Westside Christian student uses past to create future

By Bryan Atkinson

, Jun 4, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (1 Reader comment)

SUBMITTED PHOTO

Enric Sifa is a recording artist and student at Westside Christian High School in Lake Oswego.

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The year is 1996, and 9-year-old Eric Nshimiyumuremyi is scared. His mother has just died of disease, and he lost his father in the Rwandan Genocide of 1994. He is an orphan with nowhere to turn. His only option is to live on the streets, homeless and hopeless.

Now it is 2009, and Nshimiyumuremyi, who changed his name to Enric Sifa to make pronunciation simpler, is a recording artist attending Westside Christian High School in Lake Oswego as a 22-year-old sophomore.

Rwanda, in east-central Africa, experienced a violent ethnic genocide, which left many children without parents. More than 1 million people were killed in only 90 days, devastating the country and spreading poverty.

Sifa’s life journey is a message of hope.

“I always liked to sing when I was young,” he said. “My mom was a singer in the church choir. When I was living on the street, singing became my personality.”

Sifa struggled to survive. He hung out at clubs because he liked the music and could run errands for patrons.

“It was fun in the club, but I couldn’t always have fun because these big guys would get drunk and beat me up,” Sifa said.

“One day, I was beaten a lot. That time I stopped. I just had God telling me, ‘Don’t go into clubs.’ I didn’t know it was God, but my heart felt it,” Sifa said. “The following day, I went to church and felt love. People greeted me, and they were smiling. There was good music.”

“So I thought, ‘Why can’t I stay here? I don’t have to pay; no one will beat me up.’ People invited me in their homes, and I became a kid like others. I received God in my heart; I became a believer.”

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