God Grew Tired of Us

Last week, I watched the documentary “God Grew Tired of Us” .  The film follows the stories of three ‘Lost Boys’ of Sudan’.  The Lost Boys were a group of approximately 27,000 boys who were displaced or orphaned when civil war broke out in 1983 in Sudan.  The boys joined together and walked for nearly two months across Sudan to Ethiopia, but were then forced to leave three years later.  At that time they headed towards Kenya in a year long trek with only about 10,000 making it to the Kakuma Refugee camp in Kenya.  The documentary follows the journey for three of the Lost Boys as they get relocated to America in 2001.  It’s funny watching these young men as they are introduced to the ”normalcies” of American culture, as someone shows them how to turn on a light, use a clock, a key, a light, a refrigerator, etc.  It’s difficult to even begin to imagine the culture shock they encounter. 

As the boys start to experience life in America, many of the boys are required to work 2-3 jobs to survive and send money back to Africa.  The guys soon start to raise questions about American culture that I thought were both interesting and convicting.  As they share about life in Africa, they note how important relationships and community were to them in the refugee camp, and how that doesn’t exist in America.  One guy also tells about a woman he saw sitting along the street who was upset.  He couldn’t understand why everyone would just walk past her.  He noted how in Kakuma (refugee camp) that would never happen.  If someone was hurting you tried to help, mainly because everyone understood the hard times each other was facing.  When Christmas came around, they begin asking about the materialism and the idea of Santa Claus, wondering if Santa was in the Bible.   They share that in Kakuma, they spend Christmas dancing and singing and celebrating the birth of Christ.  They have no presents or christmas trees, just celebration of Christ. 

It’s all funny and sad to me because we in America think we have it all figured out.  We hear stories of poverty and feel sorry for people, sorry that they don’t have all this ’stuff’ that would make them ‘happy’.  The thing I’m realizing is that we’re the ones that are missing out.  We’re the ones running the rat race, trying to keep up, and missing out on true life in the process. These guys have spent the majority of their lives in refugee camps without enough food, water, or medical care, but they are still happier than many Americans.  These Lost Boys realize that life in the midst of the poverty, which is a life they live TOGETHER, is more fulfilling and worthwhile than the life of abundance we live in here in America.   It makes me wonder where I’m trying to find life.  Where is my comfort, my security, my joy?  Am I pursuing things in this life that will bring true life, or things that will just make me comfortable?  I hate to see how I’ve believed the lies of America for so much of my life.