From Lost Boy to Episcopal priest
By Neela Banerjee
The New York Times
08/19/2007

Grand Rapids, Mich. - About 7,000 miles separate Grace Episcopal Church here, where the Rev. Zachariah Jok Char preaches most Sundays, from the small town of Duk Padiet in Sudan, where he was born.

The tally of the miles started about 21 years ago when Char was 5 and militias backed by the Sudanese government attacked his town during the civil war in the south. He saw the explosions from the field where he was playing, and he fled. He met other boys who had escaped similar attacks, and they started walking.

"I still remember what I was wearing then: red shorts and a T-shirt," said Char, sitting in an empty pew one afternoon at the church. "I didn't have shoes. Some were naked."

The orphans, mostly boys, walked more than 1,000 miles to Ethiopia from Sudan over three months, Char said. Later, they were forced to walk to Kenya. Thousands died. The West called them the Lost Boys. the rest