This is me.

This is going to be a little long so sit back relax, kick off your shoes, get something to snack on, popcorn..etc 

My whole life I’ve known who God was but I never got to personally know him till I was older. My life has been a struggle way before I was even born. before I was born my parents were told that they couldn’t have kids, they tried for the first 5 years of their marriage and got nothing. My mom told me that they almost gave up and said “forget it, If God wanted us to have kids, he would give them to us.” It made it worse seeing their friends who got married around the same time they did with kids, and family members didn’t help.

See having twins kind of runs in my family on both sides so my parent’s siblings would remind my parents of the fact that they had kids and my parents didn’t! Before my parents finally gave up, my mom decided to go to this church conference that they were having in the village, so she went not really expecting much. She was later prophesied upon and the man told her that she was going to give birth, and not only was she going to have one child; she was going to have two! July 23th, 1991 was the day that her miracle happened. My twin brother Idee and I were born on that day. The impossible became possible.

We were born in Africa- The Democratic Republic of Congo in a small city called Kalemie. Now Africa isn’t one of the most techonologically advanced continents, especially not during the 90’s. My mom had such a hard time with giving birth to us that my brother and I ended up being 4 hours apart, yes 4 hours!! I’m pretty sure the process of her delivering was much longer than 4hrs. She doesn’t like to talk about it! smh after giving birth to us she was basically on bed rest for almost two months. The doctors told her that she could have died because we caused so much strain on her physically.

 Life was good in the village, you had all your relatives were near by so you didn’t have much to worry about.  My younger sister was born in 1996; that year is bittersweet. It’s sweet because she was born, but bitter because that’s when all hell literally broke lose. 

I’m a Congolese Tutsi. during 1994 the genocide in Rwanda occurred, which killed over 1million Hutus and Tutsis combined. during that time, I really didn’t know what was going on. before the war in Rwanda eventually trickled down to Congo, everything was peaceful. In the summer of 1996 my dad decided that we should leave the village and go to the city since the militias ( Hutu soldiers who were trying to exterminate all Tutsi) were targeting villages. We left for the city in hopes of returning to the village to get my grandparents. We never got the chance to go back to the village again. We lived in the city for awhile but our neighbors knew that we weren’t “real” Congolese people because we didn’t speak Lingala or French. We spoke Kinyamulenge and Kiswahili. The militias eventually found us.

We were eating dinner one evening and they came and arrested my parents and I remember my mom took my younger sister with her because we were too young to watch her. My brother, my older cousin who was about 10 and I were basically left to fend for ourselves. The house girl or maid that worked for my parents stayed with us but the militias told her to flee and to not tell anyone about what had happened. We spend a full day not knowing whether we were going to see our parents again.

The militias finally bought our parents back…about 2 weeks later, it was early in the morning, around 2 or 3 am. The militias were back but this time it was more of them. They came in the army truck. banging on the door, firing their guns in the air to scare us. they beat my dad and one of them beat my older cousin. I remember one of the militias kicked my cousin to the ground and stumped on his face, he had on a pair of black chuck taylor’s. Till this day my cousin will not buy or every wear a pair of chucks. the militias turned our house upside down, they took everything that was worth of any value..my mothers jewelry, wedding rings, watches, bags of rice, beans…everything! they took all us and placed us in an army truck, they kept talking about how they wanted us dead, how worthless Tutsis were. my siblings, cousin and I were all crying out of fear and all my parents were trying to do was comfort us. My parents knew that the militias could and would do anything that they wanted to us and they could cover it up like we never existed. We ended up at some refugee camp which was basically some type of concentration camp without the gas masks, showers and stuff. it was like all the tutsis that fled the villages were all in one place.

I was about 5 then and all I remember was asking my mom almost everyday when were we going back home and when could I start school, I was supposed to start school before the militias decided to break up our happy home…they eventually arrested my dad and all the other males that were over the age of 18. all the grown ups knew that they were going to kill all the men. they didn’t kill any of them, that was God. people died in the camps from poor health,  or because they were malnourished.

The militias never killed any of us…they had guns to do it, but they didn’t. well when they took the men, they placed them in prisons to seperate them from the women and the children. The men in the prisons were  very very malnourished, my mother and some of the other women who had husbands would sometimes sneak out at night to give the men food. Food was rationed out,  some organization came about every two weeks to see what the mothers needed for their babies and what food was lacking. we had fufu and beans just about every single day, we would have some collard greens on a good day….but it was fufu and beans or beans and rice for 6 months…we were released from the camps then, we were allowed to be reunited with our father and uncles..apparently my other older cousin who was on his way to Uganda got caught by the militias and was placed in the same cell as my dad. when we were released the militias said that “if you have somewhere you can go outside of Congo then go. if you don’t we’ll kill you” my mom had a brother in Uganda and my dad had a brother in Rwanda….so my mom told the militias that she was going to Uganda while my dad told them that he was going to Rwanda. One of the soliders questioned them “If you guys are both married, how come ya’ll are both saying two different countries? Neither of you are going anywhere.” many other people were allowed to leave but we stayed along with other families who couldn’t leave…I remember being scared because I can still remember the day we were forced to line up execution style like we were going to die that day…after 2 weeks we were allowed to leave to go to another camp…this camp was waaaay better, I was allowed to go to school in the camp, church…everything…it was like a city inside of a city…we stayed there for about 8 months.

God worked everything out, I heard of people dying left and right, women and girls who were around my age at the time being raped..but nothing ever happened to me or my family. We came to the United states on February 24th, 2000 after experiencing horror in Congo we honestly didn’t know where we were going. I was 8 yrs old when we came, I started school. started learning english. my parents started taking classes to learn english as well but they later realized that they had bills to pay, so they stopped taking classes and encouraged us to stay in school. My parents never got to finish high school so my siblings and I had to do it and go further than they did! life was great for a good year or so, 2001 came and that when everything changed for me.

When I was 9 going on 10, my older cousin who came to America with us raped me. I blamed God, myself for what happened that night and that week. It was a week long of hell. I was too young to understand the impact of what was happpening at the time but I wasn’t too young to not understand that cousins don’t have rape or have sex with cousins. I tried to wash the pain, the disgust away but it wouldn’t go away. I started eating more, I became closed out to everyone. I figured if I smiled alot people wouldn’t ask if anything was wrong, so I hid behind my smile, behind my laughter. I became good at hiding, I hid from God, my siblings and my parents. I was just a body with no purpose, when my cousin raped me I felt like he took everything from me. I remember crying in the restroom the next day and questioning God, asking him why did he let it happen to me. I became depressed which went through most of my childhood.

 I grew up in the church and I knew how to play “churchy” so no one would ask me anything, even as a little girl. I always made sure I was on my best behavior so I wouldn’t get in trouble. And I wouldn’t have to talk about anything. I would still go to church with my parents, I never acted any different. I was dying inside for so long, but no one ever knew. I finally got tired of carrying around all that hurt, hatred and pain. I told my twin brother about what happened to me when I was 8 yrs old when I was about 15 yrs. Him and my cousin got into a big fight. My parents came home to find them both with blood on their hands. My brother and cousin both lied and said that they were fighting over a game or something less serious. I even told my younger sister about my rape because I wanted her to tell me if anyone ever tried to do the same to her. I acted strong around everyone else. I had to be, I was the big sister so my twin brother and young sister looked up to me. I was depressed, I had low self esteem, I had suicidal thoughts I was just a mess. I knew that God could take it all away and make me whole again, I just didn’t want to believe it. I was still angry at God for allowing one of his so called beloved child to get raped by someone she looked up too. My older cousin was my big brother. I was the big sister and he was the big brother, we were a team when my parents weren’t home.

I went through middle school and high school with all this pain in me. No one ever knew unless I told them about it…And for so long I honestly thought that all guys wanted was sex and nothing else. so I sheltered myself from all guys, if I liked a guy I wouldn’t tell them anything. I figured I wasn’t pretty enough for anyone. I got picked in middle school so that didn’t help my self esteem and self confidence. the older I got the more I decided that it was time for me to fully get right with God. I played religion for years. In 2010, it’s my senior year and I realize that I have to fully forgive my cousin for what he did. but first I have to forgive myself for speaking all those negative thoughts in my head for some long. I decided to make some changes. it was the summer before my senior year and my church was having a back to school youth explosion weekend in Dallas..I went every year since 2006, but never really changed. I would get pumped up during the weekend but be back to my old self in about a week. high school was tough. Sophomore yr.- grandmother who I hadn’t seen since I was 5 passed away, mom got laid around my birthday time.  Junior yr.- Mom got laid off again, I get into an accident by running into our garage. Senior yr.-grandpa who I hadn’t seen since i was probably about 4 or 5 passes away, mom get laid off again. Dad gets sick. But in the mist of all that ever happened in my life, I knew that God was always there. I was the one who kept moving further and further away from him.

During the explosion I finally broke down, cried out to God to take all my hurt, pain and hatred for my cousin away. He did it, it didn’t come over night but I learned to fully love myself and fully love others. I learn to forgive, to fully forgive. see I thought I had forgiven my cousin but everything he would come to visit I would feel hatred towards him. I finally forgave him in 2009 and I wrote him a letter when I went away for school telling him that I forgave him. God is good, He really is. regardless of the hell that I went through in my life, I knew God was working through all of it. Now I can fully smile and laugh because I know where my joy comes from, it comes from God. Since August 2009 I’ve been walking with God, personally walking with him. This walk is tough, but it’s not impossible.