October 20th, 2005

LACEY -- A spray of machine-gun fire from across his village sent a frightened John Riak racing for home.

Sudanese soldiers were invading his small village of grass huts and dirt roads in southern Sudan. Homes were set ablaze. Fields burned. His neighbors shot.

His cousin, Bul Nyuop, stopped Riak.

"He told me I couldn't go home," Riak said. "He said it was no longer safe. He told me to go with him."

And Riak, at age 7, disappeared into the tall savanna grass, running with his cousin and hundreds of other villagers. Frightened, he knew then he couldn't return home.

"I didn't know what had happened to my mother," Riak said. "She always liked to stay at home. But I didn't know what happened to my brothers and sisters. I just ran. I just ran for my life."

That was 1992, the 11th year of the Sudanese civil war.

And over the next eight years, Riak would continue to run, running past burning villages, past the Gilo River and into Kenya to a refugee camp where he'd sleep in a one-room hut and where unmarked graves marked the death of friends. Finally, his journey of escape brought him across an ocean as he took his first airplane ride and landed in a new world, a world of pocket phones, Ipods, and flat-screen televisions.

"It was so different," Riak said, smiling. "Yeah. So very different."

And now, Riak, his warm smile and inviting personality that belie a life of hardships, sorrow and horror, is running again. Except rather than running for his life. He's running to win.

As a sophomore at Saint Martin's University, Riak is among the fastest runners in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, recently outkicking the field to win a six-team meet.

"I know about his past, but I've never asked him about it," Saint Martin's coach Brad Hooper said. "He's really a remarkable kid, a great kid."

Riak is one of the Lost Boys, a name coined by aid workers because the group of mostly boys resembled Peter Pan's fictional ragtag band of orphans. They found their way to safety despite encountering unimaginable horrors.

They're orphans of a 24-year-old war that killed 2 million and forced another 5 million to flee their homes from the bloodiest war since World War II. Sudan, the largest country in Africa and roughly the size of the United States east of the Mississippi, is home of the largest displaced population in the world.

Four years ago, 3,800 Lost Boys found homes across the United States, finding refuge in places such as Boston, Atlanta, Rochester, N.Y., Tampa Bay, Kansas City, Dallas and the South Sound. Two hundred landed in Grand Rapids, the biggest resettlement area. More than 100 came to Western Washington, with 20 finding their way to South Sound.

The refugees all came from Kakuma, a slum-like refugee camp in northern Kenya, and resettled in 28 states.

Five years ago, Riak had never flipped on a light switch, never watched television, never talked on a telephone and had never ridden in a car. Now, Riak has a 28-inch color TV in his tidy college dormitory room, where the walls are lined with photos of friends and of him running at North Thurston High School. He has a GPS on his wrist, which tracks his weekly running workouts. He has a cell phone and a laptop computer. He has 35 pairs of running shoes, some carefully hung on a shoetree on his closet door and the others placed neatly inside the closet. His room is immaculate.

"It is nice to have shoes like this," said Riak, who is from the Dinka tribe. "I had shoes in Sudan. But nothing like this. No, not like this."

In December 2002, Riak, along with 12 other boys dressed in white T-shirts and blue sweat pants, walked from his first plane ride after landing at the Sea-Tac Airport and stepped into a new world. They arrived without money, coats or luggage. They all brought school papers folded neatly into small knapsacks they had carried from Kakuma.

"This is the book I read about America in Kakuma," Riak said, pulling the book from his shelf. "It told me about the United States. This is a wonderful place. Yeah."

Guadalupe Dildine of Lacey was at the airport to greet the Lost Boys as they came off the plane. She took in Riak and his cousin, Bol Nyuop, through Tacoma's Catholic Community Services.

The transition was enormous. They learned to flush the toilet, to turn the light switch on and off. They'd come home from school and ask if it was bad if someone said, "What's up, dude?"

"We had some struggles," Dildine said about the transition. "Slowly, they started to learn our culture and how to fit in. They're fantastic students. They never missed school. They worked very hard. They appreciate what this country has to offer."

When Riak first arrived, he wanted to leave doors in his new home open.

"He felt he had to be ready to run at any second," Dildine said. "They had seen a lot of violence. They had bullets zing over their heads. They said they had to be ready to run at a moment's notice."

Riak lives on his own now yet remains close with his foster parent.

"When he sees me, he'll hug me and say, 'Hi mom,' " Dildine said. "He'll come over or he'll call."

Riak was 7 when he fled a civil war that reached his village of Panyogor and walked hundreds of miles to southern Sudan. He lived there several years before climbing onto a flatbed truck with 50 other refugees and fled to Kenya in 1997 and to the protection of the United Nations.

"A lot of bad things have happened in my life," Riak said. "But as a Christian, you know that there will be a time when things will change. I just keep praying that everything will be right. I pray to keep my family safe until we meet again."

At Kakuma, he lived for three years in a small hut with mud sides and a reed roof with his cousin, Gabriel Atem. Atem flew with Riak to the United States and resettled in Yelm, where he ran track and cross country and is now attending Spokane Community College.

Two years ago, Riak's brother called him from Kakuma. Because his family has no access to phones in Sudan, his brother had to travel to Kenya where a phone was available at the refugee camp. Riak has since talked with his mother. She recently had to travel to Nairobi for medical treatment. His father died when Riak was little, before the civil war forced him to flee.

"My mother had malaria or typhoid or something," Riak said. "I'm not sure what. She needed treatment. It wasn't that big a deal. She is doing fine now."

Riak wants to become a doctor.

"I think one day I'll go back to Sudan," Riak said. "But not now. If I go back right now, the people there need help, right? For me to go back takes money. Right now, I send money. I don't want to go there and they have to help me."

Earlier this year, the civil war ended and a peace agreement was signed.

"I will go back," Riak said. "I will go back and help."

And over the next eight years, Riak would continue to run, running past burning villages, past the Gilo River and into Kenya to a refugee camp where he'd sleep in a one-room hut and where unmarked graves marked the death of friends. Finally, his journey of escape brought him across an ocean as he took his first airplane ride and landed in a new world, a world of pocket phones, Ipods, and flat-screen televisions.

"It was so different," Riak said, smiling. "Yeah. So very different."

And now, Riak, his warm smile and inviting personality that belie a life of hardships, sorrow and horror, is running again. Except rather than running for his life, he's running to win.

As a sophomore at Saint Martin's University, Riak is among the fastest runners in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, recently outkicking the field to win a six-team meet.

"I know about his past, but I've never asked him about it," Saint Martin's coach Brad Hooper said. "He's really a remarkable kid, a great kid."

Riak is one of the Lost Boys, a name coined by aid workers because the group of mostly boys resembled Peter Pan's fictional ragtag band of orphans. They found their way to safety despite encountering unimaginable horrors.

They're orphans of a 24-year-old war that killed 2 million and forced another 5 million to flee their homes from the bloodiest war since World War II. Sudan, the largest country in Africa and roughly the size of the United States east of the Mississippi, is home of the largest displaced population in the world.

Four years ago, 3,800 Lost Boys found homes across the United States, finding refuge in places such as Boston, Atlanta, Rochester, N.Y., Tampa Bay, Kansas City, Dallas and South Sound. Two hundred landed in Grand Rapids, the biggest resettlement area. More than 100 came to Western Washington, with 20 finding their way to South Sound.

The refugees all came from Kakuma, a slum-like refugee camp in northern Kenya, and resettled in 28 states.

A new world

Five years ago, Riak had never flipped on a light switch, never watched television, never talked on a telephone and had never ridden in a car. Now, Riak has a 28-inch color TV in his tidy college dormitory room, where the walls are lined with photos of friends and of him running at North Thurston High School. He has a GPS on his wrist, which tracks his weekly running workouts. He has a cell phone and a laptop computer. He has 35 pairs of running shoes, some carefully hung on a shoetree on his closet door and the others placed neatly inside the closet. His room is immaculate.

"It is nice to have shoes like this," said Riak, who is from the Dinka tribe. "I had shoes in Sudan. But nothing like this. No, not like this."

In December 2002, Riak, along with 12 other boys dressed in white T-shirts and blue sweat pants, walked from his first plane ride after landing at the Sea-Tac Airport and stepped into a new world. They arrived without money, coats or luggage. They all brought school papers folded neatly into small knapsacks they had carried from Kakuma.

"This is the book I read about America in Kakuma," Riak said, pulling the book from his shelf. "It told me about the United States. This is a wonderful place. Yeah."

Guadalupe Dildine of Lacey was at the airport to greet the Lost Boys as they came off the plane. She took in Riak and his cousin, Bol Nyuop, through Tacoma's Catholic Community Services.

The transition was enormous. They learned to flush the toilet, to turn the light switch on and off. They'd come home from school and ask if it was bad if someone said, "What's up, dude?"

"We had some struggles," Dildine said about the transition. "Slowly, they started to learn our culture and how to fit in. They're fantastic students. They never missed school. They worked very hard. They appreciate what this country has to offer."

When Riak first arrived, he wanted to leave doors in his new home open.

"He felt he had to be ready to run at any second," Dildine said. "They had seen a lot of violence. They had bullets zing over their heads. They said they had to be ready to run at a moment's notice."

Riak lives on his own now yet remains close with his foster parent.

"When he sees me, he'll hug me and say, 'Hi mom,' " Dildine said. "He'll come over or he'll call."

Long journey

Riak was 7 when he fled a civil war that reached his village of Panyogor and walked hundreds of miles to southern Sudan. He lived there several years before climbing onto a flatbed truck with 50 other refugees and fled to Kenya in 1997 and to the protection of the United Nations.

"A lot of bad things have happened in my life," Riak said. "But as a Christian, you know that there will be a time when things will change. I just keep praying that everything will be right. I pray to keep my family safe until we meet again."

At Kakuma, he lived for three years in a small hut with mud sides and a reed roof with his cousin, Gabriel Atem. Atem flew with Riak to the United States and resettled in Yelm, where he ran track and cross country and is now attending Spokane Community College.

Two years ago, Riak's brother called him from Kakuma. Because his family has no access to phones in Sudan, his brother had to travel to Kenya where a phone was available at the refugee camp. Riak has since talked with his mother. She recently had to travel to Nairobi for medical treatment. His father died when Riak was little, before the civil war forced him to flee.

"My mother had malaria or typhoid or something," Riak said. "I'm not sure what. She needed treatment. It wasn't that big a deal. She is doing fine now."

Riak wants to become a doctor.

"I think one day I'll go back to Sudan," Riak said. "But not now. If I go back right now, the people there need help, right? For me to go back takes money. Right now, I send money. I don't want to go there and they have to help me."

Earlier this year, the civil war ended and a peace agreement was signed.

"I will go back," Riak said. "I will go back and help."