Churches helping to keep pace with refugees' arrivals
A Bellevue congregation is among those sponsoring the Lost Boys of Sudan

By Stephen Buttry, World-Herald Staff Writer
From the Sunday World Herald

After growing up in war and hunger, Mangong Akech found a home in the embrace of Thanksgiving Lutheran Church in Bellevue.

Akech, now 20, carries a piece of shrapnel in his chest from a landmine he stepped on as a boy in Sudan. He struggled with emotion as he tried to express gratitude in a language he is still learning.

"When I arrive here in this apartment with all these things," he said, gesturing to the furniture around him in his Bellevue apartment, "and the people of Thanksgiving Lutheran Church, that is the dream of God coming in my mind, that I need to be baptized - the things they give us and the way they welcome us."

Akech shares the apartment with five other young men, all part of the Lost Boys of Sudan, refugees who are moving to Omaha this year under a special resettlement program.

The Lost Boys fled homes across Southern Sudan in the 1980s during a civil war that lasted 18 years.

"All the village was burned, and you could not think of going back," said James Akol, who fled his home at age 11 and now lives with Akech.

The children were orphaned or separated from their families. "Whether my parents are alive or dead, I don't know," said Akech, who was 7 when he fled.

Thousands of the boys eventually gathered in the countryside, hiding from soldiers and bombers by day and traveling by night. They walked hundreds of miles to refugee camps in Ethiopia. After civil war broke out in Ethiopia, they fled again.

Thousands died when soldiers chased the boys into the flood-swollen Gilo River.

"You decide to run away from the guns and you end up jumping in the river," Akol explained.

He was able to swim across, but many who could not swim drowned. Some swimmers drowned when nonswimmers tried to climb on their backs. Some were able to find boats or to cross with the help of a rope tied to trees on both sides by a boy who could swim.

"Most of our brothers lost their lives there," said Daniel Kuot, one of eight Lost Boys who arrived in Omaha Aug. 28.

The boys reached the Kakuma refugee camp in northwestern Kenya in 1992. Aid workers nicknamed the close-knit throng the "Lost Boys" after the band of boys in "Peter Pan."

The United States is resettling the 3,800 surviving Lost Boys who have not been reunited with their families. More than 50 have come to Omaha, and more are expected this month.

Two local agencies, Heartland Refugee Resettlement and the Southern Sudan Community Association, are the official sponsors for the Lost Boys. Both agencies are overwhelmed and need donations of beds and furniture and supplies, as well as churches and other organizations to co-sponsor groups of refugees.

The pace of Lost Boys coming to Omaha accelerated in August, when 21 arrived. Susan Baukhages, a spokeswoman for the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, said the faster pace is likely to continue through the end of the year. Her agency has resettled only 57 percent of the Lost Boys it expects to bring into the United States this year.

Several Omaha-area churches are helping. Salem Lutheran Church hosted a potluck dinner for some of the Lost Boys last week. Cush Community Chapel, a Sudanese congregation worshipping at First Lutheran Church, will sponsor two Lost Boys arriving this week.

The young men need even the basic necessities.

"We came only with the clothes we are wearing now," said Benjamin Leek, one of the group that arrived Aug. 28. They are living in a house with only three mattresses.

The men begged Gatkuoth Kuich, a mission developer from Cush Community Chapel, to take them grocery shopping when he visited Friday.

"The food is good but the food is not enough," Kuot said.

Arlis Scanlan led the 1,200-member Thanksgiving Lutheran Church into this new ministry after she read about the Lost Boys in January, shortly after the first two arrived. "I just couldn't sleep at night."

Scanlan encouraged her church council to sponsor the group. "The minute we asked for volunteers, people responded," she said.

Now she speaks at other area churches, encouraging them to sponsor refugees.

After sponsoring six Lost Boys in June, the church decided last week to sponsor 12 more. Friday afternoon, Thanksgiving members Nancy Pierce and Vi Winslow arrived at a north Omaha house where eight Lost Boys have been staying since Aug. 17. The women carried shopping bags full of cleaning supplies, ready to spruce up the house. Thanksgiving will sponsor those eight, plus four more not yet chosen.

In addition to teaming up for chores and special events, the church provides each of the men with personal mentors who drive them to doctor's offices, teach them to drive and help them register with the Social Security Administration and apply for jobs.

"If you put them with a mentor team, they make the adjustment very rapidly," said Tex Teixeira, a leader of the Thanksgiving refugee effort. "You end up bonding with these guys and vice versa. You want things for them like you do for your own children."

Thanksgiving members took Akech and his roommates to the zoo, to a miniature golf course and to Lincoln to visit some more Lost Boys.

The young men chattered enthusiastically as they described the aircraft they saw at the air show at Offutt Air Force Base.

"They go up and fly like this," Emmanuel Achuil said, demonstrating aerobatic maneuvers with his long arms.

The six men sponsored initially by Thanksgiving all found jobs, working up to 60 hours a week. The Lost Boys who arrived in August will apply for jobs after receiving Social Security numbers.

"They have a very strong work ethic," Teixeira said.

In addition to working, the men who arrived in June are studying for high school equivalency tests. The recent arrivals will take placement tests. They went to high school in the refugee camp. All the Lost Boys speak English.

"The most important thing for us is school," said Daniel Bior, who arrived Aug. 28.

Akol, who was an evangelist in the refugee camp, serves communion and reads scripture at the Bellevue church and will teach third-grade Sunday school. The church hopes to help him attend seminary eventually.

Akech was baptized at the church July 29. Like most refugees from Southern Sudan, the other five men already were Christians. Akech asked to be baptized after being overwhelmed by the love the church has shown.

The six men sang two songs in their Dinka language at the service, with Akol accompanying on African drims called loor.

Teixeira was visibly emotional recalling the service. "These guys have been such a blessing to us."