Our Story

The Call

Three years ago, I boarded a plane to Nairobi, Kenya, with a simple intention: to meet a client and deliver a cell phone.

I could not have known that this ordinary journey would quietly rearrange the course of my life.

In Nairobi, I met Abba Henry — a man whose courage, clarity, and capacity for love would become the axis around which everything that followed would turn. What began as a professional relationship quickly became something deeper: a recognition.

A sense that we were meeting not by accident, but by alignment.

Abba later described it this way:

“Meeting you was like stepping into a world where everything suddenly felt possible — a world full of love, hope, and meaning.”

At the time, I didn’t yet have language for what I was experiencing. I only knew that something inside me had been called forward — something that could no longer look away.

Crossing the Threshold

Abba’s life had been shaped by forces most people never have to confront. He grew up in a country where simply being oneself could carry lethal consequences. Silence was demanded. Visibility was dangerous. Love itself could be criminalized.

And yet — love endured.

Not as sentiment.
As resistance.
As survival.
As truth.

Abba taught me that unconditional love is not passive. It is an active force — one that allows a human being to remain intact in environments designed to fracture them. Love became his voice when speech was forbidden. His rebellion when fear was mandated. His proof of existence when erasure was the goal.

Through our friendship, I encountered unconditional love not as an idea, but as a lived reality. And once you encounter it — truly — you cannot return to who you were before.

Trials and Disillusionment

In 2023 and 2024, the world tightened.

Political shifts, rising hostility, and the passage of the Anti-Homosexuality Act across parts of East Africa created a climate of escalating danger. What had once been precarious became acute. People we loved were forced into motion — leaving refugee camps where survival, while limited, was at least possible, and entering regions marked by war, instability, and near-total isolation.

By December 2024, after extensive vetting, nearly 300 refugees — including Abba and members of our extended family — were approved for resettlement to the United States.

Then the election happened.

Overnight, those approvals vanished.
Protection evaporated.
Pathways closed.

The Inner Turning

What came next was not a strategy meeting.

It was a reckoning.

If what we had been teaching held any truth, we had to live it — not when it was easy, but when it felt impossible.

Years earlier, my son Mubarak and I had co-written The East African Manifesting Manual — a practical, culturally grounded guide for reclaiming inner agency in environments shaped by scarcity, trauma, and disruption.

Mubarak embodied these principles naturally. In November 2025, he would become the first among us to resettle — not through force or luck, but through alignment, preparation, and resilience.

Now, with much of our team living in South Sudan largely out of communication, we returned to the work itself: coherence, imagination, surrender, and disciplined inner trust.

This was not magical thinking.
It was survival with dignity.

A Companion Story: Family, Rescue, and Crossing the Threshold

My name is Mubarak Kambugu

In November 2022, during one of the most painful and uncertain periods of my life, I met a man who would change my destiny forever. I was overwhelmed by hardship and despair, and I could not see a way forward.

That was when Martin — who would later be known to me as Kintu — stepped into my life.

He did not only offer safety.
He offered family.

Martin made the courageous and compassionate decision to adopt me and my brother, Khaled Shaban, as his own children. Together with his business partner, Abba Henry, he helped bring us to safety, restore our dignity, and rebuild our belief in ourselves.

We were not treated as victims, but as sons — capable of learning, working, earning income, and imagining a future again.

As I came to understand Martin’s deeper mission, I realized that his work extended far beyond individual rescue. His life’s purpose is rooted in restoring marginalized Africans — helping people move from survival to transformation. His love for Africa and its people is so deep that it feels as though African blood runs through his veins.

Because of this, I gave him the name Kintu — a name that means father of the people. A father to those who have lost protection, belonging, or hope. And truly, he has become that to many Africans, even after adopting us as his own.

Martin Kintu Cowart is my father, and I love him deeply. I will love him for the rest of my life.

Through Diamond Mine Academy, Martin has supported and uplifted countless Africans — providing not only emergency help, but skills, mentorship, and the inner confidence needed to rebuild a life.

When conditions in Kenya became unsafe, we were forced to move together with others to South Sudan. Even there, under extremely harsh conditions, the support did not stop.

In November 2025, through the assistance of UNHCR and the Government of Canada, I was resettled to Canada — marking a new chapter of safety, stability, and opportunity.

The mission continues. Even this past January, another mother and her child arrived safely in Toronto through the same commitment to protection, dignity, and care.

While life has changed for those of us who managed to escape danger, many more remain behind — waiting not only for daily support, but for true life transformation as they await safe resettlement.

Our work exists for them.
Our commitment continues for them.

This story is not only about rescue.
It is about family.
It is about resilience.

And it is about the belief that every life — when supported, protected, and empowered — can shine like a diamond.

Allies Found in the Silence

By mid–2024, communication with our team in South Sudan had become sporadic and unreliable. What had once been a daily connection turned into long stretches of uncertainty. Decisions had to be made without updates. Care had to be extended without confirmation. The sense of isolation was profound.

And it was precisely during this period — when visibility was lowest and outcomes were most uncertain — that new leaders began to emerge.

In 2024, we met Stephen Omatule, who would later become our Chief Financial Officer, along with many of the individuals who now form the heart of our Manifesting Collective and Leadership Council. These relationships did not form because we had resources to offer. They formed because people recognized the integrity of the work itself.

At a time when we were not distributing money, not offering guarantees, and not promising rescue, those who stayed did so out of resonance — not need. Some came from refugee camps. Others lived in regions marked by widespread unemployment and social instability.

What united them was not circumstance, but orientation: a willingness to take responsibility for their inner world while navigating an uncertain outer one.

We also learned difficult lessons during this time. Trust was tested. Boundaries were clarified. Not everyone who arrived was meant to stay.

Those experiences refined our discernment and deepened our commitment to coherence over urgency.

Leadership was not appointed.
It revealed itself.

The Descent and the Return

The cost of this period was real.

With much of our team unreachable in South Sudan and new relationships forming quietly elsewhere, I could no longer sustain our coaching practice or raise funds at the scale we once had. I returned to work as a substitute school teacher — humbly and quietly — to meet daily needs while continuing the work behind the scenes.

And still, something unexpected continued to unfold.

Across refugee camps, cities, and informal networks, people kept finding us — not because we were offering money, but because we were offering something rarer: a framework for agency.

A way to think, feel, and act from dignity rather than desperation.

Some stayed.
Some left when they realized there would be no handouts.
Some attempted to exploit trust — and taught us necessary lessons.

Slowly and unmistakably, the right people remained.