Blessed to Be Here

The story of a Chadian child soldier, Esaie Toingar, who was refugee in Nigeria and benefited from a resettlement of the United Nations to come to the USA. His wife joined him a year later. The couple went through cultural shock, language barrier, and many other struggles. Today, they become a model for many refugees and immigrants through their education and humanitarian works in the USA and many other countries in Africa

Coming from a region of a poor country but extremely rich with love, patience, unity, and respect, my wife, Brigitte Toingar, and I had a long story of love and patience. We respected our words and commitments to each other for nearly 10 years before we came together as husband and wife. We would have broken our commitments and ended our lives separately when the series of civil war had split us for many years but we put the patience in the center of our lives to become a couple and then parents. Building our life as a young couple in a new country and continent where we had many cultural and social barriers was not easy step to overcome but, we did it and made it through the blessings of God because He is in us and always nourishes us with love, patience, and respects not only between us as a couple or family but with all people, it does not matter of their social, cultural, religion or beliefs, or color differences. Patience, courage, determination, and trust in God were our daily tools that we used to eliminate most of our barriers. Apparently, if we neglected one of them we would have not progressed in our education and kept our jobs. In addition to those tools, our close friends had a great love for us and were always ready to help us in diverse ways they could to keep us above any issue or struggles that we faced. We have been so blessed to have those friends with different colors and talents but same love and compassion not only for our family but all other people that they met on their paths. If today we claimed ourselves as a family of love and compassion, the credits go to them because we were like a baby and they were like our parents who governed our first steps to become a running baby. We thank them from the bottom of our heart for being our models. Through them and through Almighty God, we do not only be a model for our family or one of models for other fellow Africans here in our new country but also, we make impact into our motherland. May God bless all people who contribute through unique way in the lives of our children or any member of our family.

Esaie Toingar is the founder and president of three non-profit organizations by which he seeks to inspire others: Wake Up For Your Rights, Water and Clean Energy for Livelihood International, and Journey to Forgiveness and Peace. He is an activist and a commissioner on the Civil Rights Commission of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Author of A Teenager in the Chad Civil War and Idriss Déby and the Darfur Conflict, Esaie is also a documentary writer and producer of Dos and Don'ts in the USA. Esaie holds an M.A. in Industrial Management and works for Rockwell Collins in Cedar Rapids. Esaie and his wife, Brigitte, fund an elementary and middle school for needy children in their native Chad and are the parents of five children. Brigitte Toingar has a mission to heal. Overcoming all obstacles shortly after arriving in the United States, Brigitte earned four nursing credentials--Licensed Practical Nurse, Registered Nurse, Bachelor of Nursing, and Nurse Practitioner--and practices the nursing profession in Iowa.