From Nigeria to Huntsville, on a wing and much prayer
Africans drawn to the small Texas city by common bonds of work, faith, hope
HUNTSVILLE — A steady rain pelted the plain, brick church, muddying the crowded parking lot and blanketing the sky in a gray gloom.
Inside the RCCG Rhema International Assembly, however, the spirit was joyful.
Congregants sang and swayed and lifted their voices. They praised the Lord in English and in a variety of Nigerian languages: Igbo, Yoruba, Urhobo. They tapped out beats on tambourines, shekere gourds and talking drums.
“You are alive today. That means you can face tomorrow,” a deacon rejoiced. “Hallelujah.”
Hands fluttered in the air. Voices rose in unison.
From the nursery in the back, children’s laughter mingled with the songs and prayers.
This was, in every sense, a family gathering. Of mothers, fathers and children. Of immigrants joined by common roots. Of colleagues employed as prison guards by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
They had been drawn to this small city in the Piney Woods of East Texas from different corners of the U.S., by word of mouth and social media chatter, by the promise of steady work and a brighter future.
They are drawn to this simple church by the bonds of culture and career, evident in the worshippers filling the pews.
Many of the women were resplendent in vibrant outfits and headdresses crafted of traditional African fabrics, while a number of men wore tunics and loose-fitting pants. The music carried echoes of their homelands: Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Liberia, Cameroon and Kenya.
One congregant, lauded for recently passing a sergeant’s test, still wore his uniform. The pastor, John Okperuvwe, came to service after completing an overnight shift as a food service supervisor at the Goree Unit and would return to work later that day.
“One of the visions I have is to affect every life that comes into this town. Every African. Every nation. No matter where you come from,” Okperuvwe told the churchgoers. “When people come, we will assist them.”
The minister believes that God led him here. How else to explain the fortuitous turns that brought his family from Lagos, Nigeria to Huntsville, Texas.
In his home country, Okperuvwe was a microbiologist who had to find whatever job he could to make ends meet. He drove a transport vehicle, pastored for the Redeemed Christian Church of God, treated patients on the side.
He was without a secure job, with dim prospects. On a lark, he and his wife, Ufuoma, entered a visa lottery, never thinking they would actually be approved for entry to the U.S.
Months later, they were stunned to learn that they had been selected. They scrambled to find the $100 for the visa fee, then again to find a way to pay for Okperuvwe’s airfare. (Relatives lent money for both.)
The plan was for Okperuvwe to find work in the U.S. and save the $10,000 needed to bring his wife and four children. Once he settled in this country, in November 2008, first spending a few days in Boston and then moving on to Los Angeles, he realized scraping that much together would be nearly impossible.
So, he prayed. Every night. On his knees. For a month.
Then he got word that a family friend named Blessing had offered to cover the cost of the tickets.
In L.A., the family of six shared one room in a four-bedroom house. The children slept on the floor, the parents in the bed. The
only work Okperuvwe could find was as a security guard, which barely paid enough to cover the rent. Once more, his prospects were dim.
“This was not the America I had read about in the papers or seen on CNN,” he says. “It was really, really tough.”
Again, he believes, God intervened.
A college friend from Lagos, with whom he had reconnected on Facebook, urged him to move to Texas. California, he said, “was for rich people.” Here, there was already a sizable Nigerian community, the second-largest in the country. Here, the cost of living was lower. Here, there were jobs — good jobs — with TDCJ.
In March 2010, the family relocated to Houston, and Okperuvwe applied to the department of corrections. By that July, he had a job at the Estelle Unit.
By September, his family was in Huntsville, and Okperuvwe had started a branch of Redeemed Christian Church of God — in the living room of his house. Eight people — his family and a couple of neighbors — attended the first service.
“We clapped our hands together, and the church started,” he jokes.
Then, they started looking around for other Africans in the city of 30,000, home to Sam Houston State University and seven state prisons, including the busiest death chamber in the country.
In 2010, according to the U.S. Census, about 50 people born in Africa lived in Huntsville, with about 100 people of Sub-Saharan ancestry. Most were Nigerians.
But the community was growing.
As with traditional immigrant enclaves around the country — Vietnamese in Houston, Dominicans in New York, Brazilians in Boston — the promise of work and the lure of living alongside people who share a culture brought more newcomers. In such ethnic strongholds, as the numbers grow, more want to come.
Word of the opportunities at TDCJ spread among friends, family and acquaintances. There were postings on Facebook and in emails.
One post on the Nairaland Forum, an internet message board
for Nigerians, enticed: “The State Of Texas is the best Place for you to pick up in life again.”
Some people, like John Tough, first arrived in Huntsville as students at Sam Houston University and stayed after finding employment at TDCJ.
Tough, 59, originally from Sierra Leone, came to the city in 1986 to study agriculture. He ended up marrying a “local girl” and working for the prison system for 16 years before retiring after he was diagnosed with a brain tumor.
“Now there are so many Africans working in the prison,” he says.
The TDCJ does not keep records of employees by national origin, but according to some reports, entire shifts at the prison units are now staffed by West African immigrants. Okperuvwe’s wife also works for the prison system, in the Byrd Unit.
By 2014, the census showed, the number of Huntsville residents born in Africa had jumped to 249; of those, 238 were from Nigeria. The number of people with SubSaharan African ancestry rose to 507, with 401 of Nigerian ancestry.
At Okperuvwe’s church, the congregation also expanded.
Within a few years, the church, which had moved from Okperuvwe’s living room to a storefront on Sam Houston Avenue, a space that held about 50 people, was too big even for that location.
The church moved again to a building with room for 250. Most Sundays, every seat is taken — and Okperuvwe now is looking for more space.
He dreams not just of a larger church but of building a hostel, where new arrivals can stay while they get settled in Huntsville. Of having room for storage, where they can stow their belongings until they get a place of their own. Of having more church vehicles, which can be used to teach driving to those without a license.
Right now, the pastor’s home often serves as a way station. It is where many newcomers sleep, come to cook traditional meals or just get a touch of home. He rents out a storage unit and lends the two church vans to those in need.
Huntsville and TDCJ have been “such a blessing,” he says. Now, he wants to repay all those who helped him get here.