Marko
Wel Aleu
It been has
tough years since I enrolled in St Augustine College. I
had the worst time in the interval between the hospital
and school. Anyway, I'm glad the surgery is almost over.
I spent fourteen days in the hospital during the school
year. Once I got out of the hospital, I had to make up my
missed schoolwork, and it was like running from enemy again.
After having seven surgeries, I have made it, but it is
unbelievable, I'm triumphant. . I still made it. I never
had a happier day than this graduation in my life. I could
not imagine my vision would be bright like this. I remember
back in Africa when I was so gloomy as to what to do in
the future. But now, things are turning around. Getting
a two year degree is courageous, and it is a bright light
toward my future. Sticking to the education means sacrifices,
yet education is a straight direction towards which I never
change my mind. When sometimes I a flashback, long separation
from family, it causes millions of thoughts and gives me
some sort of fraction in decision-making. But, nothing could
be better than taking education to sweep all anxieties and
grievances beyond the bottom line. I must continue in education
to forward to a brighter future and better tomorrow. I will
never give up. My goal is to get an education, despite the
difficulties I have been through. I'm a self-interested
person and my own hero. I love what I do and strongly believe
what I decided. I could not do it if I was not decent person.
At this point, I'm eager to continue in a four year college.
Even though I had the worst time, my fortitude will lead
me to a better future. Deep thanks to people who make education
affordable for us.
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Ayuel
Awuol
The
long run for struggling has come to an end. I have been
struggling a lot to achieve my education at my youngest
age, but due to many crises and lack of development from
southern Sudan and the injustice of the northern government
of Sudan, did not allow me to pursue my education and the
rest of brothers and sisters.
I’m
so glad that I came to a place full with lots of opportunities
where I received the Degree I had been struggling for so
many years, and the Civil War did not allow me to complete
it. This is just the beginning of my career. When I look
back and sees many obstacles that had complicated my life,
I can only be thankful to Almighty God who make all things
possible even the impossible ones. I’m now pursuing my study
at Northeastern Illinois University for a Bachelor Degree.
This
is a message to you my fellow brothers, (Lost Boys) and
the community in general. Your Habit Will Determine Your
Future. The Focus of your Power and Commitment shows you
how to define your path and start working your plan. It’s
an amazing compendium and inspiring as well as practical.
You must have a Goal, which is the Ongoing Pursuit of a
Worthy Objective Until Accomplished. Use your natural talents
to invest most of your time every week doing what you do
best, and let others do what they are best in doing it.
When you focus most of your time and energy doing the things
you are truly brilliant at, you eventually reap big rewards.
This is a Fundamental truth and it’s critical to your future
Success. Success isn’t magic, it’s simply learning how to
focus.
Let
us not be here just to make A LIVING, let us be here to
make A DIFFERENCE. Always strive for constant and never-ending
improvement in everything you do. Create a dream team of
like-minded colleagues who will help you make your hopes
come true. Serve greatly with love and a happy heart, and
don’t forget to tithe a percentage of your income to your
church and favorite charities.
I just
want to say thank you to all volunteers and CALBOS members
for your hard work in supporting us for our education expenses
besides Financial Aids Assistance. I gave special thank
for mama Shiela Gould for not giving up in helping to recruit
the new student, keep up doing the great job. I had nothing
to give for you as a reward, but the Almighty God will bless
you for doing Christ’s Will and I thank you from the bottom
of my heart.
I had
special thank for two families that had done a tremendous
job and made my life so easy without experiencing the culture
shock of a different culture. Mr. Bob Montgomery family
and Mr. Rusty Brashear family had not only helped me alone,
but my entire families back home in Africa too. Thank God
for blessing me with these families. They had helped me
to achieve the most important thing in life, their tireless
generosity have taken two of my brothers and their families
to Australia where the kids will have a better future because
they will be educated and help the society later. I’m so
proud that I’m successful with the help I get from good
people as you are. I thank you for you’re caring so much.
God bless.
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Jacob
Deng Ding
NEVER
GIVE UP! NEVER!
I STILL REMEMBER
THE TIMES I WENT TO SCHOOL:
(ETHIOPIA: 1988-1991) (KENYA: 1992-2001) (U.S.A: 2002-2005)
The First
School I Went To (1988-1991)
Panyido Refugees Camp in Ethiopia
I
remember the time I started going to school in the camp (Ethiopia)
1988 until 1991, the first time I went to school. We sat on the
ground outside under the big trees, we called it, "a school or
a class…" but there were no buildings (classrooms), no blackboards,
no chalks, and no pens or pencils, as well not enough books. We
had one or two books that we all shared. The book was called,
"Hello Children." That time, we write our notes on the ground
and our teachers used to check and correct our work. Each and
every child was told to bring a big stone as a chair for sitting
(no chairs). In Ethiopia, we were the first refugees' school children
and our population was approximately 24,000 children, age seven
to eleven. We were grouped like soldiers, divided into 12 groups
and 12 schools. Each group or school consisted of more than thousands
of children. That time, our name (Title) wasn't called, "Lost
Boys…" We were called "Minor Groups…" a minor, which mean someone
who is below age. In school, our classes were overpopulated; sometimes
a class of 90 to 100 children with only one teacher and our teachers
were also refugees. We started learning the English alphabet (letters)
from A to Z, and ordinal numbers such as 1, 2, 3 to 100th. In
class, we learnt one letter and one number a day. We were absolutely
innocent and primitive. We didn't know even how to keep the dates
and times in our minds. First of all, when our teachers started
teaching, they asked, "what's the date today?" But the answer
to that question wasn't randomly guaranteed to those who raising
hands, the answer was a choice made by a teacher. A teacher appointed
or chose anyone in class, but if we failed to answered it correctly,
then a whole class' hands should be beaten. We were scared to
learn by our teachers. Our learning in English was very hard and
innovative. No one among us knew English before, we knew only
our dialects; our accent was one of the major problems to pronounce
some words into idiomatic English. Many of us couldn't pronounce
some words such as one (1) correctly. Instead to say one, they
said, "Wale." Among those people, I was one of them. That time,
as others children, friends and even a teacher made fun of me,
by saying, "Wale…Wale…Wale…!" I just thought I am a foul or stupid,
but I didn't fail my classes because of that. Till my seventh
grade in primary school, I was very addicted to my mother tongue.
The most academic things that we used to learn periodically was
a pronunciation including the alphabetical order because most
of us used to written some letters facing up or down.
GOOD
TEACHER CAN'T BE FORGOTTEN
That times, the second book (Level II) was called, "Read It With
Us" in which a teacher read or reiterating from the book and children
followed, repeating what teacher said. I'm still remembering my
first teacher's name called, "Anyoldit." He was my English teacher
from class one to class two. He was an old man and a friendly
teacher. His age was approximately 70. He was about 6 ft, tall.
He was a good teacher, a very good teacher. He was a charismatic
teacher in both quality and believer, a visionary teacher who
taught us about the essence and expected future of our education.
He also got a great potential as a singer, he taught us with many
songs such as, "Row, Row, Row your boat…" All of us loved him
and were enormously proud of him. I think such good persons or
teachers are rare to be found nowadays, they are indelible. In
Ethiopia, that was the first school I went to (1988-1991).
The Second
School I Went To (1992-2001)
Kakuma Refugees Camp in Kenya
I
remember the second time I restarted going to school in Kakuma
Refugees Camp in Kenya (1992-2001). In Kakuma Refugees Camp, more
than half of the populations were school children; there were
23 primary schools, three high schools and five kindergartens.
In 1992, I restarted my classes in primary school, 2nd grade.
Successfully, I continued my primary school till eighth grade
in 1998, the time when my father got killed in war. In October
1998, the day before I began to set for a final exams to finish
primary school, that was the time I heard that my father got killed
in war. I received a condolence from my uncle who came from Sudan
to visit and told me about the death of my father. Effectively
that ominous tragically became a failure in my eighth grade. So
I wasn't able to make my exams. While in Kenya school systems
if you missed or failed your exams, then you have to repeat the
same class for another year. Paradoxically that has happened,
I repeated eighth grade and finished primary school in 1999. In
a millennium year 2000, I started going to high school until 2001.
In those awful years of 1990s in Kakuma Refugees Camp (Kenya),
life was obviously compared with…/as keeping detainees in prison.
MY ALBUM!
MY STORY! MY LIFE! (1992-2001)
Life
in Kakuma refugees camp in Kenya
In Kenya my life as a student was worse than it was in Ethiopia.
In Kenya, starvation was one of a major problem that affected
most of my daily life. I was fed to support my life by planting
a small square of a garden consisted of leaves-vegetable
such as Spanish and cane. Which I used to sold, or cooked
those edible leaves to eat as shown in the above picture.
Description
of Kakuma refugees camp
Kakuma Refugees Camp lies in a desert region, south tail
of the Sahara desert in northern Kenya. It is a dry land.
A land of dry rivers and ochre earth, surrounded by acacia
trees and red mountains. There are shopping streets where
vendors sold fly-ridden meat, mild narcotic plants, rotten
fruits and ragged clothes. Around the camp is a dry and
dirty valley full with human stools. A camp where there
is no electricity and no public transportation.
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Pictured
in Kakuma Refugees Camp
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The weather over
there is always about 100 degrees, and the rain must likely rain
maybe two times a year. This "temporary" home to 86,000 refugees,
three quarters of them Sudanese, and the rest such as Somalis, Ugandans,
Burundians, Ethiopians, Rwandans and more. Kakuma is homesteads
consisting of small groups of grass roofed, mad walled houses, set
among scattered palms and thorn bushes. Still I remember Kakuma
Refugees Camp in Kenya (1992-2001).
The Third
School I went to (2001-2002-2005)
Chicago, Illinois U.S.A: STAYING AT SCHOOL MUST BRING MANY CHANGES
TO LIFE
I
remember the time I started going to school in Chicago, I began
going to school for ESL, two months from the date I arrived in
the United States. On July 20, 2001, I completed and received
ESL certificate from Refugees Educational Center, provided by
World Relief Agency. In the beginning of winter 2001, I joined
the GED classes at Truman College. Some months later, I left for
my host family at Lake County, Illinois. Over there I went and
sat for a placement test at Lake County College and I passed.
I did English 108 and introduction to Algebra over there, and
then I came back to Chicago. In Fall 2002, I went and sat again
for a placement and ATB test at St. Augustine College, and then
I passed. That fall I enrolled as a full time student. On May
27, 2005, I finished two years and received a Degree in business
and management at St, Augustine College in Chicago. Since I was
a child, I enjoyed going to school so much.
Deep
pondering as enchanting during graduation day (5/27/05)
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MY ALBUM!
MY STORY! MY LIFE! (2001-2005)
THE
MYTSERY AND GRADUATION I was happy, extremely happy. The
day that I graduated in college was like the memory of every
single day I had in my daily life. I was deeply thinking.
That day reminded me about the past, the present and the
future of my life. All the difficulties and suffering that
I have been faced in my life, such as the day that I left
my own country and how long I missed my parents, also a
mysterious such as a promise from my father and the last
time I spoke to him (October 17, 1987.) He said, "Go as
a boy and return as a man." That was a mysterious, I realized
that my father blessed me before he die. He gave me a blessing
that I would be successful and one-day return to help my
people. Every time I think about my father,
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I think his
promise is true. And God, as my provision, I believe. I believe
in changes between peerless and failure as: Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 said,
"There is a time for everything…" So I could paraphrase the Gospel
in this way: The poor and the rich all are together in the Kingdom
of God. We are all the earth's children, but we are living in different
ways: Some enjoy their life and some hate their life, some bless
the world, while some are cursing the world. Life is depending on
a condition accordingly to where you where born. Life on the earth
is comparatively as if someone flipping a coin again and again.
This is my life story, I do not write this as a consolation. The
memory of the past is indelible and the failure is real, it still
hurts today. Still I remember those times (Ethiopia: 1987-1991)
(Kenya: 1992- 2001) (U.S.A: 2001-2005) Unfinished. |