This was a gut wrenching book. Lopez Lomong was a boy in South Sudan when he was taken by the army and forced to be a boy soldier. He was trapped with boys for months, watching them drop like flies, before he escaped with 3 older boys and ran for 3 days straight. While they were running to their village, they actually made it to Kenya and were put in a refugee camp. There Lopez stayed for 10 years before he was given a once in a lifetime chance to go to America. He makes it to America, is placed with the most amazing family ever, and begins to run with his high school, college, and then in the Olympics on the United States team.
One of the lessons Lopez teaches is that he sees the hand of God everywhere he goes. When he escaped with the older boys, the cabin door didn't squeak for the first time ever. The guards were not paying attention, and they never saw the grass moving. The boys found water and food when they needed it most, and even though they didn't make it to their village they still made it to a refugee camp and they survived the ordeal. Lopez said he wishes he remembered the names of the older boys but doesn't, so he just calls them "his angels". Even the fact that he was able to write an essay in English, a language he didn't read or write, to be accepted was nothing short of miraculous.
The second lesson is the resiliency of the human spirit. While this was the "least" sad of the Africa war books I have read (I only nearly cried happy tears, not sad tears), it is still incomprehensible what some people go through. Lopez is still on the United States Olympics team. He went to the United States in July 2001, and was a sophomore in high school. This wasn't a time long ago. This was within my lifetime. He was one of the last Lost Boys of Sudan to make it to America, because 9/11 happened shortly after he immigrated here and they shut the program down.
The third lesson is the power of America. We take SO MUCH for granted what we have here. If Lopez had stayed in his village in Sudan, he would not have gotten an education. In the refugee camp, he had a basic education and learned how to speak Swahili. But he was blown away by what he saw in America. He had to learn how to shower, what a toilet was... he had barely seen what a TV was and it was a tiny thing hooked up to a car battery. To go from that to New York must have been just boggling. His parents were amazing, and did so much for him. However, he felt that he didn't deserve what he had been given and was worried that at any moment his parents would realize there was some mistake and send him back. So he said one of the few English words he knew- "Yes"- in response to everything. It took years before he finally told his adopted parents what had happened to him.
The last lesson (which goes with the above) is the responsibility we have. We are SO BLESSED in America. How can we turn a blind eye to people suffering so much? I am pro-helping refugees. They have seen things we can't even process. Things that send a chill up my spine to even read. Meanwhile I'm sitting here in my own house with my own electricity and computer to write this blog post on. Clean water, education, and food are readily available. We can't help everyone, but we should help where we can.
I am donating to http://www.lopezlomong.com/lopez-lomong-foundation.html as part of the "Light the World" initiative, to help provide clean water to people in Sudan.
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