The Courageous

INTRODUCTION

Most of us believe the lies we tell ourselves to justify the reasons why we cannot succeed and fail to accomplish great things in life, or why we find the journey exhausting and cannot find the strength to get back up when life hands us inevitable defeats along the way. Well, let me tell you something my grandmother used to tell me when I was just a few years old. She often looked me straight in the eyes and said, “You can do it; you can do anything if you want it bad enough.” Then she slowly added, as if she could see confusion overwhelming my tiny body, “It is all in your head.”

While it took me a great while to fully understand what my sweet old grandmother was trying to tell me; I finally comprehend her. She was just trying to tell me that I—essentially, my mental block—am the only obstacle preventing me from reaching my goals, and in order for me to break through, I first must let it go and actually convince myself that I too am good enough, strong enough, smart enough, and qualified enough to do that which I aspire to do. Why am I telling you all this? Who am I and what actually qualifies me to tell you my story? For starter, I am somebody, a human being and I think that is a good place to start. I wasn’t born with a golden, silver, or even a bronze spoon in my mouth like some people would like to think. I have what most people would call a humble upbringing. Being born in a third-world country, West Africa, and having survived first my childhood, neither my mother nor father wanted me when I was conceived. They thought they were too young to have a child of their own. They were in the process of aborting me, when my grandmother caught up to my mother, saved, adopted, and raised me. Having also survived a political uproar a refugee camp, and having to start my life all over in a different country away from everything I knew growing up, as well as my childhood friends wasn’t exactly something most people saw.

I grew up in Togo where I have seen poverty first-hand. And no, it is nothing like what you have in mind about poverty in America or in other developed countries. There was absolutely no welfare system, no health care system, and no government program of any kind to help needy families. I am talking about the type of scarcity that make you appreciate and valued life at its very basic level without regards to material possession because, we didn’t have much; that is to say we didn’t have any. We had to struggle for even the most basic of all: food, and a place to lay your head at the end of the day, every day.

In the year 1993, there was political unrest in Togo that saw many innocent people brutally killed; some people mysteriously disappeared, kidnapped and never heard from again. Those who were lucky enough to escape with their lives, fled to the neighboring countries where many perished, and some even before reaching their destinations. It was dreadful.

By the grace of God, some of us were granted Asylum to the United States of America after seven agonizing years in a refugee camp, where another phase of our lives would unfold yet again.

I know poverty first-hand because I have lived it every day of my life, but I refused to use it as an excuse. I definitely didn’t let it define me as in giving me reason not to want to succeed. The opposite is true. I tried to channel everything I have learned along the way to help me reach my goals and where I am today, a happy place. Life was very hard. I was sixteen years old and didn’t speak the English language at all. I cried many nights just thinking about how to survive in this new and strange world, where everything was different from what I was accustom to seeing and doing. Yet I didn’t give up; I persevered. I worked hard, put myself through college and most of all I believed in myself. I sincerely believed I too can make something out of myself, and that gave me a glimmer of hope. The fact that I had faith in God also made the journey that much more enjoyable, for I knew in the end, everything was going to be just fine. He promised.

The following is something that has happened to me along the way, and I think God intended it for me to strengthen me, my faith, help me grow, and draw me even closer to him. My journey is not in any way too exceptional. In sharing my experience with you, I am simply hoping that it, my journey and what I have uncovered along the way, shed some light on your own life, and journey, and hopefully guide you in your decision making as you move forward to bigger and greater things in life.

In all things, May God help you, and bless you abundantly.

Amen.