God Grew Tired of Us

On Thursday night Roger and I snuggled up to watch yet another documentary. We LOVE watching documentaries.  It is a GREAT way to get some learning into our extremely exhausted brains.

We decided on a documentary about The Lost Boys; a group of over 1,000 boys who fled to Kenya during the massacre in the Sudan.  During that time the government was either killing or castrating all young boys that lived in the south (I think I got that right?) so that that specific population would not be able to reproduce.  The boys ran into the woods when the soldiers entered their towns and began to slaughter whole villages.  

For 5 years the boys walked, some barefoot and naked, with little to no food or water, to seek refuge in Kenya. Along their journey they had to bury many of their friends who died from malnourishment. 

The documentary entitled God Grew Tired of Us, (it is on netflix) follows several of the boys in the journey from the Sudan, to Kenya, to America. This story brought so many emotions out in me. 

It is NOT a movie that you watch while eating popcorn. 

I was first introduced to the word Refugee in high school. 

The parents of one of the girls that I played Volleyball with were refugees.  They had fled their country of origin during an awful war and were given the opportunity to seek refuge in America. They had to start all over and I do mean ALL OVER. They came with only the cloths on their backs.  Their father was a doctor in his country but had to go all the way back through medical school AGAIN when he came to the states. He ended up being one of the doctors that checked on me during my stay in the ICU before I had my pacemaker put in. 

In college we had two friends that became Americacorps Workers for the Kentucky Refugee Ministries. Their jobs were to pick up the refugees from the airport, get them housing, drive them to the doctors, help them apply for jobs.......... and many many more things.  Every time we got together they would tell heart wrenching stories of poor little families fleeing war while leaving other family members behind. 

The thought of fleeing a war, arriving in a new country with only the clothes on my back, unaware of wether or not my family is dead or alive, is so frightening to me.  And to think that there are people all over the world going through this turmoil as I type this.  Young and Old.

Presently we have a friend who is in Kenya working for Church World Service. Her job is to go from camp to camp, interviewing refugees.  She has a blog that she updates frequently about her adventures. Here is a link to Amanda's blog. She has a specific blog about the work that she is doing so look for that.

In September my husband, Roger, will be traveling to Morocco to see first hand the work that is taking place within the refugee ministry there. I'm anxious to hear the stories that he will bring back to share with our congregation. We have talked about me tagging along with him if we manage to sell our house by then.  Having two house payments and only one of us getting payed for our work, makes me going on the trip financially CRAZY.

Who knows.....maybe one day I'll end up working with refugees.  That is the beauty of my M.Div degree.  There are so MANY different types of people I'll be able to be a part of helping!