Pastor Emmy's Story

Pastor Emmanuel's life as a child was very difficult and neither he nor his wife Sarah received the parental care that they needed growing up.  Emmanuel's father was a "drunkard" and married nineteen women.  Emmy's own mother was only 15 years old when her parents forced her to marry his 60 year old father.  Emmy's mom later divorced his dad and Emmy stayed under his father's household.  One stepmother seriously mistreated Emmy after his own mother left at age 8.  By age 14 he was forced to travel by bike 56 miles to bring food for the family and water from two miles out.  Often times his bike would fall over on top of him with the heavy  jericans (large containers of water) and leave him little strength for the rest of the long journey.  He often had to wait for someone to lift the bike off of him.  Many people felt sorry for him but did nothing to help him out of his sad situation. Once home he still had to split firewood.  Emmy  said it was as if he was a slave in his own home.  

His stepmother would only feed him dinner while the rest of the family had two meals a day.  

The stepmother even tried to go to witch doctors to hurt him but God protected him and nothing harmed him.  She became threatened by Emmanuel when his dad was about to die because he was the oldest child and would become the heir of his father.  One day on returning home he found lunch waiting for him and was so happy that they had thought of him.  However, by God's divine protection his little stepsister ran in to tell him secretly "don't eat that food because I saw mother put something in it and I am afraid for you."  He hoped this wasn't true especially since he was so hungry from working hard but he listened to her and fed the food to their pig.  The next day the pig was dead and at age 15 Emmanuel knew he had to run away from home.  A relative took Emmy in and helped him get odd jobs as a houseboy, and a porter to Engineers who built buildings.  God's hand was on him and he applied for a job to teach third grade which he got.  There the Lord blessed him as he met his future wife Sarah  and gave him favor to do his job well to be promoted.  Emmanuel and Sarah Nnyanzi were married in 1989 and they came to know the Lord this same year and put a burning desire to serve Him in their hearts.  

They now have 5 children and over 15 orphans who live with them.  By God's grace they have planted 27 churches (the first of which is a powerful testimony we'll share soon) and have a school and ministry to over 150 orphans.  They struggle to pay 5 teachers salaries so they can teach the children for free.  Their heart is to transform their world with the parental love of the Father.  Emmanuel hopes to build a school and home for the orphans and we hope to help the Lord in His marvelous work to care for the orphans of Uganda.

Emmanuel's friendship has personally been an answer to prayer for our family.  He and his church have spent hours fasting and praying for us and we are so very thankful for his labor of love.  Jesus knew just the way to network us together so long hoped for prayers would be answered not only in Uganda but in Tyler!  We are excited to see what the Lord has planned to show us as we go to visit and pray with our dear friend and meet his family.