A 24-year-old Duke University freshman, who grew up in Tanzania, visited the Niantic Baptist Church for its Christmas Eve service during his first winter away from home.

Revo Tesha is the eldest of 22 students sponsored by Make A Difference Now, a non-profit organization. The Niantic Baptist Church, which has supported programs through Make A Difference Now and paired church members with students as “prayer partners,” recently helped Tesha with the purchase of items he needed for college.

Tesha mastered Tanzania’s national language of Swahili, in addition to his native tribal tongue, and graduated from the International School of Moshi with two scholarship offers to Duke University.

Church members said that Tesha offered both his gratitude and perspective on what it has meant to come to the United States. While traveling from North Carolina to Connecticut, Revo, who had never before seen snow or ice, had to be rerouted through Philadelphia and wait over six hours for a connecting flight to a remote airport in Stewart, N.Y., due to a snowstorm.

Tesha’s host anxiously texted him to ask if he was okay. He responded: “It’s snowing outside!”

“NBC will continue to pray for and support Make A Difference, and we trust that the students and staff there have been as blessed by this partnership as have all our church members,” said Niantic Baptist Church’s pastor, the Rev. Jill Harvey.