Today we’d like to introduce you to Samuel Worku.
Hi Samuel, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My story starts back in Africa in the motherland of Ethiopia. I was born and raised in Ethiopia until the age of 13, where I grew up with my family loving the game of soccer and fashion. Growing up in Africa is the best thing that happened to me, and I love everything because it made me who I am today. During my time in Ethiopia, my parents and I didn’t live in the capital city of Ethiopia. It was a village called Muger in the Oromo Region. I was rase there because my dad is a cement engineer and my mom was a cement chemist, and their job is 100km outside of Addis Ababa. from what I remember, my whole life stared in that village for me. Since my first day, I went to kindergarten, elementary and middle school with the same people, the same people that I was going to church to serve with and learn the way of Orthodoxy. Still, I couldn’t graduate high school with them because my parents got a chance to move to America, and I had to leave. After coming to America when I was 13, we stayed with my aunty in Oakland, CA. I felt I had to work extra hard in school to provide hope for my family. Starting my first year as a six-grader without any language experience made it hard. I did not know how to understand English; it seemed like the people were speaking gibberish. I only knew math because there was no language; it was numbers. I communicated well with my math teacher; she only understood me. My first year ended, and the second year came seventh grade. By this time, I understood English, but English class was still my nightmare.
By the middle of my eighth-grade year, I could speak English fluently, and it didn’t seem like gibberish anymore. My understanding made many things easy for me because I started getting good grades by the time I finished middle school. In finishing middle school, my mom would say, “was the best thing that happened to her and the family,” meaning that we were one step closer to breaking the barrier. I had come a long way with my church life during this time. I was one step to get ordained to being a deacon. Once I was ordained, I could say my life was switched to be spiritual. It helped me teach young kids about Orthodoxy and understand the Ethiopian Orthodox tewhedo church. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (Amharic: የኢትዮጵያ ኦርቶዶክስ ተዋሕዶ ቤተ ክርስቲያን, Yäityop’ya ortodoks täwahedo bétäkrestyan) is the largest Oriental Orthodox church. One of the few Christian churches in sub-Saharan Africa originating before European colonization of the continent,[6] the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church dates back centuries and has a current membership of about 36 million people,[2][3][4][5] the majority of whom live in Ethiopia.[7] It is a founding member of the World Council of Churches.[8] The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church is in communion with the other Oriental Orthodox churches (the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, and the Malankara Orthodox Syrian the Armenian Apostolic Church, and the Syriac Orthodox Church).
August 24, 2017, my high school journey began. All over again, I felt like a foreigner in a different county, the mixture of emotions and new things. The combination caused me and my family to fight back and forth due to my first-year actions. The new year was rocky, I would say. The reason why was that I lost myself trying to fit in. in starting high school, my dad would say, “I feel like you are going out of us? We are your family; we don’t want to lose you”, now that I think about where I stand I felt like I was growing out of them too in a wrong way. I was trying to fit in all year long, and sophomore year was here with a blink of an eye. Overall sophomore year was a horrible and promising year of my life. The first semester I found myself again and was on top of my work and everything, which was the only good thing for my family and me. While I just started getting the taste of the extraordinary something that happened to me, I found out my grandma had passed away. It instantly broke me down to the ground more than anything. It was hard on me because I was the only one that was so close to her in our family, and I was the first one to hear it too. I felt like I was losing myself once more during my second semester; I didn’t care about anything anymore.
It was finally senior. My hard work was finally paying off when I started applying to college to be the first-generation college student in our family. Also, I started working more in my molding dream by molding for local photographers and on social media, where I brought my fashion to the table. Life was like water because I was getting all I was washing left and right. I received about five acceptance letters from different colleges—the amount of happiness I saw my family I had never seen before. For my graduation, they celebrated as if it was my wedding. My family said, “we told you when you were a kid you gonna break this family malediction,” and now they are waiting for me to finish with college.
Today, I’ve relocated to Los Angeles in order to pursue my educational ambitions. While working as a freelance model, I am pursuing a degree in computer engineering at CSULA. Also, many of my close friends and I have started a non-profit organization in the bay area, teaching The Ethiopian orthodox tweahedo way to teens and helping them grasp the word of God. My objective is to become outstanding with my job and serve my community.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The road has not been smooth like I mentioned on the other page, though. while I was a newcomer, I was exposed to many bad words like “monkey” and have had to go through that. Also, not being able to speak my home tough outside of the house was hard because I was scared I would get billed for who I am, which I ended up getting bullied anyway. It had a significant effect on me because it made me dislike who I was and try to switch who I was.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am a student. I have interned at big companies like Google, Intel, and salesforce. Right now, I’m working on getting my bachelor’s in computer engineering. On the side, I’m doing modeling soon enough. I’m going to get an agency, but for now, I freelance.
We’re always looking for the lessons that can be learned in any situation, including tragic ones like the Covid-19 crisis. Are there any lessons you’ve learned that you can share?
I have learn quite a lot during this pandemic from cooking to mental health. I think one of the best info we lost during this crisis is getting reminded to be mentally good besides other things. I think first and most being mentally good comes from within you and your spirituality. For me being mentally good means being in a good term with God. This can very with anybody of there own religion and beliefs.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/prinz_sammy/
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@prinz_sammy?lang=en
