Oscar Tshiebwe inspires immigrant students to chase their dreams
It seems like every day, we get a new story about what an amazing person Oscar Tshiebwe is. From dedicating games to fans to pep talks on Cameo, Kentucky’s National Player of the Year candidate should also take home Person of the Year. For his latest good deed, Oscar shared his story with some kids who needed to hear it the most because it’s the reality they’re currently facing.
On Friday, Oscar visited the English Learning class at Beaumont Middle School in Lexington, which consists of 16 students from Tanzania, Rwanda, Mali, Korea, Japan, China, South America, and Oscar’s homeland of the Congo. Tara Spencer, Beaumont’s EL instructional coach, first got the idea to invite Oscar to her class while attending a Kentucky game with her husband earlier this season.
“I didn’t even know anything about Oscar, but they did the introductions and said that he’s from the Democratic Republic of Congo. And I look at my husband and said, ‘He has got to come speak to our students! How good would it be if they can hear from someone who is from where they are and who is doing good things?'”
“Since then I’ve been praying, Lord, please just let Oscar, make a way for him to be able to come talk to these kids to make a difference in their lives.”
From there, the wheels went into motion. A few weeks ago, Spencer got in touch with someone at UK, and on Friday, Oscar was in her classroom, lighting up the faces of her students.
“You should have seen their faces!”
Spencer’s students came to Lexington in a variety of ways. Several are refugees who received the “golden ticket” to come to America in search of a better life. Lexington has a big African refugee population, so many immigrated to different cities in the States first and then moved to the Bluegrass. A few of Spencer’s students have reached full proficiency, meaning they can speak English well, but others are still struggling. The joy on their faces when Oscar walked in didn’t need any interpretation.
“You should have just, oh, you should have seen their faces! Their faces were lit up,” Spencer said. “All their faces or eyes were just big and lit up and they just stared at him.”
Spencer and her husband bought the students Kentucky hoodies for the occasion. Camera crews from UK and LEX18 were there, along with the Fayette County Schools Superintendent, but Spencer said “it was just Oscar and the kids” once he walked in.
“Oscar talked so much about whenever he first moved to America, how he didn’t know any English, he didn’t like the food, he didn’t like the culture. But he just told them, ‘You know, just give it time. You’ll start to learn and you’ll start to get there.'”
Oscar, who speaks six languages, spoke Swahili with the students who haven’t reached full proficiency in English yet. When he came to America in 2015 with the help of Congo native and NBA player Bismack Biyombo, Oscar didn’t speak any English and had to rely on the help of a French-speaking taxi driver at the New York airport to get to his final destination of Charlotte, North Carolina. Spencer knew hearing Oscar’s story would be the inspiration many of her students have been searching for.
“This guy, he understands what we’re going through. He understands that not knowing the culture and not understanding different things and how people look at us weird or that there’s something wrong with us. That we’re from Africa and we can’t do things. But he understood it and he’s made it, so that inspired me and encouraged me to be able to do the same thing. It was just the sweetest, sweetest moment.”
Oscar spent an hour and a half with the class, answering questions, signing autographs, and taking pictures.
“He was patient with them,” Spencer said. “He was not quick and rushed. ‘I am here for you.’ He really talked about his faith. He is truly the real deal. Any question that they asked — one of our students asked about a girlfriend and he immediately brought everything back to the gospel, showing them like, you have got to trust God. You need to trust the Lord and all of your things. Life is hard. Learning a language is hard, but if you trust God, he is the God of the impossible and he will do it for you. It was so good.”
“You can do hard things”
Before Oscar played basketball, he was a goalie for the academy team of TP Mazembe, one of the top professional soccer teams in Africa. A group of eighth-grade boys Spencer teaches love soccer, so the topic naturally came up. They bonded over how they couldn’t afford soccer balls growing up so they would make their own with balled-up trash bags and tape. It wasn’t just the boys that connected with Oscar. When Spencer told one student they’d be having a special guest from the Congo in class, the young girl knew almost immediately who it was.
“I said, ‘Hey, we’re going to have this guest speaker come and he’s from the Congo. He’s actually a UK basketball player’ and she just squeals and she got so excited. She said, ‘Is it Oscar Tshiebwe??’ I said, ‘It is. How did you know?’ She said, ‘Oh my goodness! I went to a basketball game and I saw him, and he was so big, and he was so good. And, oh, I’m just so excited. I want to meet him.’ And so that was sweet, that a girl knew that.”
Oscar told the students that he wants to play in the NBA one day, specifically for the Los Angeles Lakers. Once his playing days are over, Oscar said he wants to follow a higher calling and become a minister. Oscar’s father, Mbuyi Tshiebwe, was head pastor at a New Apostolic church in the commune of Kanya. Mbuyi was poisoned in July 2012. On the same day that he died, Mbuyi pulled Oscar aside and told him never to forget God because when you lose God, you lose your life. Spencer said Oscar didn’t go into details about his father’s passing with the group but did share how he’s still guided by his father’s lessons and the Lord.
“He just shared the inspiration that his dad gave him and about how his dad would tell him, ‘You can do hard things’ and pointed him to trusting in the Lord and asking the Lord for help and that the Lord would provide for him always. And that he doesn’t need to worry, he doesn’t need to fret about it, he just has to give it over to God. He shared that with the kids, and the kids were able to connect with it.”
It’s one thing to be capable of doing the things Oscar does on the basketball court; but when you combine that talent with his ability to lead and inspire others, you’ve got a very special person indeed.
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