Last Friday afternoon, on a first-ever visit to the Film Forum (hard to believe, especially since I worked right down the street on Hudson for 3 years), I caught, “Lost Boys of Sudan,” a new documentary that follows two Sudanese refugees through their first year living in America.

“Lost Boys,” for those who don’t know, is the name given tens of thousands of young men who, at the ages of 3-9 in the mid-’80s, fled their burning homes in Sudan’s predominantly Christian south in a full-scale assault by the Sudanese Army aimed at eradicating Christianity and establishing Islamic law throughout the region.

The boys’ homes and villages were pillaged and their parents and siblings tortured and killed before their eyes. Whole families were captured and slaughtered or sold into slavery. Captured young men and boys were used as cannon fodder or to clear mine fields.

In their escape, the Lost Boys, and some girls, trudged naked through deserts and mountains for 700 to 1,000 miles (first to Ethiopia, then back to Sudan, then south to Kenya) in search of safety. Chased by bullets, bombs and tanks, they faced starvation, dysentery and cholera. To survive, they often ate leaves, carcasses of dead animals and mud. Drinking their own urine was sometimes the only means to keep from dying of thirst. Many died from thirst or starvation while others drowned or were eaten by crocodiles trying to cross dangerous creeks and rivers. Still others were attacked and killed by lions, leaving their friends to watch in horror.

The only relief came from Red Cross helicopters dropping food and water.

In 1992, most of the surviving, illness-ravaged boys settled inside a sprawling refugee camp in Kenya called Kakuma, where they were given housing in primitive mud huts with coconut-leaf roofs and attended makeshift schools. The United Nations and the U.S. government initiated a program in 1999 to resettle some of the Lost Boys in American cities, ranging from Chicago and Boston to Sault St. Marie, Mich. and New Port Richey, Fla. Four thousand men have since moved to 35 cities through the project, which was suspended indefinitely after 9/11.

The film begins as the latest group of Lost Boys prepares to leave camp for America. "The journey is like you are going to heaven," imagines one of the teenagers.

At a going-away party, a camp leader gives a parting lecture in which he warns the young men not to act as “the bad men in baggy pants” in America, but to work hard and study hard and always be mindful of their responsibility as “the future of Sudan.” “Make us proud or we will regret ever having this party,” he warned. Watching this opening scene, I recalled a 60 Minutes piece on the Lost Boys from a year ago that showed the moment the men learned who made the list for departure through the U.S. adoption program. A sheet of names was simply posted to a wooden notice board outdoors and the men all rushed up to it at once.

The disappointment of the unlucky was palpable, but they remained composed, giving out hugs and congratulations to the “brothers” who were about to leave them behind.

I remember one lucky Lost Boy had only his Bible in hand as he prepared to board the initial plane flight out of camp, explaining to a 60 Minutes’ correspondent that the Book was the most important thing in the world to him. He said, “Even though we’re known as the Lost Boys, we are not lost in God’s eyes.”

The film shows the Lost Boys, including the two men profiled (Peter and Santino), arriving in Houston’s airport, then escorted to a low-income apartment complex inside the city where they will be given only four months rent-free to figure out how to meet ends themselves. They are first taught simple things like how to use a garbage disposal and a stovetop. In a trip to the grocery, they are introduced to basic items such as deodorant and melons. It isn’t long before Peter and Santino gain jobs working the night-shift at a plastic-label factory. Peter decides months later, though, that he is unhappy in Houston and secretly travels to Olathe, Kansas, where a fellow Sudanese refugee has been planted. There, he enrolls in high school and gets a job retrieving carts from the parking lot of a Wal-Mart. With dreams of possibly gaining a sports scholarship, he attends basketball camp and works out in the school’s weight room. “I am poor with no parent among the children of the rich,” he realizes out loud following one practice, explaining why he thinks he’s at a disadvantage for making the team. Sure enough, the coach cuts him in the first round and a dejected Peter is seen walking home alone in the night to his dark and empty apartment. Perhaps the most heart-jerking scene is when he calls home to Kakuma only to be chewed out by a “sister” for not sending money back as expected. He tries to explain that between school, work and homework his day runs from 7 a.m. to 1 a.m., with only 3:30 to 5 p.m. to prepare and eat his dinner, and there’s obviously no time to pick up a second job. The sister doesn’t seem to sympathize. Through everything the two men face in the film, there is amazing resiliency and mental fortitude. Despite all the hardships, loneliness and alienation, they remain incredibly cheerful and good-natured. Santino was somehow able to keep laughing and smiling even as he explained to a friend that he had just hit a car and was scheduled to appear in court after receiving hundreds of dollars in fines for not having insurance or registration. When the friend asked him how in the world he would come up with the money on his $7 an hour wage, Santino acknowledged he had no idea.

Given the horrific childhood obstacles the Lost Boys overcame, it would be easy to understand them being jaded and angry, full of fear and distrust. The reality, though, is the men are mature, well-adjusted, “sweet and gentle” souls by every published account from those who have interacted with them both in Kenya and here in America.

Among three key recurring themes a child welfare specialist noted finding through her work with the Sudanese males was a “belief that trust in God helped them to escape.”
In my mind, these men lend undeniable testimony to the inner strength that can develop and mature in a Believer of Jesus Christ, especially when faced with strife and adversity.

Like the Lost Boys, the Apostle Paul withstood tremendous physical turmoil and abuse, including being beaten with rods, being stoned, being shipwrecked during a violent storm, etc. He knew the toll of extreme hunger and thirst, as well as being “in cold and nakedness.”

He knew what it was like to have his own countrymen try and kill him for his beliefs.

Amazingly, though, he reported having “learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.” (Phil. 4:11) He said he even took “pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake.” (II Cor. 12:10)

How is this possible? For Paul, it came from knowing exactly who he was and what he had in Christ, something he shares with the rest of us for our own edification and empowerment. “Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me,” Paul says. He tells the Believer, “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. “And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 4: 6-7)

Persecution of Christians was rampant during Paul’s ministry (36- 67 A.D.), and today there are daily reports of Christians in foreign lands being imprisoned, tortured and brutally murdered for their faith. Christian women from the same South Sudan the Lost Boys fled have been reported gang-raped and mutilated by Muslim soldiers. The women are captured by government forces and asked: "Are you Christian or Muslim?" Women who answer "Muslim" are set free, while those answering "Christian" have their breasts cut off and are left to die as a warning to others. We are warned by Paul that in the “last days” persecution of Believers active in their faith is to be expected as evil men “wax worse and worse.” (II Tim. 3:12 –13) But in what I consider one of his most eloquent bits of writing, he comforts the faithful with, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
“As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
“Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
“Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8: 35-39)