Yahoo Finance He grew up as a child refugee. Now he’s building a new family in Idaho through soccer.
Lieven Ivanza still looks around the Boise Timbers-Thorns soccer complex with wide eyes.
The 17-year-old Congolese refugee lists all the things he never had growing up in a refugee camp in Uganda — shoes, a ball, grass fields, coaches.
Now he has them all in abundance two years after resettling in Idaho.
“I never had anything. This,” he says, pausing to point out his club-branded uniform, shorts and socks. “I’m so grateful.”
Ivanza speaks while taking a break from a practice with the U-19 Boise Timbers club. He plays for the U-17 team. But it had the night off, so Ivanza jumped at the opportunity for a few extra touches ahead of this week’s U.S. Youth Soccer Far West Regional Championship in Boise.
Ivanza said soccer always made him the happiest, whether it was playing with a ball made of plastic bags with his father in the Congo or joining an extra club practice for fun. But since coming to America, the sport has also helped him find new friends, a new home and even a new family.
“It’s helped me really so much,” Ivanza said. “The people around me are so good. I love playing around with everybody. I can have friends. I have everything now.”
A REFUGEE FLEEING WAR IN THE CONGO
A series of wars has ravaged the Democratic Republic of the Congo for the past 25 years. So Ivanza doesn’t know the full details of why his uncle swept him away at 5 years old and fled across the eastern border to Uganda.
The youngest of seven children, Ivanza left behind both his parents and four sisters as fighting broke out in the Congo. He doesn’t know what happened to them, or if they are alive.
He spent eight years in a refugee camp and another two in Uganda’s capital city, Kampala. Soccer stands as a treasured memory. But the sport also posed a danger.
Ivanza points to a sparkling-white ball laying forgotten off to the side of a drill. He said that would be so valuable in the refugee camp, it could get stolen or even get you killed.
He watched someone get murdered over a soccer game when he was 14. A match between older boys sparked an argument. That argument led to a physical fight, which escalated into knives and stones.
“Luckily, I ran home,” Ivanza said. “Somebody died. When they hit you with a stone in the head, you die from that.”
SETTLING IN IDAHO
After 10 years in Uganda, Ivanza resettled in Twin Falls in February of 2019 with his uncle, aunt, three nephews and only remaining sister.
The bitter cold of an Idaho winter stood as a shock. And Ivanza struggled to adjust as he enrolled in ninth grade at Canyon Ridge High despite never having any schooling and speaking only a few words of English.
He eventually found a group of other Swahili-speaking students who also loved soccer. But Ivanza’s relationship with his uncle remained difficult.
He moved in with his case worker’s parents in Meridian in time for the 2019-20 school year, where he repeated ninth grade at Rocky Mountain High. There he met Bill Taylor, the school’s soccer coach, a longtime Idaho youth coach and now the vice president of U.S. Soccer.
Ivanza was the only freshman to make the Grizzlies’ varsity team that year even though he’d never played a minute of organized soccer in his life. But he admits he only went to school because he was forced to and struggled to adjust to his new home life.
Taylor introduced him to the Boise Timbers club in the offseason. But he returned to his uncle in Twin Falls as the coronavirus pandemic hit. Ivanza desperately wanted to come back to the Treasure Valley, so he asked Taylor if he knew anyone who would take him in.
Taylor and his wife, Kim, welcomed Ivanza into their home after watching racial justice protests erupt last summer.
“You see people carrying signs and doing all this kind of stuff,” Taylor said. “I’m not a sign-carrying kind of guy. If I’m going to do something, let’s do something that actually affects someone.
“We saw it as an opportunity as this is one person that we can affect and try to make his life a little better, and give him an opportunity that maybe he can be a leader in the future to help other people. Maybe that will have a bigger ripple.”
TAYLORS GIVE HIM A NEW CHANCE
That opportunity allowed Ivanza to blossom. The Taylors read to Ivanza every night and hired tutors to help him with his school work. They found him a job in construction laying tile this summer. They incorporated him into the family.
Ivanza now carries a B-average at Rocky Mountain. He’s learning a trade. And he refers to the Taylors as his own family, calling Bill Taylor his dad, Kim Taylor his mom and their children his brothers and sisters.
His uncle moved to Indianapolis earlier this month, leaving Ivanza with the Taylors permanently. But Ivanza said there’s no place he’d rather be.
“I’ve never met people like them,” Ivanza said. “They’re just so amazing.”
Gavin Kempe, Ivanza’s U-17 coach and the boys club director for the Boise Timbers, credits Taylor with taking Ivanza in and providing him all these opportunities. But Taylor said Ivanza also brings a lot to their family.
“He just adds a different element to the family dynamics,” Taylor said. “He helps us see things. We think about things in a certain way, and we don’t realize how he views it. … He asks so many questions that it makes you think about things in a different way.”
GRATEFUL FOR HIS OPPORTUNITIES
After a childhood where acres of manicured grass and mountains of brand-new soccer balls were unimaginable, Ivanza can still hardly believe all the opportunities available in Idaho.
So he refers to everyone as “sir.” He thanks his coaches for each opportunity. And he profusely apologizes if he has to miss a single practice.
Kempe said he’s one of the most polite, enthusiastic and hardest workers in the club, an attitude that opens even more doors for Ivanza.
“He’s very appreciative of what people do,” Kempe said. “He doesn’t take those things for granted and is genuine. When people see someone that is genuine and thankful, it makes it so much easier to bring him in and love him.”
