Running for My Life by Lopez Lomong is a compelling story of how a “lost boy” from Sudan was kidnapped by rebel soldiers, escaped certain death, ran for his life, only to be placed in a refugee camp in Kenya, where ultimately he ran right into an unbelievable dream.
As Lomong is living to survive another day in the refugee camp as a teen, he and a group of boys have an opportunity to watch something most kids age had never seen nor heard about; the Olympics on a farmers black and white TV. During their brief visit, Lomong gets a glimpse of Olympian Gold Medalist Michael Johnson sprinting around the track, upholding the American flag after a victory. The dream was planted.
Through an unbelievable opportunity to go to America through a local Catholic Charity, Lomong is accepted and sponsored by a family in New York where he goes to live out what a “lost boy” could never fathom. They treat him like their own son, enrolling him in the local high school, he becomes a track star, and the dream continues to unfold until it is fulfilled when he makes the Olympic team.
This is a fantastic, well written story but more than that for me it was motivating and moving. If you want to see how one family can make a difference in not just one life, but several, Running for My Life will expand your capacity to do something with the compassion God gives us to move us into action. It is challenging and has caused me to ask the question, “What can I do?” On another note, My 15 year old son chose to read Running for My Life for his english class.
I received this book free from BookSneeze in exchange for my review, but it’s definitely worth buying!
If you look at our website, you will see that my husabnd, Deacon Joe Rogan, and myself have been visiting Bosnia, and Camp Tasovcici in particular since 2000, usually twice a year. During that time we have been involved building houses for the refugees and taking food and humanitarian aid into the Camp. Also, we organised art workshops etc for the children and face painting and other fun things for them, we even took a nurse/midwife in who has since stayed in the camp from time to time, helping. Time was also spent showing the adults who were interested how to make greetings cards anything to help them with some income. With the houses, the aim was to help people to be self-sufficient giving a greenhouse, a shop or some means to create income. Age and ill health is causing people like us not to be able to do so much, visit as we used to, but we have contact and hear how things are in the Camp right now. Half the camp has been demolished and the remaining people are now in what is left with just 2 very inadequate bathrooms. People are sick in the camp, elderly, young with children and some of them have absolutely no income, no electricity and no hot water. People are starving. We have put out an appeal through our website and our parish and $1000 has gone and another a3700 yesterday, just to buy food and try to help with anything medical. Our young contact, herself once a refugee in the camp, keeps us informed and is buying the food and helping the people. The daily soup provided by the local authority stopped a few years ago. Pilgrims and foreign aid workers are not going into the camp the way they did. Money dried up for one man who has built the shell of a house, himself, but now has no money to complete anything inside. These people are struggling to survive this horribly cold Winter with NO food. We so want to make contact with people who can go into the camp, assess the situation and help the people. We are asking every hotel, restaurant and food shop in Capljina to spare their waste food that is edible for the camp but they have never done that in the past will they now? We cannot believe that in this day and age a country that would wish to join the EEC has NO benefits system in place, no health system for the very poor in place and is just leaving people in their dire situation. We know this is probably repeated all over Bosnia still, though we only know of things in this area, but we cannot understand why the wealthy in that country haven’t felt moved to help fellow human beings who, though no fault of their own, lost everything in that awful War long over. We know that the refugees we have taken from the camp and housed now, despite worry over work and income, have normality restored to a great extent. They all have their dignity. The standards in that awful camp are still high in many ways as people try to keep themselves and their ghastly little huts clean. Can you do anything?
I personally dont have the resources but I would like to further investigate by checking out your website. Can you send me the URL?