April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
SUDANESE REFUGEE
'Lost Boy' found home with Catholic friends
He endured dust that filled his lungs and obscured his vision, a diet of boiled corn seeds that made him ill and violent nighttime raids from locals. Even these hardships were still improvements on his native southern Sudan.
There, northern government soldiers had attacked residents and burned mud hut villages in the late 1980s, killing his aunt and separating him from his parents and siblings.
Today, at 31, Mr. Logono meets obstacles to his education with the same resilience he exhibited during his journey across Africa with 26,000 other refugees who became known as the "Lost Boys of Sudan."
The 2007 graduate of the University at Albany, now an Albany resident, is on track to earn his medical license in two years - at which point he will return to the Sudan.
He plans to open free clinics and health education centers, train community health workers and teach villagers about digging latrines and boiling water.
Catholics from the Albany and Syracuse Dioceses who have helped Mr. Logono with financial support, shelter and more attribute his success to his faith in God and his caring nature.
"He had every right to give up, but there was something that was driving him to keep his dream alive," said Sister Elizabeth Giarrusso, CSJ, pastoral associate at the former St. Francis de Sales parish in Utica.
Mr. Logono lived at the parish for three years after reaching America in 2001 with only 3,600 other Sudanese refugees. "He had a chance, and he's taken advantage of that chance - to develop his God-given talents and care for other people," Sister Elizabeth declared.
Before he came to the U.S., Mr. Logono had traversed a crocodile-filled river to war-torn Ethiopia, trekked back to a violent Sudan and watched friends die from malaria during a decade at the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya.
Police banned refugees from leaving the camp, he recalled: "They say, 'You're dirty. You come and spoil the country.'"
But "God helped me," he continued. "I believe that if it's not time for me to die, I'll make it through."
The "lost boy" walked three miles to school across the massive refugee camp in 100-degree, dry conditions while many of his peers gave up on getting an education.
"It depends on your choice - if you're really committed to yourself," Mr. Logono explained. He decided on his career path as a teen; by age 20, he was already volunteering at the camp's hospital, diagnosing minor medical cases.
When he reached Utica, mentors at a refugee center warned Mr. Logono that he'd be cut off from financial assistance if he attended college. He enrolled anyway, landing a job as a nurse's aide at the local hospital - despite his only pair of pants being denim.
"They literally come with their whole life in a plastic bag," Sister Elizabeth said of the refugees.
Many other American customs - from indoor plumbing to telling time, handling money and sleeping off the ground, for example - are also new to refugees like Mr. Logono.
On his first winter bicycle ride, Mr. Logono failed to wear gloves. He tried to heat his apartment with a stove and used a hammer to open a can of tuna. But he learned quickly to drive, cook, dress neatly and even navigate the U.S. social service system.
"All you had to do is tell Alex where to find something and he would do it," said Sister Lynn Abdelnour, CSJ, another Utica friend.
"He knows how to go with the punch," agreed Rev. Paul Smith, a retired Albany diocesan priest who helps at parishes and ministers at graduate schools and prisons. "So many of life's details are not a big deal to him."
Father Smith met Mr. Logono after he read about him in the Times Union newspaper in 2007 and orchestrated a fundraiser to help send him home to the Sudan to reunite with his family.
Today, Mr. Logono still wears the simple clothes and uses the lab coats and stethoscope Father Smith gave to him years ago. He uses a friend's car when he needs one and lives above a convenience store. The walls of his apartment are plastered with study aids and desks covered with medical books.
Father Smith's friend, Rita Marsh, brings Mr. Logono fruit, vegetables and baked goods weekly. Father Smith "has been like my father, and Rita is like my mom," Mr. Logono told The Evangelist.
Since January, when Mr. Logono returned from 16 months at the American University of Antigua College of Medicine, he's spent 14 to 16 hours a day studying.
"What we see of Alex is the books under his arm," joked Father Smith.
Mr. Logono's story often inspires donors to help him pay for trips back home, send money to his family and friends or pay off some of his $100,000 in student loans. When Mr. Logono worked as a technical care associate at St. Peter's Hospital in Albany, colleagues there funded a flight to Sudan.
Our Redeemer Lutheran Church in Schenectady collected $5,000 for the student; Catholics at Christ Our Light parish in Loudonville gave him a bed and raised more than $6,000 at a Christmas Mass. One family from Christ Our Light even took up a collection at a Christmas Eve dinner.
Though Mr. Logono officially affiliates with the Seventh-Day Adventist Church - a denomination that emphasizes Christ's second coming and the Saturday Sabbath - and his parents call themselves Protestant, he said he has admired Catholics since childhood.
Italian missionaries opened the first school in his Sudanese village, Lanyi, he said, and taught him to speak beyond the Moru vernacular when he was about six years old.
Mr. Logono's reciprocal effect on Catholics does not go unnoticed.
"Alex taught us how to be a human being," Sister Lynn said. Through his tolerance and motivation, "Alex gave to me much more than I ever gave to Alex."
Said Father Smith: "He's such a quietly exciting guy. You just don't meet them of his caliber."[[In-content Ad]]
250 X 250 AD
250 X 250 AD
Events
250 X 250 AD
Comments:
You must login to comment.