~ Of Dreams and Spirit ~

The story of Lopez Lomong is an absolute must read. !




I dedicate this post not only to Lomong and his ~ Spirit ~, but the

~ Spirit ~ that LIVES in each and every one of us.   

‘True Olympic spirit is often found away from gold medalists
with their agents and sponsorship deals -- it is found
in its purest sense in those that come last.’
(Agence -Presse- French News Agency)

 

Presumed dead in Sudan, Lopez Lomong lives American dream

             

By WAYNE COFFEY    
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER

      Wednesday, July 30th 2008, 10:15 PM    

       

       

                        

Lopez Lomong, now the pride of Tully, N.Y., goes from war-torn homeland to representing U.S.A. in Beijing.

Twenty miles south of  Syracuse and 6,000 miles west of East Africa, a freshly hung flag flies over the tiny town of Tully. It is on the pole in front of the high school, just beneath the American flag, a big white rectangle with five Olympic rings, a salute not so much to the Beijing Games that will commence next week, but to the Lost Boy who found a home and a life and an athletic calling, and who has made virtually everyone in his central New York state village proud.

The village of Tully has 924 residents and one traffic light, and one remarkable 1,500-meter runner, Joseph Lopepe (Lopez) Lomong, child prisoner turned feted Olympian. He will begin competing in Beijing on Aug.15.

"We've never had someone in the Olympics before, and we probably will never have another," says Eileen Baldassarre, a Tully resident whose sons are friends with Lomong. "This is huge, because...those of us who know Lopez know what a nice and generous kid he is."

Says Lomong, "I came a long way, for sure, from running through the wilderness to save my life, and now I am doing this for fun."

At 23, Lopez Lomong is a sinewy 5-11, 148-pounder and one third of perhaps the most intriguing team of 1,500 runners the U.S. has ever assembled, a melting pot on the move. The favorite for gold is Bernard Lagat, the defending world champion, who captured bronze and silver in the two previous Games, running for his native Kenya before becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen. The runner-up in the trials earlier this month was Leonel Manzano, a Mexican-American and two-time NCAA champion for Texas, whose father reportedly crossed the border 16 times before becoming a legal U.S. resident.

And then there is Lomong, a man whose journey has taken him from the southern Sudan village of Kimotong to a Kenyan refugee camp in Kakuma, to the lakeside home of Rob and Barb Rogers in Tully. He has seen kids in the next bed die, and has visited his own grave. Why wouldn't he savor his Olympic achievement?
"This is America, this is the land of everybody," Lomong says.

Lomong's story has been well chronicled, a fact that makes it no less chilling. At age 6, while attending Mass with his family in Kimotong, he and some 50 other children were taken at gunpoint by a government-backed militia in Sudan's long-running Civil War, hauled off in a tarp-covered truck to a work camp. After several weeks, three older boys found a hole in a fence, escaped the camp and brought Lopez with them, walking for three harrowing days through woods and wilderness, before stumbling into Kenyan border guards.

For the next 10 years, home for Lopez - one of the so-called Lost Boys of Sudan - was a a sprawling Kenyan refugee camp, where meals consisted of U.N.-provided corn and came once a day. Soccer provided about the only respite from the bleakness and boredom. The notion of anything better scarcely occurred to him until late summer of 2000.

Lomong earned five Kenyan shillings (about seven cents) for moving some dirt. He didn't spend it until he heard it could buy him a chance to see the 2000 Olympics on a black-and-white TV.

Lomong and a few friends walked five miles to see the Games. He came away mesmerized by Michael Johnson, running the 400 meters.

He prayed that God would give him a chance to do something similar. "I saw him run so fast and I said, 'I want to run just like that,'" Lopez says.

A year later, shortly after 9/11, an international relief effort began to place the Lost Boys in American homes. Lomong wrote an essay describing his ordeals. Rob and Barb Rogers, devout Christians, saw a notice in their church bulletin one Sunday that Catholic Charities was looking for foster parents for the boys.

Before long, 16-year-old Lopez Lomong was on his way to Hancock Airport outside Syracuse. He was shocked when the Rogerses met him in their car.
"He walked to the airport (in Kenya), and assumed he'd walk from the airport (here)," Rob Rogers says.

Lopez was awed by the breadth and asphalt splendor of Interstate 81, by electricity and running water. He enrolled at Tully High, became a cross-country and track star, before moving on to Northern Arizona, where he grew into an NCAA champion. Lomong's American adventure was just beginning, and it was for the Rogerses, too; they have since taken in five more Sudanese boys.

Rob Rogers buys and sells heavy equipment, while Barb manages the 27 apartments they own, and runs their laundromat, Suds and Bubbles. Uncertain about how a virtually all-white community would receive their adopted Sudanese sons, the Rogers have been heartened by the whole experience. Apart from a single nasty epithet written by two high school kids - an incident that aroused the ire of almost the entire school - the embrace has been universal.

"We thought we'd be in the 'out' crowd, and now we're in the 'in' crowd," Rob Rogers says, laughing. He pauses and talks about how life has changed since Lopez made the Olympic team on the night of July 6 - exactly a year after he gained his U.S. citizenship. He did it with a bell-lap charge that carried him from sixth to third, balky ankle be damned.

"The highlight of my life is telling CNN I couldn't talk because HBO was here," Rogers says.

At Christmas time last year, Lomong went back to Kenya and Sudan for HBO's "Real Sports" program, which was doing a segment on him. He reunited with his birth mother, Rita, and his younger brothers. He even visited the grave his family made for him, certain that he was dead. It was a small pile of stones that contained a necklace and childhood keepsakes. They happily took the pile apart.

"They brought me to life again," Lomong says.

 

Thanks to a Tully-wide fundraising effort spearheaded by Eileen Baldassarre, more than $13,000 has been collected to send Rob and Barb Rogers to Beijing, along with Jim Paccia - Tully High's track coach - and his wife, Cheryl. Rob Rogers got in the Olympic spirit almost immediately after watching Lopez make the team, ordering an Olympic flag and banner on the Internet for $68. The banner is on the front door, the flag flying in the front yard.
His foster son, Lopez Lomong, a Lost Boy no longer, will soon be surrounded by the best runners in the world. He will race hard, and whatever happens, he will be powered by gratitude, and unencumbered by fear.

"This is payback for the people who helped me through my childhood," Lomong says.
"Now I am running for America. I'm an American citizen and I can go out and compete.
I'm so thankful."

Former 'Lost Boy' leads U.S. team as

Beijing welcomes the world to China

 

(Photo - Pretty/Getty)

Lopez Lomong, one of the Lost Boys of Sudan,
leads Team USA into Beijing's national stadium.

 

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http://lopezlomong.org/

 

Lopez Lomong's web site

" When we were in Africa, we didn't know what was there for us as kids--we just ran.
God was planning all of this stuff for me, and I didn't know.
Now I'm using running to get the word out about how horrible things
were back in Sudan during the war. Sometimes these things are not on CNN,
so if I put out the word, I hope people can get the information.
Right now, similar terrible things are going on in Darfur; people are
running out of Darfur, and I put myself in their shoes."

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Save Darfur

www.savedarfur.org

The Save Darfur Coalition's mission is to raise public awareness about
the ongoing genocide in Darfur and to mobilize a unified response
to the atrocities that threaten the lives of two million people in the Darfur region.

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Olympic Spirit


http://www.olympicspirit.org

Inspire the Youth of the World

'Our vision and purpose is clear -
To be an icon of Olympic values and ideals, to inspire and motivate
the youth of the world to be the best they can be'

Mark R. Dzenick
Chairman - Olympic Spirit Group