Ninety-eight Lost Boys arrived
in San Diego, direct from Kakuma Refugee Camp in northern Kenya.
St. Luke’s Refugee Network supported them on arrival and helped
them obtain apartments and to become capable of moving within the
necessary registration procedures. St. Luke’s Church provides
its hall on Saturday and Sunday afternoon for their social activities
including the ever-popular dominoes. Small grants for buying books
are annually made available to the Lost Boys and to boys and girls
from refugee families graduating from area high schools and studying
at community and four-year colleges.
"One night, after the blazing
sun settled behind the fields and the villages became still with
sleep, the troops invaded Santino's town. Gunfire jolted families
from bed.
Parents and children spilled from their mud huts, running in opposite
directions under the charcoal sky. A swift and limber boy who tended
his family’s herds, Santino – and hundreds of boys
like him – ran until the gunshots faded to faint clicks.
As the boys ran, the soldiers killed their fathers. As they ran,
the soldiers captured their sisters and mothers, and burned their
villages."
(Lost in America; The San Diego Union-Tribune, San Diego, California;
December 16, 2001; Kirsten Green).