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A symbolic homecoming
'Lost boy' returns to Sudan, shows visitors the great needs and amazing faith of his homeland
I looked at Michael's face, glued to the window. As we crossed from Kenya into southern Sudan, our small plane filled with his excitement as he re-entered the country from which he had been exiled for so many years. It was only a matter of hours before he would embrace his mother, an embrace he had not felt since he was 6.
As we exited the plane onto the rough dirt airstrip in the village of Padak, surrounded by the perky pointed thatch roofs of the round mud houses, an exuberant throng greeted us. "Loide!" "Achin kruch!" -- the customary greeting exchange -- was heard continually as we witnessed over and over the joyful Dinka handshake, which involves repeated shoulder claps and hand grasps.
"This is my bishop," Michael Ayuen Kuany exclaimed to me and his best friend, Tessa Richardson, introducing us to a smiling man with a rich deep voice and tears in his eyes.
We had heard so much about this man's spiritual leadership of the boys at Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, his tireless service on behalf of the persecuted Christians, his relentless perseverance to encourage his people throughout the darkest times, that meeting him was a little daunting. But his warmth and sincerity immediately put us at ease. We did not yet know that he would be our constant companion over the next two weeks of our sojourn in Southern Sudan.
Michael's older brother was at the airstrip, the intensity of his emotion at seeing Michael alive making him speechless. The reunion with Michael's father would have to wait for another trip, as he had been moved to a hospital in Uganda because of complications from typhoid and malaria.
But where was his mother? Michael's glad greetings with cousins, aunts, uncles, childhood playmates and friends from Kakuma were laced with the nagging fear: What if I don't recognize her? He had seen only one small picture of her since their separation 20 years earlier.
That fear was put to rest an hour or so later, as Michael's 6-foot-2-inch frame was encircled by the arms of his 6-foot-3-inch mother. Hobbled by illness, she had been unable to make it to the airstrip, but her weakness did not diminish her absolute joy at holding her long-lost boy.
A symbol of hope for those in need
Tessa and I were stunned that Michael wore a suit and tie every single day we were there, in the heat and dust of rural Africa. But as days passed, it became clear that he was not there as an individual and that, in fact, the Dinka do not tend to think in terms of the individual, but in terms of serving the tribe, the nation, the kingdom of God.
The dire situation of southern Sudan quickly became apparent to us. As thousands of displaced Sudanese stream back to their home areas after the 2005 peace agreement, they return to regions devastated by decades of war, without infrastructure or services of any kind and completely isolated from the outside world -- few roads and no electricity, phones, clean water, schools, clinics, stores, vehicles, building materials or jobs. We had known, to some degree, the situation, but to experience it firsthand is much more powerful.
"Now you see," Michael kept saying. "Now you see the situation of my people."
As we traveled around the region, being sung to and celebrated by elders and villagers, talking to government officials, worshiping in mud-and-grass churches, meeting pastors, playing with beautiful children with runny eyes, infected sores and few clothes, I continually was struck by how one problem compounds another. Which problem to take on first?
Hard to set priorities
And if there's no electricity or phones that makes it difficult to be in communication with aid organizations, churches or businesses that might participate in helping fund the wells. And if the building of schools doesn't get started soon, it will be another whole year without schooling, and soon the ongoing lack of education will affect a generation of children, which has its own ripple effect.
And if the people lose hope, none of it matters, so shouldn't the priority really be on getting Bibles and hymnals, supporting the pastors and building up the church?
Fortunately for us, the potential discouragement of such an onslaught of need was counterbalanced by daily encounters with people of astounding trust in God and gratitude for what they did have. As we passed through a village one day, an old toothless woman in a ragged dress approached us and, her face blossoming with delight, began dancing and singing, her arms alternately raised in praise and clasped to her heart.
"What is she singing?" I asked Michael. The only words I understood were Nirian ka baindit, which means "In the name of Jesus."
"She is praising God," he said, smiling, "thanking him that you have come to share in the suffering of people here. She is saying that it is because of love that you have come. She is very happy to see you here, all the way out here in Jalle where there has been so much devastation. She is giving thanks to God."
We American Christians have much to learn from the people of faith in southern Sudan.
On his return to the United States, Michael Ayuen Kuany established a fund to build a school in his home town of Padak, near Bor Town. To date, he has raised $11,000. Find out more at jalleuniteddevelopment.org or e-mail him at wunakuot@yahoo.com.
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2007
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