#16: If you can’t be the rock, be the ripple. The Lost Boys fled Sudan during their civil war. They lost families, loved ones, homes, but not each other. They arrived in America after many years of hardship and struggles. In 2001, in Cleveland, Ohio, the State Department helped set up the Lost Boys. And yet they were left alone to decipher a new language, find jobs, get educated, and learn life in a new world. Two weeks before Christmas 2006, one Lost Boy, Majok Madut, was shot and killed as he waited for a bus. This event set off a chain reaction in the city of Cleveland. A month after Majok’s funeral, a high school history teacher teamed up with a Catholic nun, who had helped the Lost Boys, to start a ripple effect. The teacher set up a community meeting to pool resources and services to help the Lost Boys accomplish what they wanted to do, but didn’t know how to do it. A police officer volunteered to teach the boys about the city and country laws and street smarts. A real estate agent transformed an apartment building into a new home for them. An attorney volunteered legal services. Some were the rock; some were the ripple. The Lost Boys became US citizens and graduated college. They married and started families of their own. In return, these boys gave back…one became a math teacher, one became an accountant and started a project called Isaac’s Wells for the people of Sudan to have fresh drinking water in their villages, one became a pilot and went to work for the UN Refugee Relief Services to rescue other refugees, one published a book about his experiences as a refugee. Each of these men became rocks that sent out ripples to serve others.
Posted on: Wed, 26 Mar 2014 12:10:39 +0000
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