I became aquatinted with Bern Yuot while attending Union College in Lincoln, Nebraska. One conversation we had at the time stands out strongly in my memory.  It took place during a Ministerial Club weekend retreat sponsored by the college. While walking in the sand beside a lake, I ran into a small group of students conversing with Bern about Africa. I pressed him to tell me his story too, which had immediately grabbed my attention, though I had only heard a remnant of it by eavesdropping.  I convinced him to rehash once more what he had probably repeated numerous times already.  Bern began to tell me tragic stories of civil war, persecution, flight, and also about miraculous escapes from impossible predicaments.  I was somewhat spellbound, since he recounted realities unfamiliar to average Americans.  While listening to one miraculous story unfold, a realization suddenly struck me; that my new friend was only talking with me at that moment thanks to the reality of divine intervention in our world!  That realization had a powerful effect on my imagination since aspects of higher education had forced me to struggle over the reality of the miraculous.  I believe it can also have a powerful effect for the reader of this book.  In an age of increasing godlessness, when the most prominent secular, and even many so-called religious leaders, bend every effort and resource to take glory away from God.  When leading minds deny creation, discredit miracles, deny the inspired Word which records the acts of God in history, when the powerful devote themselves to finalizing a divorce between spirituality and civilization; we need to recount instances of Divine intervention in our times wherever we find them.  In this age of declining faith, fresh evidence of a God who still intervenes will revive our spirits if we love God.

 

 
     I was born in Nyarkueth, south Sudan, to a Christian family, and was raised among Christians and Animists (worshipers of traditional African gods).  At the age of thirteen, I left Sudan because of my conviction at that time, that I should not join the long-running civil war in Sudan and kill people.  As a boy of thirteen I was in a position to be forced into one or the other of two warring factions in the country I loved so much.  I did not want to join the Sudanese National Army, which fought against Christians, forcing them to accept the Islamic religion; nor did I want to join the Sudanese People's Liberation Army, the SPLA—which fought against the Sudanese National Army to protect the freedom of Christians—even though I agreed with the cause.  The only way to escape a forced recruitment into either faction was for me to flee my homeland. 

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     Since I've found some American friends profoundly interested to know about my culture and world view, I felt it might interest others too, to know a bit of background and things about me that are foreign—a bit sensational—to those who have not had a shared experience. 

     My tribal culture, the south Sudanese Nuer culture, is in a lot of ways similar to the early Israelite culture described in Old Testament stories, though my people do not, as some Ethiopians, claim to have descended from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  You might not believe it though, when I tell you what we actually do claim to be descended from! 

     My family shares some aspects of culture with Jacob's family from the Bible in particular, and in a general sense, with the over-all culture of the entire ancient world.  Ours is an ancient world view. 

     Just for instance, I quickly discovered upon arrival, that in America it is insulting to blurt out to someone that they have gained weight!  Meanwhile, in Sudanese culture, as is true for almost all ancient cultures, it is a high compliment to tell another person that he or she has gained weight, since fat people are generally considered wise and wealthy.  Fatness in the Bible often signifies health and abundance.  Some of our local tribes in Sudan conduct annual fat competitions, with as much enthusiasm and hoopla as an American Super Bowl!  Men sit on their ever-increasing bubble-bottoms for months on end, doing little else but drinking milk and gorging themselves, in order to get as obese as they possibly can.  And their resulting corpulence isn't nearly as obese, as some of the people who can be seen walking the streets in America!  When I return to Africa, my own family members are always disappointed that moving to America doesn’t make me look more “American!” 

     After hearing how some of my American friends feel about reading Bible begats,  I know you will surely be sound asleep by the time I finish telling about my tribe’s method of passing on ancestral history by oral tradition.  Nevertheless, did you know that my people keep track of history in a way similar to Bible begats?  However, we do it with our given names, mostly.  Even as a man in Bible days was known as “the son of . . .” so-and-so, so also our entire name-scheme is built to identify lineage and historic ties.   This is then combined with oral traditions in songs, poems and stories, which ensure that knowledge of important past events associated with ancestral names, will be carefully passed on to new generations of people.  Throughout many hundreds of years there was not a regular system of writing for the tribal languages. Until the modern era our peoples relied solely on carefully guarded oral traditions to preserve knowledge of the past. 

     All families in my tribe—the south Sudanese Nuer—know a history of their ancestors, starting with their own fathers and going back many generations.  We are able to trace ancestry by the accumulation of names given to boys.  In America, a boy whose father's last name is Johnson usually also receives the last name Johnson, but in Nuer tradition, a son receives the first name of his father as a second name, and the first name of his grandfather as a third or last name.  This is not so foreign from things of Western society as it first appears, however.  Notice that even the common “American”  name Johnson—meaning John’s son—betrays the fact that Europeans too, once used a begat-like naming scheme. 

     If you wanted to get very technical, by not limiting Nuer names to three (an arbitrary number), a Nuer name could be almost endless in its length.  My own name is Bern Puot Yuot, when limited to three.  Bern is my name, Puot is my father's, Yuot is my grandfather's.  Then, my great grandfather's name is Duop, and so on.  My name could technically be Bern Puot Yuot Dup Thor Ngon Thior Guang Yiow Kiir kak keer.  Only, that is as long as my own name can be, since that is the extent of tradition which my clan remembers, tracing back to my tribe's story of origin. 

     My own tribe tells a fascinating myth about our origins as a tribe, and it might seem weird or ignorant if you don't share my heritage, and if you think it was all just made up.  However, there is usually some amount of genuine history in most oral myths, and myths also can say something about the cultural character of a people holding on to them.  Even if the myth is labeled pagan, I still value it, because it is my heritage.  It identifies my people and their uniqueness; it helps define who I am as a Nuer.  I think every person—regardless of background—ought to take some healthy pride in his or her heritage, because God has designed our cultural creativeness, our mystery and variety in the human family—we should celebrate what makes our uniqueness interesting. 

     The Genealogy of my family begins with me, of course, Bern Puot.  I am a son of a soldier and farmer named Puot Yut, who is a son of a famous eastern Nuer hero and warrior named Yuot Dup.  Yuot, my grandfather, was at one time famous for a conflict between himself and the British during colonial days.  Yuot became known for resettling a people group, which later formed a clan.  Since his name was Yuot or Yut, this clan is called the Jimem Yut, meaning clan of Yut.  Yuot Dup—my grandfather—is a son of Duop Thoar, who is a son of Thor Nguon, who is a son of Ngon Thior who is a son of Thior Guang.  Thior is a son of Guang Yiow, who is a son of Yiow Kiir.  Yiow is a son of Kiir, and Kiir—according to Nuer mythology—came out of a large gourd which was found floating on the Nile River.  According to our version of the myth, a man was one day walking along the banks of the Nile when he noticed the large gourd floating near the riverbank.  He retrieved the gourd and broke it open, and to his surprise, he found a baby boy inside of it.  This child, said to have been a witch who killed people by just looking at them , became the grandfather of all the Jikany-Nuer clan of both the western and eastern Nuer clans!  Gea, who is thought of as the ancestor of all Nuer people, adopted the child, and considered him one of his own children.  My knowledge of my own genealogy ends with Kiir kak keer, again meaning Kiir who came out of the gourd plant.  I have just traced myself nine generations back, and my generation is the tenth.  I prize this cultural knowledge, and I plan to keep traditions and Nuer name sequences in my own family for the sake of future generations. 

     Because my people believe they came from a gourd, the pagans among the Nuer will not carve gourds.  Those who adopted Christianity among my people are not so superstitious, however.  We know that we owe our existence to the one true God.  It is more than possible, as I already mentioned, that the gourd story bears some seed of truth, since it has been passed down by word of mouth, as many traditions that originated with a real event.  The large gourd could well have been a natural floatation device in which a baby was really abandoned, much like the story of baby Moses on the same Nile river thousands of years previous.  American college friends often did jokingly call me Moses, since I was reared along the Nile.  Perhaps my own famous ancestor, in fact, also once floated in a basket among the Nile bulrushes like Moses? 

     Even though there might be elements in my culture, which some Westerners judge harshly, as objectionable from their standpoint, there are also many things, which Westerners ought to admire about our very ancient way of life.  I know that some Sudanese refugees have had a hard time adjusting to new countries and the demands of living in modern industrialized society.  This tragically leads to unjust stereotypes and prejudices, which I hear of from time to time.  However, it is not fair to judge our whole culture based upon how a few of the immigrants might fare when confronted with Western society.  The adjustment to such a starkly different world view is always a shock.  Some handle the transition better than others, and many other cultural groups immigrating to a new environment also have isolated incidents which create similar prejudices.  No immigrant culture is immune.  It is also a fact that every culture produces some bad people as well as some very good ones.  We should practice looking for the good and praiseworthy elements in every people and culture.  This is what I did when I came to America and observed American/Western cultures. 

     Westerners have many praiseworthy things about their cultures and I have been an admirer of a lot in America both before and since I arrived here.  However, there are things Americans and other Westerners could definitely learn from the Sudanese culture.  Sudanese families have a very strong support system—often lacking in America—with multiple layers, where grandparents and great grandparents are involved in raising their grand children.  These protective layers keep families connected in supporting themselves.  Families are also fiercely loyal to each other in sharing their income with family members who may be needy.  I have not always seen as great of support systems in American culture, where individuality—and the positive aspect of personal responsibility—seem to be so much greater a value. 

     Another thing to admire about my own culture is the almost universal deference toward the elderly in Sudan.  We do not throw people away when they become burdensome due to illness and old age.  As you are no doubt aware, Nuer culture is patriarchal, and great deference is paid to parents and old people.  Old people cannot even be called by their first names; they are called by their firstborn children’s names, because that is a sign of respect and honor.  Their children nurse them at home and even if they are very old they can not be sent to a nursing home.  Children feel that it is their personal duty to care for their ailing parents.  The respect for parents in Sudan is life long.  Parents are deeply involved with their children and are especially consulted to approve marriage partners by their children, even though their children are allowed to make their own selection, albeit with honorable deference to parental wishes.  Parents not only have the final say regarding marriage, they also traditionally name their first grandchildren.

     Now comes the part of my culture which I feared for so long to speak openly about with my friends in America: Sudanese marriage customs. 

     First, I must point out a very positive aspect about marriage in Sudanese culture.  While the modern West experiences soaring divorce rates, marriages almost always last in Sudan—divorce is rare in Africa, even though the influence of Western mores and easy divorce laws both lead to a high immigrant divorce rate for immigrants in America. 

     I know polygamy is a big taboo in America, but it is acceptable—even a preferred circumstance—for men in Sudan to marry more than one wife, since it is a sign of wealth and meets certain needs of our large families.  In this respect and in others, our marriage custom is no different than that of the Arab tribes of the Middle East.  Polygamy is one of the many facts of life, which the ancient Israelites and the Nuer tribe have in common.  Although most Bible stories demonstrate the relationship tangles associated with this ancient practice—which I can personally attest to—it also faithfully records that Jacob and other Bible greats had more than one wife as well as concubines .  Jacob had twelve sons by his wives and concubines, and these sons are the ancestors of the famed twelve tribes of Israel.

     Yuot Dup, my own grandfather, had seven wives.  Though married to all seven, not all of them had children with Yuot.  He had children with only four of the wives.  These four were named Nyapan Diet, Nyahoth Pathot, (my natural grandmother), Nyangier Riek, and Nyaruach Koam.  The remaining wives—three of them—were Nyaluak Wie, Nyathin Bol, and Nyanguoth Miak—none of them had children with my grandfather Yuot, and therefore they earned less respect.  Because children are so highly valued in my culture, mothers and fathers receive special designation honoring them for having children.  In respectful conversation and in the traditional telling of history, mothers and fathers are usually titled after their respective firstborn children: the word Man, meaning mother, or Guan, meaning father, are used along with the child’s name as a sign of respect.  For instance, the first wife to my grandfather was called Man Chuol, and my grandfather himself was called Guan Chuol, because Chuol was their firstborn son.  Until I conducted research, I did not even know the names of my grandfather’s three wives who bore no children.

     In following my family tree, we finally come to my own father Puot Yut, who married four wives.  Nyakang Chiotjiok was his first wife, and she bore him four children.  My half brothers and sisters—from my father's first marriage—are sister Nyabiel, his firstborn; brother Stephen, who was murdered while an SPLA officer; sister Nyanyier and sister Nyadeng.  They all have married and have families of their own.  My father married again a second wife, Nyanyuot Guokguok.  She bore him six children, whose names are brother Gatkuoth (deceased), sister Nyawiu (deceased), brother Bol, sister Nyageng, brother Tut, and sister Nyadet.  All have married and have families of their own as well.  My father married yet again a third wife—this time to my own mother, Nyayul Kueth.  She bore him three children.  Those children include me, Bern Yuot, my sister Nyamuon, and younger brother Bang.  I am married to Kim Lual Kier (now Kim Yuot), and my sister and brother are not adults yet.  Kim and I have a daughter named Duany.  My father married a fourth and last wife, Nyayual Dup.  She bore him four children: Sister Nyajang, brother Giel, brother Yuot and sister Nyamuot.  That is the Puot's family tree in detail.  Perhaps very strange compared to a Western family structure!? 

     My father recently became a Seventh-day Adventist Christian.  Since the Seventh-day Adventist denomination and many other Christian denominations condemn the practice of polygamy as a rule, questions may be asked such as, how can my father be an Adventist Christian?  Did he divorce some wives before joining the church?  These questions indicate that this issue is not an easy one to figure out, and I believe we must tread gently upon it without being judgmental.  It is too easy to judge from the outside.

     Let me just say God works in mysterious ways.  He has called people from every imaginable background to serve Him, and He certainly called my father who has had many wives: a fact I have always—until recently—been too ashamed to talk about in America, where the practice carries such a stigma.  I had been ashamed of his marriages to my many mothers because—being quite human—I felt sure that my American friends would mock me if they discovered what kind of family I come from.  This may sound ridiculous, but that is how I felt about my father's multiple marriages when I was in college.  I never talked about it, but withholding the truth haunted me, and today I know how wrong I was about my American friends. 

     It was a dreadful experience to me when friends discovered, one day, a photograph of my father, and inquired as to whom the four women standing beside him were.  I did not know what to say, so I told a quick lie and said that they were my sisters!  My conscience bothered me horribly for lying, and it was not long after that time, that I felt I just had to tell the truth, and so I confessed the lie to one of my good friends to whom I had lied.  It turned out not to be such a big deal to him as my anxious mind had imagined. 

     My father, to answer the questions I posed earlier, is currently  a Seventh-day Adventist Church Elder in a village of western Ethiopia, where he still lives with the three currently living wives.  Most Adventist Christian preachers in the Sudan would have asked my father to divorce some of his wives in order to become an Adventist Christian—a circumstance which prevents many sincere believers from joining church fellowship.  However, in my father's circumstance divorce was not insisted upon since he is no longer intimate with any of his wives, being in age approaching one hundred years old.  He just serves the Lord and lives with his wives, to support them, in the same way he would his sisters.

     Many evils can also come about from sending away wives, who are then forced into degrading practices in order to survive, and who are not accepted as respectable women in our society.  Sometimes there is no perfect answer to issues like this, as Bible stories demonstrate, and even God at times chooses between the lesser of two evils in numerous sticky human situations.  God is the judge of these often perplexing circumstances, not us.  My father and my mothers are happy serving Christ in the Adventist Christian Church in that part of the world.  My father attends an Adventist Church now, which is built on his own back yard!  He loves the Lord, and I praise God for him.  I am confident that God does not pass by the people and families who live in these cultural situations, which maybe He doesn't consider most ideal. God can, and often does, bring goodness out of a host of less-than-perfect life arrangements.  God raised me, now a pastor—a very high honor where I come from—out of that polygamist African family.

 
     God has always played a significant part in my life, and as I grew from boyhood, I can see that God was instilling lessons in me as my heavenly Father.  When I was growing up I was taught Christian principles by my family, for which I am grateful, but God has also taken me through some experiences which taught me the importance of remaining faithful to Him at all times.  I have always loved my own father because he was a good father.  I know that sometimes a good father must rebuke his child because he loves the child.  One of the early experiences I recall with God is a time when He rebuked me in order to teach me an important lesson of faithfulness, which has stayed with me and helped me to stand for the right later on in my life. 

     The village I grew up in—Nyarkueth village—is among the more primitive and remote villages in Africa, with no electricity, purified water system, school, hospital, or shops.  We had little of what is called “civilization” in our neighborhood.  However, Nyarkueth village has always had one thing that opened its doors to a civilizing influence—the Christian church.  During the difficult times I will describe, all of our hopes were tied to the church, and also to the Christian movement that was fighting for the freedom of our people. 

     My father returned home from war about the time of my birth, and was able to live with his family in Nyarkueth, due to a fragile cease-fire that led to an eleven-year lull in a decades old civil war.  I was especially privileged to be one of the young children raised during this period, because, unlike so many children in wartime, I had the blessing of living with my father.  I loved my father very much and I enjoyed spending time with him, because he loved to do things with me.  My father taught me at a young age how to row a canoe, swim, fish, and how to cultivate sorghum in our back yard.  I began canoeing on my own and soon developed a reputation for being very good at it, although I had been given no professional training.  Canoeing is now one of my favorite activities.  My father also taught me how to swim like a professional athlete.  However, as with any normal adolescent, my father's training did not stop me from trying things on my own, or from taking unwise risks. 

     My dad is as good a fisherman as he is a swimmer. He taught me how to fish and how to apply my new skills for profit.  I was usually consistent in all of the lessons that my dad taught me.  However, on one occasion I tried something which afterwards I regretted, because it was not appropriate—it was something I knew neither my earthly father, nor my heavenly Father would approve of.  One morning I went to Zholic Lake to check my fishing net, which I had placed in the lake overnight.  I took a canoe and went far out onto the lake to see what I might find in the net.  I discovered no fish in my own net, so I decided to take fish from someone else's.  I found a Tilapia fish caught in another person’s net.  I immediately grabbed it, imagining myself to be a man, and pretty shrewd at that, because I had succeeded in stealing someone else's fish.  I thought that no one saw me, but God had observed my actions, as He always does. 

     About five minutes after taking the fish, a storm suddenly moved over the lake. Before I realized what was happening, my canoe capsized.  I was dumped into the middle of Zholic Lake still tightly clutching the fish that I had stolen.  My hands would not let go of the fish, even though I was struggling to keep my head above water.  I began to cry, because I felt helpless against the high water that was stirred by the powerful storm. The waves were clashing and seemed to me like giant moving walls that kept crumbling down on me.  I was terrified, recognizing immediately that the storm resulted because I had stolen someone else's fish.  In my immaturity, I did not even stop to think that the storm could have come for any other reason than to punish me.  I cried out very loudly, hoping that someone would come to help me, but nobody was on the lake.  I swam as I cried, still holding on to the fish.  When I got to the shore half an hour later, the storm suddenly ceased.  I sat down on the shore and began to think about why I had almost drowned in the lake.  Why did the storm stop immediately when I got to the shore, and why did it come in the first place?  God was mad at me, I told myself.  I took the stolen fish home, knowing that it was the first and last thing I would ever steal.  I resolved at that time never to steal again in my life.  And I never have.  I believe that storm came to teach me a lesson of honesty and faithfulness that will stick with me for the rest of my life. 

     Stealing and disobedience of any kind can destroy a life.  In Sudan, if the person that commits the act of stealing is caught, death or terrible punishments often follow.  I once witnessed a thief punished by burning in Kenya.  I couldn’t help thinking that that is what would have happened to me if I had lived in Kenya and had been caught stealing fish.  Even though I was not caught back in Sudan, my heavenly Father knew that I had stolen, and He cared enough to teach me a lesson to prevent worse things from happening to me.  I learned at an early age that stealing might benefit the one who does it for a little while, but ultimately a person loses out.  When an individual is caught, he or she could spend a long time behind bars, but that is not as heart-breaking a reality as how our actions make God feel.  Secret stealing is not any better than open stealing.  Just because people cannot see our wrong and we don't immediately get caught, that does not mean the wrong is all right, and it harms our conscience, eventually leading us on to commit much greater sins, because of the apparent ease of accomplishing our smaller crimes.  We need to be witnesses for Jesus and to be trustworthy men and women, no matter what we encounter in life.  The Holy Scriptures say in Leviticus 19:11, “do not steal . . .”

     My experience reminds me of a storm on another lake called the Sea of Galilee.  The Sea of Galilee is deep and surrounded by hills.  If a storm passes through, it can channel winds through the hills in such a way as to cause a frightening swell.  The disciples of the Lord panicked, because a storm they experienced had the potential to be deadly.  They were terrified, thinking Jesus was not aware of what was taking place, because He was asleep.  It was not very long before His disciples discovered that they were wrong.  Their Master had not left them to the storm.  He was there with them all the time.  What they needed, was to believe that Jesus cares even in a storm.  Jesus lived with these men, who one day were to be so brave as to surrender up their very lives, and yet at this time they were fearful of a storm and underestimated Jesus’ power.  They thought Jesus' power did not apply to their problems.

     Sometimes storms are allowed to happen, I believe, to help us learn the lessons we need in life.  Just as the disciples' storm on the Sea of Galilee threatened their lives, the storm on Zholic Lake threatened my life.  Much greater storms were about to come in my life, because of the atrocities I would soon be fleeing from.  I needed the lessons God gave me—lessons God would often remind me of by miracles and by other encouragement, that He gave me along my road to freedom.  I needed to know the importance of remaining faithful at all times, and the fact that God has power over storms we go through, to stop them at a moment's notice if He decides to.  There are storms in life, which cause anxiety—storms that make us forget that Jesus does care.  We can choose to believe that Jesus does not care, as the disciples did when Jesus slept on their boat, or we can resist fear and put our trust in Him no matter what is happening to us.  Putting trust in Jesus means living true to Him, and then leaving the consequences of that up to Him.  If it is within His great plan, He is more than able to save us now.  For some reason God did save my life a number of times—miraculously.  However, even if we should die violent deaths—as most of the disciples eventually did—in order to witness for Jesus, we have not been destroyed.  We will be raised when Christ returns, just as surely as Jesus was raised from the grave and lives today.

 
     I experienced sheer joy when I left the refugee camps of Ethiopia destined for a new phase of life at Wollega Adventist Academy.  The joy was short lived, however.  For a while things at Wollega Adventist Academy were looking very good for me as I hunkered down in my studies without the special hardships faced back in the camp.  We even had the luxury of free time, in which we could play games.  But soon things began to take another turn for the worse in my life, and the situation just did not stop getting worse for me. 

     My friends and I at Wollega Academy enjoyed using some of our free time from studies for playing games in a favorite valley not far from the dormitory.  One day a couple of months after arriving at Wollega, my friends and I went to that valley to play, and after playing hard for some time, I suddenly realized that something was happening to my body.  I was coming down with an illness—something that felt like a terrible cold at first.  I was feeling really bad and had to quit playing the games.  The day after I first noticed the illness, my glands were extremely swollen.  I was soon diagnosed with tuberculosis—TB.  My doctor said that I must have been exposed to it from my childhood in Sudan.  Now—though I had escaped the refugee camp—a new prison was added to my life: the prison of sickness.  At the same time, war again reached out it's skeletal hand to clutch at  me and my friends. 

     The two sorrows grew worse together.  Even as my TB grew more severe, fighting between the Ethiopian government and Sudanese backed rebels was also getting worse. Fighting was breaking out in the western region of the country and the war blocked roads and hampered transportation by land.  Because of this I was routinely forced to walk, as sick as I was, twenty-eight miles to the town of Ghimbie in order to buy my TB medication at Ghimbie Adventist Hospital.  As I walked to and from town, sometimes one of my friends would go with me. One day an official of Wollega Adventist Academy, whom I will not name, offered to give me a ride to town to pick up my medication.  I was grateful to be able this time to ride with him and allow my body to rest, since I had been growing weaker. 

     When he returned in the evening, he told me to get into the truck, which was loaded with school supplies, and we headed back toward the school.  When we arrived at a village still twenty miles from the school, the official stopped and said he had to pick up more supplies.  He told me to wait for him on the road while he loaded the truck with supplies in the village.  I waited for him.  When he finished loading the truck, he left me standing beside the road because there was no room for me.  I believe I could have sat on some of the supplies, but for some reason, the official refused to let me sit on the supplies that he had loaded. 

     This is something that caused me extreme anxiety.  It was in the evening and getting dark  at the time he left me stranded.  I was very sick and my mind was in a state of depression.  I felt abandoned, lonely, terrified and nearly without hope of making it back to the school alive.  The region I was in has a lot of trees, valleys, and many wild dangerous animals.  I was too sick to walk, and scared to death that some wild animal would hurt me.  However, I somehow had faith that God would find a way for me to be rescued, as if someone invisible was assuring me that “this sickness is not unto death.” 

     When the official arrived at the school, he told my Sudanese friends, “Your brother, Bern, will come to the school on foot.  I left him about 20 miles from here.” 

     A volcano of rage erupted.  My friends became so angry that they almost began a fist fight with the official, because they knew how sick I was, and how dangerous it was at night to travel in the bush.  My friends left immediately to rescue me.  All the while, I was on the highway struggling to get home, but I had little strength.  I would walk for half an hour and rest by the road for another half an hour.  When they found me I was lying at the edge of the road exhausted in the middle of the night.  They were all very happy that I had not been attacked by a wild animal, but sad that the school official would do such a thing to one of his students. 

     The whisper of assurance I had received from God brought me home that night, because it prevented me from giving up a lot earlier.  I was helpless, stranded, and had thought I was going to die, but somehow Jesus had encouraged me not to give up, but to keep going until my friends came to rescue me. 

     The next day a great deal of turbulence began at the school on my account!  The Sudanese students threatened to leave the school because their fellow brother, Bern, who had become known as “the Pastor,” had been left in the woods at night.  I tried to reason with them but was unsuccessful in my attempts to make peace.  They left the school and headed to Addis Ababa where the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and also the Inter church Aid Offices, are located.  These two organizations were the sponsors of all the Sudanese students who were attending the Adventist Academy.  My friends were stubbornly determined and would not even allow me to ride along in the car with them, because I was trying to persuade them against reporting the school official. 

     The head office in Addis Ababa sent a man right away, whose job title was Counselor for Refugees, to visit with me at the academy.  He wanted me to go with him to Addis Ababa so that I could be hospitalized there.  It was just a week before finals.  I decided to stay at the school and take all of my exams—I assured him that I would be fine because I had just been to Ghimbie to obtain medicine.  The Counselor for Refugees also brought my friends back to school with him and visited with the administrators of the school, making sure there would be no further incidents of blatant disregard for a student's safety.

     “Leaving a child in the woods at night is totally unacceptable and our office cannot afford to be in partnership with your school if such things continue to occur.  This boy could have died.  Some wild animal might have killed him!  What organization wants to be responsible for such a horrible thing?” he remonstrated the official.

     How good it felt to have such an important advocate, but it was never my desire to cause trouble for the school official.  Jesus has promised to be our spiritual advocate and to defend us against the abuse and accusations of Satan if we allow him to take our case.  However, unlike my experience with a merely faulty school official, Satan truly wants to see us harmed—it is no accident when he does something to harm us.  I knew in my heart that the official had used very bad judgment and had made an insensitive mistake, but that he didn't really want to see harm come to a student. 

     The counselor's meeting with the administration of Wollega Adventist Academy helped the official to realize his mistake and he apologized for his actions. We all accepted his apology, though some of my friends had been so outraged at the incident that they were reluctant at first and did not want to forgive him.  We continued to study at Wollega Adventist Academy until the time that the war in Ethiopia finally forced us to flee the school. 

     It was the first half of my second semester at Wollega Adventist Academy when Ethiopian rebels launched a heavy offensive on the town of Ghimbie, which is located in the western Wollega region of Ethiopia, bordering Sudan.  The rebels, who called themselves the Ethiopian People's Democratic Revolutionary Front, launched a heavy offensive throughout the western region of Ethiopia.  It did not take long before the whole region was under the occupation of rebel forces.  The students had just returned from a two week spring vacation and found themselves trapped on campus because of the great danger approaching.  Nekempte, the capital city of the Wollega region, was captured first.  That event brought terror to our hearts, because we knew that the government forces stationed at Nekempte outnumbered the ones in our area. 

     Every person on campus became demoralized.  The transition that was about to begin came as a great shock.  We were unprepared for this eventuality as we had been assured of protection by the Ethiopian government.  Many lives were now at risk, the roads out of town were blocked, and it soon became almost impossible to find food in the entire region.  The Islamic government of Sudan was involved in the Ethiopian fighting, and this gave them an advantage over the western forces put in place by the Ethiopian government.  Sudan's government had an interest in this war, because Ethiopia was the only east African state that was taking the risk of harboring south Sudanese Christians who fled Sudan.  The radical Islamist government in Sudan freely donated arms, bullets, and other military equipment to the Ethiopian rebels, so that the Ethiopian government of Colonel Mengistu could be overthrown.  Part of the reason Sudan intentionally supported Ethiopian rebels, was their desire to gain access to all of the Christian refugees that had sought refuge in Ethiopia. 

     Because of the strong support given by Sudan, we knew that the Ethiopian rebels might easily hand us over to the Sudanese government if they got their hands on us.  Then my friends and I would be forced to join Jihad.  We might also be executed for our faith in Christianity, and our refusals to submit to the Islamic faith.  It was certainly a very serious situation for us. 

     I was weakened by my tuberculosis and had very swollen glands.  I could not do any work, study or even walk by that point.  My body was always aching.  I was extremely miserable, because the medication itself was overwhelming to my system.  At this low point in my life, a raging war in my neighborhood was the last thing I could stand.  Intensified fighting in Wollega region blocked all roads to the capital, Addis Ababa.  The Ethiopian Airline routes and airports were closed as well.  There was no way to leave the town of Ghimbie except to hike through the bushes and hills of western Ethiopia.  Since I was too weak to walk long distances I was entirely stranded.  I decided that the only option for me was to stay right where I was and hope for a miracle.

     One of the wonderful gifts God gave to me at this dark time was the gift of loyal friends.  My loyal Christian friends, who were also Sudanese—and therefore in great danger—came to me and sought my input about leaving the area on foot.  I hesitated because I knew that tuberculosis had physically weakened me, and I was not able to walk long distances.  I told my friends to leave me behind, but they refused.  They insisted that if I did not go with them they would not go anywhere either.  They would rather die with me than leave me alone.  I knew that my decision to remain behind was not safe, but I did so in order to die alone and allow the others to live.  But they refused to go without me!  They chose to die with me, either on the campus if I chose not to go, or on the road if I went with them, because I knew that if I went with them I would surely slow them down and ensure their capture. 

     This decision of my friends troubled me—I could not even sleep at night, because I was contemplating the great risk my friends were taking for me as they had stubbornly stayed behind on campus after everyone else fled.  One morning I got up from my bed and called all of them together. 

     “We will go and at least then if I die on the road, maybe you will move on to safety and finally leave me behind.” I said. 

     The road ahead of us was rough and full of soldiers, because the whole region had become a battlefield.  No one among the brothers would even try to determine a way of getting away from the warring region and of making it to the capital safely.  It was unimaginable to think about safety at that point in time.  The Ethiopian jet fighters were flying over us and dropping bombs just a few miles away.  We were terrified, but we knew that we had to act like men although we were only boys.  We left Wollega Adventist Academy at three in the afternoon.  We hiked for a couple of hours and slept in an abandoned school building.  The staff and students had already fled when the area finally turned into a battlefield.  We took out our dry bread, which we had brought with us from the Academy, and ate a meal of plain bread, local fruit and water.  The food was poor, but some could not taste anything anyway, because of the fear of what would happen to us on that first night out in an abandoned school.  We spent the night in fear that somebody might harm us at any moment.  However, we safely made it through that night. 

     The next day we headed out toward the western part of the country where the government troops were still in control.  My friends kept their eyes on me because of my sickness.  I carried my TB medications with me and continued to take them as I traveled.  My only hope was a religious hope anchored in Jesus.  I was very devout for my age and Jesus had come through for me in past hardships so I leaned heavily on Him as we traveled in the mountainous back country of Ethiopia.  I pleaded for strength. 

     I know I gained strength to make it that day because of the many friends God had allowed me to make.  I had human friends who were ready to lay down their lives for me.  I also had another friend, Jesus, who already laid down his life once, before I was ever friendly to Him, and who also promised, “I will never leave you or forsake you.”  It was my Lord who sustained my spirit, for what purpose I did not know.  He gave me the strength and confidence to make it through that journey which feat I had believed impossible in my condition.  I had felt that I was hopeless, but something changed inside of me after my prayers for help.  I became confident from that time on that I was going to win the battle over tuberculosis and that my body could finally make the mountainous trek. 

     God's kingdom is made for people who need a physician to heal them both spiritually and physically.  What a wonderful comfort to know Him who heals the sick and broken-hearted.  Jesus also commanded His disciples to preach the gospel, which means good news, and to heal the sick.  That means human beings can act as the very hands of God by being a friend to those in need.  He sends all of us to represent Him as friends to the helpless—if He lives in us we will be like angels of mercy to people in need.  I probably owe my life to my loyal friends from Wollega Academy who acted as God's hands, and I am thankful God used them to help answer my prayers.

     Even though very dreadful events were surrounding us and I was now enduring one of the deadliest storms of my life, there were yet to be some bright evidences that I had even more friends near—invisible but real—who were stationed with us on the journey.  I saw a few small glimpses which still give me chills when I ponder what happened to me.  Just the thought can inspire courage, to realize heavenly beings are around us in all circumstances—even death—but they are able at God's command to interfere with whatever our enemy wants, if interfering would somehow serve a greater purpose in God's ultimate plan.  I saw evidences of real angels during my flight from Wollega Academy.  These evidences were like beams of light piercing through my black clouds, and they have ever since been a source of assurance to me when I think back to my experiences.

 

     The journey on the third day also began early in the morning, after our long night of sleeping in flood waters.  As we started out to continue our journey we were covered from head to foot with mud.  Water was still standing in sizable pools beside the highway.  After our joints began to move again, my friends and I—along with the troops—were all rushing as fast as we could to the west, where the fighting had not yet broken out.  There were wounded men in the group, and I still have a vision of the mentally disturbed ones screaming incoherently.  They uttered things that would make you weep in pity if you could hear them—repetitive cries of utter despair and panic—they were overcome with fear and dread of dying.  However, nobody paid much attention to their heartbreaking wails; there wasn't time.  Everyone was concerned about their own safety and how they could get out of the war zone at once.  My fellow Sudanese knew all too well what it was like to be caught in a battleground. They walked very quickly and managed to pass up all the troops we had started the journey with.  We found ourselves traveling alone for a while, but at six in the evening we met up with another squad of Ethiopian troops who were retreating from the front lines.  These men had fresh wounds, indicating that they had come from the battlefield which we had left behind many hours previous.  They may have traveled a different route through the bushes and hills in order to have gotten to where we were so quickly. 
    The whole area was full of government troops running away from the front line.  Wounded soldiers could be seen all over the place, sometimes depending on healthy comrades to assist their escape.  In a most unfortunate circumstance, we came in contact with a freshly wounded soldier in a bad mood after suffering a critical leg wound which forced him to be supported by a companion. When he saw us, he saluted us in a manner that seemed friendly.