August 21, 2006

Emmanuel’s Story

      This is the abbreviated life story of Dr Emmanuel Mbennah. Emmanuel is currently the Country Director for Compassion International, Tanzania.  Emmanuel has also started another NGO – HATUA (meaning steps), which is reaching aid and development programs to the most remote areas of Tanzania.  More information on these organizations is available at the end of this article.  Knowing only who Emmanuel is, and what he does now – is in itself impressive. Hearing the story of where he came from is absolutely awe-inspiring.

      Emmanuel was the 10^th born of 14 children. Neither of his parents had any formal education and the family was literally “dirt poor’. The family had experienced terrible misfortune in that 5 of the 14 children – the 1^st, 4^th, 5^th, 6^th and 8^th – all died under mysterious circumstances at young ages. When Emmanuel was about two months old, it was discovered that one of his aunts had been killing his brothers and sisters – and he was to be next. To save his life, and give the rest of the family a new start, his parents moved to another village about 40 kilometers away.

      At the age of 10 he had his first opportunity to attend school. Dressed in no more than a piece of dirty, ragged fabric, he made his way to the first grade classroom, which was in fact under an acacia tree. He loved school, and did very well, but not too long after he started, the school closed. The school re-opened when Emmanuel was in grade two, and a new teacher was assigned to the school. This second teacher decided he just didn’t like the area, understandably, due to it’s remote location.  The teacher moved the school to another location, almost 30 km away from where Emmanuel and his family lived. This was much too far to walk, so he was unable to attend. He went back to look after the few cows and goats of the family, but his heart and mind were still trying to find a way back to school.

      One day his parents had a quarrel, which was followed by a session of reconciliation. While the rest of the families attention was drawn to the quarrel, Emmanuel decided to run away from home and snuck out that night.  He walked for about ten hours until he found the village that he was born in – unaware of the deeds of his aunt, or the fact that she still lived there. He showed up for school the following day at another school. He explained to the teacher that he did not live close enough to a school and really wanted to attend. He stayed at an uncle’s home, a 4-hour walk to the school. Within a week he had become the best pupil – not only in his 4^th grade class – but in the entire school. His parents and siblings had looked all over for him, and had all but given up on him, assuming he had been eaten by wild animals. Upon hearing that he may be in the old village, his father sent his oldest brother to check it out. His brother found him and demanded that Emmanuel quit school and return with him to his family. The teacher intervened and sent the older brother home. She told him to send his father back on Monday if they wanted to claim Emmanuel. On the following Monday, his father came thinking this was a simple formality, and he would quickly return with his son. The teacher threatened Emmanuel’s father with legal action for not making an effort to have Emmanuel enrolled in another school. His father agreed to let him stay in school and made arrangements for him to live with a great aunt. In Emmanuel’s own words, his great aunt “had no understanding of interactions with water”. She never washed anything – dishes, the house, clothes or herself. She would make Ugali (corn flour meal) with sour milk for him to eat. As hungry as he was, the food was too dirty to eat – he would hide it, and when she wasn’t looking, throw it away. It wasn’t long before he began to suffer the effects of life threatening malnutrition, so some time later he moved in with his father’s uncle. This house was much cleaner, but the environment was harsh and abusive.

      While living with the father’s uncle he met another young man named Emmanuel, and they became friends. The younger Emmanuel attended the same school, a few grades lower. His friend’s father was a pastor and gave him Christian instruction. On December 30, 1973, at the age of 14, he was baptized, and received the Christian name “Emmanuel”, because of his friend. Up to this day he went by his given name “Mwaluko”. He understood that this baptism was to make him a new person, but was soon disappointed when he didn’t see any changes in his life. He would spend the next year and a half searching for this ‘new person”. On his 16^th birthday he attended a crusade that lasted for 10 days. It was during the last day of this crusade, the night of Sunday the 15^th June 1975 that he “gave his heart to the Lord” and finally found the new person.

      It was during his 7^th grade year that he received his first pair of shoes – made from old tires. Shortly thereafter, in October of 1975, he took the national examination required to advance to secondary school. Out of 50 pupils that took the national examination, Emmanuel placed first, and one of only two pupils who were selected to advance to secondary school. He advanced to secondary school without shoes or a uniform.  Although the government financed the tuition for all students at that time, he had to find ways to supply his own books, uniforms, mattress and linens. During Form 2 (American equivalent of grade 10), he encountered some problems and took a self-imposed 1-week suspension. The 1-week became 4 months, after which he returned to school to continue with his Form 3, and became one of the best two students that took the examination that year. In October 1979 Emmanuel took the highly competitive national Form 4 examination, which determined who would proceed to Form 5 and Form 6. Only 11 of 121 that took the exam received high enough scores to proceed to Form 5, and of the 11, Emmanuel was second on the list.

      He graduated from high school and spent one year training with the Tanzanian military. Emmanuel received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Communication from Messiah College and accepted a position with World Vision. He later went on to complete his Master’s degree from Wheaton College Graduate School and was offered a staff position as a professor at Daystar University, a leading Christian University in Kenya. He entered his PhD studies at the University of Potchefstroom, South Africa (now North West University), which he completed in two years. During his doctoral studies, he pursued and completed an honors Bachelors degree in Biblical Studies, ministered to an interdenominational multi-racial student congregation, served as managing editor of the university’s academic journal, and organized three large international student missions. He returned to Daystar University to continue with his teaching and in less than 2 years supervised to completion 19 master’s theses’ – a task never accomplished before, or since. He then served as a senior research officer for the Horn of Africa and Great Lakes Region, conducting research on peace and conflict transformation at the Life and Peace Institute.  It was during this research that he accepted the position he currently holds at Compassion International. Emmanuel is currently co-supervising a doctoral dissertation and supervising two masters theses. He is writing a dissertation for a second PhD (in Biblical Studies) as well as working on four book manuscripts, three of which are commissioned.

      Several landmarks in his spiritual journey occurred during his last year of high school. He had long suffered from asthma and was completely dependent on Ventolin to recover from his frequent attacks. During a church service, a member laid hands on him and prayed for healing. He was healed completely – has not had an asthma attack or used Ventolin since. His interests for post-secondary education were in natural sciences but he also felt called to Christian ministry. He was to meet with the Bishop to discuss his decision and found the Bishop was gone for a week. During his wait for the Bishop’s return, he had to find a place to stay and went to a village he had not been to before and started sharing his faith around. One young man to whom he shared his faith invited Emmanuel in to their home. When the mother of this young man saw Emmanuel, she immediately recognized him as the young man she had seen in a vision three nights before Emmanuel’s arrival at the village – that of a man who would do great things for his God and his country.

      Emmanuel’s is a story of personal triumph over incredible odds – not only physical odds but emotional and spiritual as well. What made that young boy want to go to school so badly? What drove him to be the best at what he did when multitudes around him were willing to settle for mediocrity, and in most cases much less? There are very few “success stories” of this nature in Tanzania, and even fewer that have stayed to help their people. In a place where I am surrounded by stories of pain and failure – stories of a people absolutely imprisoned by extreme poverty – it’s so important to find these people who against all odds defeated this poverty and rose to positions of respect, honor and grace. If we can determine which elements of character and spirit that separate these people from all those around them, perhaps we can apply those elements to helping lift a country – in desperate need of a hero.

Compassion International

 Corporate Mission

In response to the Great Commission, Compassion International exists as an advocate for children, to release them from their spiritual, economic, social and physical poverty and enable them to become responsible and fulfilled Christian adults.

Compassion International is a Christian, non-government organization designed to lift children out of poverty by working with evangelical church partners to implement programs for holistic development of the children – all with the message of Christ’s love for them. Children registered for sponsorship through Compassion go through age-appropriate spiritual development activities such as praying, memorizing bible verses, sing in gospel choirs. The children also participate in social development activities including sporting activities; educational tours; and environmental care activities such as planting and taking care of trees and cleaning the surroundings. In the economic development activities the children benefit from the provision of school fees, uniform and schooling supplies as well as tutorial support for those needing it. In addition, every Saturday the children are given food in a balanced diet. Also, every month, children are given basic supplies such as laundry and toilet soaps and skin oils. All children in Compassion’s program received medical care, health education, biannual comprehensive health examination, weekly hygiene inspection, and weekly lessons in health education.

Further information on Compassion International, and child sponsorship through Compassion International is available at their website: www.compassion.org

HATUA

HATUA reaches aid and development into the most remote areas of Tanzania - in particular encouraging and supporting poor families transform their living conditions through transformed crop farming, encouraging and training local churches to work together for effective discipleship. In broad terms, HATUA is a non-governmental and not-for-profit Trust whose mission is to facilitate sustainable socio-economic and spiritual transformation of communities, families and individuals in poverty by among other things providing appropriate support for children with special needs to improve the quality of their lives and enhance their sense of independence; contribute towards the improvement of education in Tanzania by running peer-education support programs, and nurture future national and global leaders by identifying and facilitating children of great scholastic and leadership potential to develop in critical thinking, leadership skills, character, vision for healthy social transformation, sense of confidence and identity and a positive work ethic.

For further information about a possible role for you in HATUA, or to contact Emmanuel directly:

Emmanuel Mbennah - Compassion International - P.O. Box 3064 – Arusha, Tanzania - Africa

Office phone: +255-27-254-8777            Direct line: +255-27-254-4409

Email: embennah@tz.ci.org or mbennah@yahoo.com