Denyse’s Story of Courage and New Beginnings
My name is Denyse. In 2019, my father passed away, leaving behind my mother, my two siblings – one brother and one sister – and me. Life changed drastically after that, but my mother tried her best to hold us together and raise us. Then, just three years later, in 2022, my mother also died. That day marked the beginning of a new kind of pain.
Suddenly, I was left with the responsibility of raising my younger siblings, even though I was still a child myself, only 14 years old. I was still in need of care, love, and guidance, yet I had no choice but to become the caregiver.
Life became extremely difficult. We were all still in school, but I had to find a way to keep us alive. I remember crying out to God, questioning whether He had forgotten me. I started thinking about dropping out of school. The burden felt unbearable. But I didn’t give up. Every morning before school, I would go work for people – cutting grass for their animals, fetching water – just to earn something small so that my siblings and I could eat in the evening. Most days, the people I worked for paid me with a few kilograms of low-quality potatoes, and that’s what we would eat.
We lived alone for many months. No one from our extended family came to help us, not even after our parents had died. We felt completely abandoned, until one day, a woman came to visit us and said she was our aunt. We didn’t know her; she had never visited us before, not even at our parents’ funerals. After seeing the way we were living, she made a decision that would change our lives. She told us she would take us into her home during the school year and bring us back to our house during the holidays.
I asked her, “Are you doing this from your heart, or are you just trying to give me false hope?” And she replied, “Even though I’ve just come from the hospital and I’m not well myself, trust in God, because He can do all things.”
She wasn’t financially stable either, but she took us in anyway. From that day on, I promised myself that I would fight for my education, no matter what, because maybe—just maybe—it would change our lives. By God’s grace, we continued our studies. The headmaster of our school helped us with school needs. I worked hard, and when I sat for my national O-Level exams, I passed with excellent grades. But then came a new challenge: I had no idea how I would afford to continue my studies. I didn’t even have money to buy something as basic as soap.
But a miracle happened. I met people from Arise Rwanda, and they gave me the greatest gift: hope. They told me they would pay for my education so I could continue school. They believed in me.
Arise Rwanda, thank you for choosing me when you could have chosen anyone else. May God bless you beyond measure for the kindness and opportunity you have given me. You did not just change my life – you gave me a reason to dream again.
