Denver Catholic

10 SEPTEMBER 24-OCTOBER 7, 2016 | DENVER CATHOLIC Around the Archdiocese Colorado Knights help Sudanese refugees reunite, establish home in land of promise I n 1987, 12-year-old Daniel Mad- uok's village in southern Sudan was attacked by Islamic militia who killed residents, burned homes and slaughtered cattle. In the chaos, Maduok fled for his life and began a 16-year odys- sey as a "Lost Boy." In 2003, after years in refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya, he immigrated to the United States and settled in Colorado. Daniel had found faith through the Catholic Church during his ordeal, and in Colorado he found brothers in the Knights of Columbus, joining St. Paul's Council 11634 in Colorado Springs. He also found love when, in 2010, he wed a young Catholic woman from his Dinka tribe. A long-distance marriage ensued. Earlier this year, aided by fellow Knights, two Catholic parishes and a gen- erous co-sponsor, Daniel, now 41, brought his wife, Mary, and two young sons from Africa to live with him in Colorado Springs. "We went through a bad situation. We didn't have an idea of what life is: family and home," Daniel said. "Now we are together. We are learning about each other. I am so thankful." FROM HERDER TO HUNTED In 1983, the Second Sudanese Civil War, which followed on the heels of a previous 17-year conflict, was trig- gered when the Islamic government in Khartoum imposed sharia law upon all minorities. Four years later, the regime ordered the deaths of males in the Chris- tian south. Government-backed civil- ian militia carried out these orders in lightning raids on the largely Catholic Dinka population and 400 other tribes that adhere to Christianity or traditional African religions. Young Daniel was tending cattle when an armed paramilitary group invaded his village, Nyamlell, in the state of North- ern Bahr el Ghazal. "When they came, they gathered the whole village and started shooting. People scattered," recalled Daniel, who was separated from his large family. "You just run and save your life." Instantly, Daniel went from being a cattle herder to hunted fugitive. With only the clothes on his back, he was one of some 20,000 boys forced to flee hun- dreds of miles, seeking safety in refugee camps. Like Daniel, other Lost Boys were typically 5- to 12-year-old cowherds who fled into the bush when their villages were destroyed. Girls were often killed with their parents or enslaved. Without food or water and pursued on the ground and by air, Daniel trekked for months with boys from other raided villages to a refugee camp on the Ethi- opian border in an exodus called "The Walking of the Many." "We had a huge group," Daniel recalled. "But it reduced because a lot of boys died." Many of those who were not shot or captured and conscripted as soldiers were either killed by lions or died of hunger and thirst in the sweltering heat. "We walked. We ate leaves from dif- ferent trees, roots. You didn't know what to eat," Daniel said about his perilous forced march to the United Nations' camp in Panyido, Ethiopia. "If someone died, you put leaves over them," he explained. "No time to bury." Those who did make it to the Panyido camp faced malnutrition and disease, as resource centers were overwhelmed by the number of youths. In 1991, civil war caught up with Daniel and the other Lost Boys, and they fled again. Chased by armed militia, the boys had to re-enter war-torn Sudan and cross the Gilo River as they journeyed to a camp for displaced persons in Pochalla. On the way, many were killed by gunfire, drowned or were eaten by crocodiles. After living under deplorable condi- tions at Pochalla, war sent them running again, this time to the United Nations' refugee camp in Kakuma, Kenya. "You didn't have hope," Daniel said about his journeys, which totaled some 1,000 miles. "You were just waiting for death." Daniel lived in the Kakuma refugee camp for 11 years. The civil war, which oŒcially ended in 2005, killed 2 million people, displaced 4 million and devastated southern Sudan, which became the independent nation of South Sudan in 2011. FROM DEATH TO LIFE Raised without faith, separated from family and surrounded by death, Daniel found hope and new life when he encountered Jesus Christ through a Catholic Mass at the Kakuma camp. He was initially drawn by the beautiful hymns in his native tongue. "I like to sing," he said of his decision to attend Mass. "When I went to the church, God called me to be Catholic." His call was nourished by the Scrip- tures, which convinced him that, like the biblical Daniel in the lion's den, God had protected him from the dangers he had faced. "I passed through crocodiles and death," he said. "God saved me from all that. I read in the Bible that God is life. He is Jesus Christ. That gave me faith." In 2001, the U.S. government gave approval for 4,000 Lost Boys to relocate to the United States. Two years later, Daniel was sponsored by a church and brought to Denver. In 2007, he moved to Colorado Springs to share an apartment with four other Lost Boys. A year later, he became a U.S. citizen. In 2010, Daniel returned to Sudan for three months to wed Mary, a young A LOST BOY FINDS HOPE BY ROXANNE KING editor_king@icloud.com @RoxanneIKing Former Lost Boy of Sudan Daniel Maduok, now of Colorado Springs, checks on cattle during a visit to his homeland.

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