Ngwa Augustine is a Cameroonian man in Wisconsin who escaped torture in his home country, trekked across Latin American and obtained U.S. asylum.

Years of hardship and separation faded away last week when a Cameroon family reunited at Chicago’s O’Hare airport.

“I missed you so much,” exclaimed Akwa Stella Ngang while tightly embracing her husband, Ngwa Augustine, who had been waiting at the arrivals gate.

In 2018, before escaping to the U.S. alone, Augustine nearly died while in Cameroonian detention.

He says he had been “tortured every day” for demanding more rights for the country’s Anglophone minority.

One day, guards dumped him on the street, thinking he was dead. When word got out that he survived, he had no choice but to flee without saying goodbye to his wife and daughter

“They were looking for me,” the 35-year-old immigrant recalled in an interview with Scripps News last September, in which he detailed his incredible escape story, including how he trekked for months across eight countries all the way to the U.S. border.

He said he owes his life to a church congregation in Madison, Wisconsin — and specifically to a couple who have been housing him for the past three years: Toni and Mark Swandby. He calls them his American parents.

In late 2019, the Swandbys opened their house to this asylum-seeker they had never met.

Augustine had just been released by ICE from federal detention, and needed a place to stay while his asylum case inched its way through the system.

After the incredible hardship he had experienced in his life, meeting the couple and getting a free bedroom was a huge relief.

“It was just magical. It was just something I can’t really explain. The happiness I felt at that time. There was hope,” Augustine said.