“The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt.”                                                        Frederick Buechner

 June 1994 – New York City: Deogratias “Deo” Niyizonkiza left his empty shopping cart on the sidewalk. He slipped into St. Thomas More’s Church on East 89^th Street in Manhattan to pray. He was alone and out of place in a strange new world. Deo knew no one, spoke no English and had no money. Sometimes, he prayed that God would take him to heaven.

Born in the small African village of Butanza in southwestern Burundi, the second poorest country in the world, Deo’s father, a Hutu farmer, raised a few cows and grew enough corn, sweet potatoes, bananas and cassava to feed the family. Despite his poor upbringing, Deo excelled at the small school run by Catholic sisters, where he learned French.

In 1993, Deo was in his third year of medical school at the University of Burundi when a bloody civil war broke out in his country. His family was slaughtered in Butanza by Tutsi rebels. Deo, who was working in a hospital in Bujumbura, the country’s largest city, barely escaped when Tutsi soldiers ransacked the building. He fled on foot to the neighboring country of Rwanda, where he spent six months in a refugee camp with 300,000 fellow Burundi’s.

In May 1994, when Deo returned to Bujumbura, the father of a medical school friend bought him a plane ticket to New York City and gave him $200 spending money. Deo had heard of New York, but he needed help finding it on a map.

Upon arriving in the U.S., Deo slept with other African refugees in an abandoned, rat-infested apartment building. Then, he discovered Central Park, and found that, compared to the rats, he preferred sleeping under the stars. In his first week, he got a job delivering groceries on foot to wealthy residents in Manhattan. The job paid $15 a day plus any tips he received.

While making his deliveries, Deo passed St. Thomas More’s Church and frequently slipped into the chapel to pray. In late June, he received an order to deliver groceries to the St. Thomas rectory. He met Sharon McKenna, a nun who worked there. She spoke French and was a godsend for Deo.

After hearing Deo’s story, Sharon made it her mission to find him a place to live. It took a month and a dozen turndowns before God led Sharon to Nancy and Charlie Wolf. Charlie, a retired sociology professor, and Nancy, an artist, welcomed Deo and invited him to stay in their Upper East Side loft apartment.

In the fall of 1995, with the Wolf’s encouragement and financial support, Deo enrolled in the American Language program at Columbia University. A year later, he became a full-time student at Columbia, majoring in biochemistry.

After graduating from Columbia in 2001, Deo used student loans, scholarships and financial assistance from the Wolfs to enroll in Harvard University’s School of Public Health. After earning his master’s degree, he began his first year of medical school at Dartmouth University despite having three years of medical school under his belt.

When the 13-year-long Burundi civil war finally ended in 2006, Deo withdrew from medical school and went home with a dream to improve life in a country where the average life span is 54. Eighteen months later, he founded Village Health Works in Kitugu near his village of Butanza. Deo inspired Hutus and Tutsis, once bitter enemies, to donate land, to build a road and a small three-building medical clinic.

A doctor friend, Tarek Meguid, left his practice in New Jersey to join Deo. They worked 80-hour weeks without pay and treated 30,000 patients in the first year. Later, a company donated a solar generator to replace flashlights. An international group made free medicines available. The clinic grew to 10 beds, with six nurses and 33 community volunteers.

Today, the Kitugu Health Works site includes a large outpatient clinic, a 600-student K-12 school and the Kigutu Hospital and Women’s Health Pavilion. The 150-bed hospital project was kick-started by a $2 million donation from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and built exclusively through private donations. The hospital offers obstetrics, neonatal care, pediatrics, surgical services and doctor and nurse training.

Deogratias Niyizonkiza, once homeless in Central Park, brings life and hope to Burundi. He says, “Sharon McKenna offered me kindness and compassion, and she made me believe that despite everything going on in my life, I should not give up hope in my dream for Burundi.”