'Walking Boys' guests at area church

To celebrate World Communion Sunday on October 6, Ogden Presbyterian Church has invited members of the South Sudanese Community (SSC), including some of the "Walking Boys" from South Sudan, to their regular worship service.

After fleeing from their home of civil-war-torn Sudan in 1991, these young boys spent years of their childhood wandering and trying to find safety. In many cases they left their slain families and friends and cared for one another as they wandered from Sudan into Ethiopia, back to Sudan and then to United Nations refugee camps in Kenya. The boys literally walked hundreds of miles through desert and bush, surviving the dangers of both, as well as wild animals, before arriving in Kenya.

Paul Both, himself a refugee from Sudan and president of SCC in the Rochester area, and Jordan Long, worship leader for the SCC, will also be present for the service in Ogden.

Rev. Donald Winbourne, pastor of Ogden Presbyterian Church, and Paul Both worked together to form the first parish-based refugee resettlement team in the Rochester area, located at Bethany Presbyterian Church of Greece. Rev. Winbourne came from Bethany Presbyterian to Ogden Presbyterian this past May.

American officials have agreed to settle 3,600 men, and churches all over the country have helped. The Walking Boys are now young men and have been coming to the Rochester area since the beginning of March 2001. Most of them have jobs and are applying for green cards. Twenty-one Walking Boys are employed at Strong Hospital mostly as housekeepers. The Catholic Family Center and various local churches have worked with the SCC to assist the refugees.

Cultural differences and language problems are just a small part of the challenges these men have faced. For many years they have survived on a bowl a day of crushed maize and are now facing a culture of refined food, fast food, fat and protein. They miss an emotional sense of "home" but are becoming accustomed to cars, grocery stores, and American life in general.

The service at Ogden Presbyterian Church will begin at 10 a.m. on Sunday, October 6, 2002. The church is located on North Union Street at the corner of Ogden Center Road.