They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky

They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky: The Story of Three Lost Boys from Sudan by Benjamin Ajak

What a powerful account!  Why do I think this is a great book to read?  As the last paragraph of the book says, "In a world where we witness war on television as impersonally as an action movie, personal accounts are necessary reminders that for someone, somewhere, war is all too real.  It has tragic and lasting consequences on people's lives, particularly children's" (311).

As horrifying as it is to imagine little boys--five years old, seven years old (my Easton is almost eight!!)--fleeing desperately across a desert while their families are killed in the village, traveling for miles and miles for as long as 14 years, I still could hardly put the book down.

This book tells the story of three of the 27,000 young boys who fled Sudan in the late 1980s and finally escaped to America as "Lost Boys" and young men around 2001.  In addition to it being a story that simply needs to be told, I think the book works because the boys take turns telling their stories in their own words.  A large part of the appeal was the oftentimes poetic and descriptive language they used such as "their mouths were full of laughter" (33) and "we could feel our bones trying to exhibit themselves to the world" (77).

There is so much in this book.  The will to survive is the predominant theme, even as the young boys walked for weeks and weeks, even as they went a couple days without water at the equator, even as little boys went three full years without any meat or milk. 

"Hunger makes you different.  It changes you.  Like the cow that sees grain on the ground and walks in without being invited and eats it.  It makes you like an animal.  War had ruined a lot of things.  I had become convinced that people were not good; people were bad" (180).

This book will put into perspective any trials going on in your life.  "And having food and raiment let us be therewith content."  I Timothy 6:8