PROVIDENCE — Sammy Ndayisaba had every reason to believe that God had abandoned him. During the prolonged civil war in Burundi, he lost everything: his home, his business and finally, his first wife.

But Ndayisaba has not succumbed to despair. Far from it. He is filled with an almost unimaginable optimism, an abiding belief in life’s possibilities that seems out of fashion in 21st century America.

“I say to myself, ‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way.’ ”

Ndayisaba, who is 45, is part of the latest wave of immigrants to make Providence home. Since June, 20 people have moved here from Burundi, Rwanda and Somalia. And more Burundians are on the way. In November, the United States announced that it plans to resettle this year about 10,000 Burundi refugees from camps in Tanzania, Uganda and elsewhere.

Burundi, a landlocked country in central Africa, has been plagued with ethnic tensions between the Tutsi minority and Hutu majority ever since it gained independence from Belgium in 1962. Hundreds of Burundians, the majority of them Hutus, fled their homeland in 1972 to escape widespread massacres perpetrated by the Tutsi-led government. More than 200,000 Burundians died during the 12-year conflict and hundreds of thousands were displaced or became refugees.

Ndayisaba was one of those people.

In 1972, his family fled the ethnic violence in Burundi and settled in Zaire, where Ndayisaba lived for 26 years, marrying and raising two children. Ndayisaba was successful by any standard. He owned a pharmacy, had investments in Angola and was studying to become a doctor.

In 1996, the Rwandan civil war spilled over into the Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly Zaire. A gang of students aligned with Mobutu Sese Seko, the president of Zaire, attacked Ndayisaba, beating him with sticks. His hands and forehead still bear the signs of that assault. The gang also destroyed his pharmacy and his home.

From that moment on, civil war chased Ndayisaba from one troubled nation to another. In 1997, he landed in West Africa, in Ivory Coast. He spent seven years as a refugee, waiting to gain entrance to the United States. Because Ndayisaba is highly educated and speaks seven languages, including English and French, the U.S. High Commission for Refugees appointed him to run the committee for all refugees in Ivory Coast.

In June 2003, he received his immigration papers.“They knew that the Rwandans and the Burundians could not be repatriated,” he says. “I had been moving from one country to another for three years. Plus, I was a single parent with two children.”

But his joy was tempered by the fact that his new wife, who was not a refugee, could not go with him. The separation was wrenching — his wife was pregnant, their marriage only three months old. But Ndayisaba knew that this opportunity might not come again. So he left his wife behind with the understanding that he would bring her to the United States once he got settled.

On Oct. 19, 2004, Ndayisaba arrived at T.F. Greene Airport.

“It was a dream,” he says during an interview at the International Institute in Elmwood, the primary refugee resettlement agency in Rhode Island. “I had grown up during the war. I was tired, so tired. All I wanted was peace. This was a new life, without guns.”’

His wife arrived with their new baby eight months later.

“I was so very happy,” he says. “I live for my family.”

For Ndayisaba, the transition from Africa to America was surprisingly smooth. It helped that he had studied English in high school and that he was fluent in many languages. Still, it took him three months to find work washing and packaging linens, and this is a man who owned his own business and ran a refugee program in West Africa.

But Ndayisaba is not one to grumble about what he doesn’t have.

“For me, it’s a new life,” he says. “Money was not a problem. I was ready to do any kind of job.”

Still, he dreams of becoming a physician one day.

Meanwhile, Ndayisaba says he is overwhelmed by the kindness of strangers. The International Institute found him a clean apartment on the South Side, provided warm clothing for his children and enrolled them in school, where they are currently earning top grades at Brigham Middle School.

Terri Coustan, the refugee resettlement coordinator for the Institute, says it’s almost impossible to predict when a family will arrive and in what condition.

“It’s tough for the school system,” she says, adding that there aren’t enough newcomer classes for refugees.

Coustan explains the school system to the refugees and the refugees to the school system. She interviews each student and helps the district find the best placement for that child. But it isn’t easy. Some children arrive with no school records. Others have had little or no formal schooling because they have spent their lives in refugee camps.

“Each case is different,” she says. “Some children fall asleep in class because they are not used to sitting still.”

One child loaded up her plate with food because she was afraid it might be her last meal. A mother was so worried that her children would miss the bus that she sent them to the bus stop an hour early.

“One refugee,” she says, “told me that adjusting to the U.S. is always like being late for the bus.”

Ndayisaba is one of the fortunate ones. He has crafted a new life out of the ruins of his old one.

“I believe in God, that at any time he can change the condition of my life,” he says. “I’m humble. I’m flexible and I have the belief that I can progress.”