"I hope and pray that separating politics and religion will help to make the world a peaceful place instead of a slaughterhouse."
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Journey of Faith by Anthony Anei Majok Trafford Publishing
book review by Priscilla Estes
Majok, a Lost Boy of Sudan, seeks a lofty goal: explaining the course and depth of the horrific Second Sudanese Civil war of 1983-2005, while inspiring us to reflect on our lives, appreciate our strengths and overcome our challenges.
Chapter one quickly sets up Majok's dual objective by presenting an idyllic childhood in nature, with twelve siblings, three loving mothers and plenty of home-grown food. But political reality crashes down when Arab militia attack his village to destabilize the civilian population, and butcher, rape, burn and dismember friends, family and neighbors before Majok's seven-year-old eyes. Thus begins a journey of 350 refugees fleeing Sudan and sharia law, crossing the treacherous Nile and the boiling Sahara Desert, and snowballing into 30,000 homeless souls at Kenya’s Kakuma, one of the largest refugee camps in the world.
Although a dreadful tale of death and privation, bullets and bombs, Majok's message is of one of hope. When he lagged behind, when lions and crocodiles ate his friends alive, when food was a dream and illness rampant, his fellow refugees and generous charitable agencies comforted and protected him, keeping alive the precious human spirit. Majok writes like he walked: dogged and direct. Casually scattered gems include how to clean an AK-47, talk an insane boy down from a tree and create a soccer ball from rags and inflated surgical gloves. The seventeen-year journey of a Lost Boy of Sudan is told with innocence, power and an unvarnished look at the political environment of Arab-run Sudan.