, I had a Christian education and went to
Sunday school. I grew up with
acknowledgement that there is a supreme God in heaven who cares about children
but hates sin. I was told about Satan,
the enemy of God’s people. I was taught
that when you sin you go to hell, but if you don’t sin you inherit the Kingdom
of God. I grew up with that. Also deep in my heart I felt a deep
connection with God. I grew up as a
normal child. In my classes, I was always first or second or third. I started serving God in Sunday school,
participating in Sunday school choir, singing or doing outreach in the city to
tell other children that God loved them, and inviting them to come to
church.
Physically, intellectually, I was good and my family was
providing what I needed and I grew up with this knowledge. I tried not to do evil and didn’t want to go
to hell.
In 1991, I was 7 years old.
I remember that there was a small crisis in Burundi but it didn’t last
long. One night there was a rebel
movement from DRC attacking Burundi.
They said it was a Hutu movement fighting against Tutsi government. I was too young to know what was going on. In 1993, war broke out in Burundi while I
was starting fourth year of primary school.
That’s when things started to change in Burundi, my life, and my family. There were democratic elections and a Hutu
president was elected. There was a coup
in October which led to the death of that president by the military. The president was Hutu and at that time the
military was about 99% Tutsi. So it
became a war of Hutu against Tutsi. They
were revenging against Tutsi, and the Tutsi said they were defending
themselves. A Hutu would be killed here,
and a Tutsi somewhere else. Tutsi would
attack Hutus in their cities, and they would attack back. If a Hutu was living in a Tutsi city, he moved
to a Hutu city. Hutu and Tutsi neighborhoods
were separated. If you wanted to go to
town and you were a Tutsi and had to pass through a Hutu area, you had to pray,
and vice versa. They hunted each
other. It started slowly and became
worse.
In 1994, my father and other families decided to take us to
DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) in Uvira, in south Kivu. Hutus and mixed Hutu and Tutsi went to
Tanzania and Congo. Because there was
war in Rwanda, some went to Western countries.
We went to DRC with other Christians.
There life changed for me from a normal boy who loved school to a
refugee boy who stopped studying. As a
refugee in DRC, you had no rights.
Soldiers from Congo would take you to prison and require money to be
given them, though you had done nothing.
You had no right to run a business.
Many soldiers were not good, but were jealous of Burundians being helped
by UN organizations. So when we arrived
in DRC, we were living like refugees but had money for a while and lived in a
rented house. After five months, our
money had run out and we started struggling.
The government did something which led to the international community
closing all borders. None could come
from Burundi, to pressure Burundi to stop killing. No food could come to us. My father had stayed in Burundi and had been
sending us food. Now no food could
come. We were isolated and had nothing
and began struggling. I was not going to school and was 10 years old. As a boy in Africa you have to make the
family survive. My brother and I started
a small business of selling plastic in the market. If we got money, we bought food for lunch. In evening, if sold enough, we bought food
for evening food. At 6 PM, because there
wasn’t much electricity, we sold evening petrol/oil for lamps. We would call out “petrol” in the
streets. Whoever needed it would tell us
to come. If they learned that we were
refugees they wouldn’t buy or would laugh at us. Until nine we would go from road to road
yelling “petrol.” From that we made our
family survive that period of isolation away from Burundi in DRC. We were taken from the city and were isolated
in a refugee camp. It was 175 km from
the city and 70 km from the road. It was
very far. We lived there for
months. There were so many cases of
diseases. Diarrhea, salmonella. People dying because we had little care and
were far from the UN or MSF (Doctors Without Borders) doctors, who were not
well equipped. I saw a lot. People dying.
I sympathized and wondered what I could do. A voice came to me to do medicine so when I
saw those things happening I could do something. It was like a voice, like a wish. Because life was hard, my family and others from
the same city decided to go back to the city.
It was far, and we were forbidden by camp rules to go back. We had to sell everything we had to get
transport. We sold blankets, tent, pans,
to get money for family. We left at
night to sneak past guards, and when made it to the main road caught a bus back
to the city.
When we arrived in the city, we went to Bethany church. We slept there and lived the same life,
selling plastic and petrol. In 1995,
after a year in DRC, we came back to Burundi.
Things were worse in Burundi. Our
house was destroyed to the foundation.
They even removed the stones and took everything. We went to live in another refugee camp in
Burundi, and it was the same. We saw a
lot. Those diseases, cholera, malaria,
dysentery, malnourished people, eating only maize and beans and not
enough. There was so much killing that
no one was cultivating and they were fully dependent on support. I was moved again to go into medicine.
Because there was so much killing between Hutu and Tutsi
there were two Hutu rebel movements fighting against the Tutsi government after
the coup. My father decided to take us
back to DRC in 1996. After five months,
war broke out in DRC. Rwanda was part of
the war, as were Uganda and Burundi.
Rwandese said they were chasing Hutu movement and accused them of
committing genocide. When war broke out
in DRC we had to flee from Uvira to another city by the lake called Mboko. When those soldiers came, they killed every
Hutu they met on the way, accusing the Hutus of committing genocide. They invaded.
I saw many people killed. If they
found a person hiding in the bush, they burned the bush and killed the person.
We decided then to come back to Burundi. We thought, “If we have to die, let us die in
Burundi.” There were rumors saying that
if you were a boy over 18, the soldiers would give you poisoned food that would
kill you after six months. So all
Burundians were afraid of going back on the road. Those soldiers had been killing many
people. Because we made a decision to go
back to Burundi and our only way was by that road and the lake had been closed,
we decided to do this: Ladies would go
by the road and boys would go by the lake, though it was forbidden. The day came for us to leave. My mother and sisters and other ladies packed
their things to go by road. My father
and my brother went to the lake to look for a boat to take us at night. Four hours later, I was at home alone. A voice came to me and talked to me. It said, “Go into the house and take your bag
and follow your mother.” Without
hesitation I entered, took my bag, and followed the way my mother and sisters
took. I asked people if they had seen my
mother. I went until I reached a market
with a big mango tree around 4PM, and I slept there near the road. While sleeping I heard voices say “That’s
Boaz.” That was the group of Burundians
including my mother. They gave me a
fabric to dress in so I would look like a girl.
So I went in the group of ladies and passed the station of soldiers
without problem and reached Burundi. The
same day I left, my father and brothers died.
According to the witnesses, they went in 3 or 5 boats on the lakes and
met the marines’ boat from Burundi. The
Burundi marines tied them and threw them in the lake. They were unable to escape. But that is how I survived.
We reached Burundi and lived in the camp again for two
weeks. The government and church sent
people to take us from the camp. We started
struggling for life. The head of our
family was gone. It was difficult to
make ends meet. My sisters stopped
studying but went into small business. Before
my father died, he and some of his friends had made an agreement that if one of
them died the others would take care of the families. One of these friends came and told me and my
sister we could go to school and he would provide school fees. In 1996, I went back to school. This friend of my father had a family with
many children. He helped us and paid
school fees not only for us but also for his family of 5 or 6 children. In afternoon I made money on a bicycle
taxi. I did that for 3-4 months. One day I remember that I took a person from a
Hutu area to Tutsi area late in the day.
He gave me a lot of money for that.
Once I arrived at a military post station. They told me that if I had a problem I was on
my own. They took my money and my bike
and they beat me. They wanted to kill
me, but the chief of the station came and ordered them to give me back my money
and bike. It was dark, around 7, and the
chief told them to find me a place to sleep and bring me back alive in the
morning. They gave me food and a place
to sleep. They soldiers did those things
and I was sent back home. Saved again.
Life was not easy. We
had no money, and I asked myself how I would do medical studies. But if God has a plan, no matter what, it will
happen. In those hard times of studying,
I finished primary school with good grades.
At the end of primary school there is a test to determine whether the
student can go to secondary school. The
test was very hard. Many people
struggled and had to re-do the test many times.
Two thirds of the 30 people in my class had already taken the test
several times. When I took the test, three
of us succeeded on the test and I was the only one who had taken it the first
time. I got entered into secondary
school with little school fees. God did
that.
I went to public school.
I succeeded in high school. After
4th year, there was another national test to decide whether the
student does science or technical studies.
I succeeded in the test and was given my choice. I chose my school.
When in high school,
in second year, I gave my life to Jesus in a Bible study. I had grown up fearing God and punishment. But that year in 1998 in a Bible group, the preacher
spoke of God reconciling himself with the world. Jesus reconciled God to His people, as our
creator. That day, based on my experience,
I told God I was his. I saw God changing
my life in many ways. Because when I
succeeded in that exam, my family and school were very far apart. Two buses every day both ways, which I
couldn’t afford. How would I be going to
that school? I had an aunt who lived
near that school but in a Muslim family.
It was hard for me to leave my home and live in that family where there
were 19 children from one man and three wives.
It was hard for me to go there but I went there and lived with them,
which was difficult to do physically, mentally, spiritually. Very hard.
After the 4th year of high school, my pastor’s
son asked me, “How do you live in a Muslim family?” The pastor’s son was little, maybe 12 years
old. He went back to the family and told
them about me, and that I was involved in kids’ ministry. He went and asked his family if they could let
me live with them. The whole family accepted and in my fifth year, my pastor
came and asked me, “Would you mind if you would leave where you are now and
live with us?” I said I would ask my mother. My mother said to ask my current host. I did,
and he didn’t mind. So I was taken from
the Muslim quarter to the highest quarter of the city, calm and distinguished. In the Muslim quarter, I lived in a room with
5 or 6. But there, I got my own room. Life went on changing. I had been going to school on foot, but in my
new home I was taken in a car. At 1 PM I
was being picked up. They really did a great job with me and took good care of
me. A sudden change. I studied and finished
secondary school. Then I took the test
that determines your future. If you do
not pass it you are done with school. If
you do well, you have a chance of doing university, for me medicine.
I was the second person at my school to succeed on that test. They gave us forms to fill for what we wanted
to take. We had three choices. I put first and second choices medicine,
third choice low. The first person also had
asked for medicine. But she was not
given medicine. She had higher marks
than me. But I was given medicine. God did that, too. I had to wait one year because we were so
many students waiting for university and there were many strikes. During that year of waiting I was deeply involved
in VBS with children, working with Korean missionaries. One day after a session, a Korean missionary
asked me about my studies. I told him
what was going on. He asked how many
universities we had. I told him which I
wanted. He said they would be paying it
for me. So my medical training was covered! But on the third year those missionaries had
to go back, so that was a problem. How
would I get fees to finish my training?
I was class representative for the first years of medical
school. We were having difficulty
finding a teacher for genetics. An
American came to teach it. During class
he stopped class and asked me if he could pray for me. In my heart I hesitated because everyone
would know I had a problem. I wanted to
refuse, but a voice told me “Why refuse?”
So I allowed. He prayed for
me. After praying, he said, “God told me
to help you. How can I help you?” I told him.
He said, “From now until you finish your medicine I will take over. I will give you medicine, pocket money, and
will be helping your family.” At the
same time, my pastor’s wife whom I consider as my other mother introduced my biological
mother to a Christian NGO called SISTER CONECTION helping widows. So my mother
was receiving financial support from the NGO which made my life comfortable. I had not been able to help my family much. My church at high level also joined in my
education. So I was favored by God in
many ways.
Thank you God; you have your ways. I never had a problem with school fees when I
was at school. God made it possible
what He told me in refugee camp. He
helped me in all those tests when I was in difficult moments. When I ever had a problem He brought a
solution to the problem. He made it
possible for me to do medicine, even with solutions to every problem. When I was doing medical studies in
internship, we had to go up-country.
When up there, I met these people living in bad conditions. Very poor.
Could not afford the least medical care, even paracetamol, less than a
cent. They could not pay for a blood
smear. My heart went to them. God told me, “This is where I want you to be,
to walk with these people.” I felt I was
part of them, it was part of me. I made
a decision that’s where I belong. When I
finished I went in January with a mission team in DRC. Where we went, we went to serve very poor
people who cannot afford treatment of malaria, which was almost free. It was a calling for me. “This is what I want you to do.” This is the kind of place where things
happen. Because I have lived in those
conditions, I feel that I can do more. I
left DRC with the heart of being a medical missionary. My background, internship, first visit as
medical doctor were directing me where and what to do. I had a dream to do pediatrics. I love kids.
So I wanted to be a pediatrician to do congenital heart defects. Maybe a pediatric cardiac surgeon. But God was directing me differently. The first Sunday back home in Burundi from
DRC, I met a pastor from here in Kenya.
They had a Christian NGO establishing contact with Burundian evangelical
colleges. He spoke English and my pastor
had told me to interpret for this pastor.
I interpreted for him when he was preaching. Afterwards I said “Thank you for the sermon
but my pastor asked me to stay with you for a short moment of his absence.” During that time, the visiting pastor wanted
to know about me and I gave him a brief part of my story - I told him who I
was. He asked if I wanted to do more
studies. I said “Of course.” He asked if I could come tomorrow for an
introduction. Next Monday I went to his
hotel. I met Ted Burnett. He said he also wanted to know about me. We talked and he told me that his father was
one of the doctors who started one of the missions hospitals here. I don’t remember which. So I gave my email. Two weeks after, I got an email from Bruce
Dahlman telling me he got my email and asking if I was interested in Family
Medicine. He gave me the name of someone
who could help me understand. He gave me
the email of a doctor in Burundi who was one of my teachers. Eric gave me a brief view of Family Medicine
and what it is. I read about it and it
was just who I am supposed to be and where I am supposed to go. It was like an answer. “This is what you have to be to go where you
have to go.” And considering the mystery
of how it came to be known to me is part of the answer. It is not chance. It is not just something that happens. “It is
me sending to you.” So I applied. When I applied, I had only just worked for
two months after medical school. I spoke
of that to other people we were with in Congo and they decided to support me
through the program. That family of American
medical missionaries was ready to assist me.
God has made it all possible. And
here I am.
THIS IS MY SHORT STORY OF MY LONG LIFE.
