We have been going through a bit of a documentary phase these days in our home. We've recently watched Food, Inc., Super Size Me, Michael Jackson's This is It, and a movie that I think will stay with me for a long long time: God Grew Tired of Us, a favorite at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. This is a film that documents the lives of some of the Lost Boys of Sudan, boys who have immigrated to America and have faced immense culture shock adjusting to life here.The Lost Boys are a group of young men who are from the Dinka ethnic group. During the Second Sudanese Civil War (from 1983-2005), the government troops went from village to village in southern Sudan destroying homes, raping, enslaving, and murdering villagers, yet because many of these boys were out of the villages, tending flocks or were able to escape, they survived. These boys, ages 5-17 returned to nothing, their families were gone, homes destroyed. Determined to survive, they began walking. As they walked they met up with other groups of boys from villages who had also survived, and together 27,000 boys began the 1,000 mile walk to refugee camps on the borders of Ethiopia and Kenya. They talk of how they formed family groups, to take care of one another. So a 12 year old boy may be in charge or the "cousin" of five younger boys, ensure they stay protected on the harsh terrain of Africa. Upon reaching the borders, international aid workers received them (having heard thousands of boys were walking through Sudan somewhere) and have done their best to house and feed these traumatized boys. Many of them never made it. Death during the march from starvation, the heat, elements, no water and animal attacks was common. One 13 year old tells how it was his job to bury the bodies of his fellow brothers as they died, he was elected the leader of a group of them and as leader he needed to make sure burial happened. When they arrived experts say these were the most traumatized children from war-countries they had ever examined.
After several years of living in camps, without much hope for a future, arrangements to bring some of them to the US to live began being made. In 2001, 3,800 boys (older boys, who were now in their early 20s and could live on their own) were brought to the US and scattered/placed in 38 different cities (the largest population of Sudanese refugees is actually Omaha, Nebraska). Churches and groups throughout the country have worked to make it possible for these boys to adapt to life here in America, to find apartments to place them in in family groups, to connect them with education and medical care and jobs. Unicef has worked and managed to reunite 1200 of them with family members who were found in Africa alive, after 12 years of not seeing their parents or siblings. Yet, 17,000 still remain in camps overseas.
What was striking to me while watching this film (which actually had many humorous moments, it wasn't all heartbreaking) was the incredible faith of these young men. Southern Sudan is the Christian portion of the country, and these boys were raised with very strong faith in Jesus. After all they had been through, they were still able to talk about God. At times it was honest questioning, but mostly it was about praising Him for bringing them through their tragic lives to a place where they can now work here in America to support friends still in the camps in Africa. One of my favorite quotes explains where the title of the movie came from. John Bul Dau (one of the 3 young men this films follows as he immigrates to America) says:
"It was as if the last day, as people say in the Bible, that there will be a last day, that Jesus Christ will come, and whatever on Earth will be judged. That was my imagination. I though that God felt tired of people on earth here, felt tired of the bad deeds, the bad thing that we are doing, yet God is watching on us. I thought God got tired of us and he want to finish us. When I think of it back... it was so bad anyway. You can even think of - you can even regret why you were born. Why you were born. Now I wonder, I'm now again wearing clothes, feeling very happy, and so anyway, everything has an end. Has an end. Even if there's problem in Sudan still maybe one time, one day, one minute it will come to an end."
If you have a chance, this film will open your eyes to a world so foreign to most of us. We can't fathom living and surviving like these boys did. Yet the hope that exists in their eyes after all they have been through will remind all of us that whatever it is we are going through that feels difficult, there is still a God. And He has not forgotten us.
