Keeping Faith, Even When Home Is an Uncertain Place As a baby, Eugene Manu, now 21, was sent to live in Ghana. When asked to tell the story of his life and of the circumstances that left him homeless, Eugene Manu, 21, tripped over his words, his testimony stalled by moments of nervousness and trepidation, filled with false starts and constant backpedaling. It is no wonder his thoughts could not find purchase. Mr. Manu's meandering speech seems to reflect the fact that he's never known any sense of stability or permanence. He is a young man who, despite a strong faith in God, and the guidance offered by certain family members, finds himself better acquainted with doubt and feelings of abandonment. "I have never considered any place home," he said. Three months into Mr. Manu's life, his mother, unmarried and barely scraping by at a minimum wage job, sent him to Ghana to live with his grandmother. He remained there for seven years before coming to the United States to join his mother in New York, where he would end up shuffled between an array of homeless shelters and foster homes, before he was returned to his grandmother's care in Ghana at age 15. "Life was kind of miserable to me," Mr. Manu said. His nomadic existence was not the only source of distress. Mr. Manu was born with sickle cell anemia, a hereditary disease that came with chronic pain, pain more consistent than anything else in his life. Until he discovered God. "My grandmother was teaching me about God, and how I should put my faith in him," he said. One day I was walking along the streets and I saw a church and went inside and felt happy. And so, a belief first born of necessity became a transformative force that helped put his future into focus. He said he hoped to become a doctor. "I was very fascinated with how the human body works," he said. People with sickle cell anemia are going through a lot, so I want to help people with that disease. In 2012, Mr. Manu returned to New York to study for his high school equivalency diploma and begin exploring options for college. His mother, who now lived with his stepfather and two half-brothers in Brooklyn, took him in until, he said, yet another conflict erupted with his mother. He left home in November 2012 and entered the shelter system. Last spring, while living at Create, a Harlem shelter, he acquired his G.E.D. and was accepted at the Borough of Manhattan Community College. But at about the same time, he was hospitalized with pneumonia, caused by complications from his sickle cell disease, and nearly died. "I felt like I was drifting away," he said. If it wasn't for God, I would have lost my life. But Mr. Manu never wavered from his career ambitions, and managed to secure the necessary finances to go to college. With the help of Create, he successfully applied for Vesid, the New York state-sponsored adult career and continuing education program for persons with disabilities, and the College Discovery Program, a special City University of New York program that helps students in need. Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New York, one of the seven agencies supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund, lent a hand as well, drawing $390 from the fund to buy a tablet for Mr. Manu, which he will use to pursue his studies. He is currently enrolled at Manhattan Community College as a science major, is an active member of his church, the New York Dream Center, and often acts as an adviser to his peers, who, Mr. Manu said, come to him for advice. "I want to help people in times of distress," he said. I want people without hope to know that there is someone else out there to help them. Optimism is balanced by Mr. Manu's potent fear that simply knowing what he wants out of life is no guarantee that he'll have all the tools or the support necessary to achieve it. And that begets a larger fear that he will be forever homeless, a fear that calls on him to keep his faith intact. "It's like a race," he said. I'm running until I find victory. Home is something you find after struggles, that is your own. I'm still in the process of finding my permanent home.