Monday, December 15, 2003

Family Style
I forgot something cool that happened yesterday. Phebe, her friend Bryan, and I were going to get lunch at the irish pub, but due to all the excitement of the Dickens thing down there, it was proving to be somewhat impossible to find a table. We ended up sharing a table with a large group who needed two tables pushed together... and we took the spare three seats at the end. They were totally cool about it. I sat next to Jeff -- who I've seen at Starbucks before. I'm going to make a point of sitting with total strangers more often. (Even the waiter said, "Now this is the Christmas spirit.")

Reminds me of when I went to Acme Oyster House with the boys... you don't have the choice but to sit with strangers there.

Last night I spent a whole hour watching this Otro Rolla program on the Spanish channel. Understand that I took like a year and a half of Spanish, so I mostly had no idea what was going on -- but I did see Jeans and Ragazzi perform... if only I knew who they were.

Mariani dried cherries? Sour. Not a tasty treat. I try so you don't have to.

Total bummer. Visible School was robbed of a whole bunch of gear.

Lost Boys
This morning at church, I ended up sitting behind this group of young black men all dressed in crisp white shirts and black trousers. At the end of the service they played a video telling about the wars in Sudan. In 1991, the Dinka tribe was ravaged. The men were killed. The women and girls were taken into slavery. And these young boys were left to fend for themselves. 20,000 of them crossed the desert to Ethiopia where they were eventually turned away, so they wandered back across Sudan to take refuge in Kenya -- this wandering taking years. Just boys! Many of them died from starvation and attacks by lions and hyenas. They were known as the Lost Boys of Sudan.

These young men sitting in front of me were 10 of them. Because we are taking a special offering for Sudan next week, the pastor had invited them to come up on stage and share with us. It was so incredibly moving. Many of them were missing teeth, and they told, in broken English, what help is needed in southern Sudan. They finished by singing a few songs in their native Dinka language. It was absolutely beautiful, and I was moved to tears.

My God, how fortunate we are.

It's one thing to just hear the story, but it was a totally other experience seeing them standing right in front of me. Now I just want to know more.

I discovered that a film has been made about these "lost boys". It follows two of the boys around after they have come to the States and documents the challenges they face here. (I guess it is going to be on PBS sometime next year.)

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