We’re just a regular family.  Mom, dad and three sons.  We didn't plan to become a second family to four South Sudanese guys.  It just happened.  And it changed our lives forever, opening our eyes to an extraordinary culture and sobering real-world issues beyond our cozy suburban life. 

 

Mangisto Deng (“Manny") and Makur Puou (“Mak") arrived in Indiana in May of 2011.  They were just 15 years old and spoke only Dinka and Arabic.   An American charity looking to bring Sudanese youth to the US for educational and basketball opportunities had discovered them on the basketball courts of Juba.

 

That summer, Barry Kroot coached son Adam on an AAU basketball team based in Indiana.  After they arrived in the US, Manny and Mak were placed on the team.

 

Although the boys attended a boarding school in Illinois during the school year, they lived with us in Indiana during the summer, practicing, playing and traveling with our AAU basketball team.  From the summer they arrived, they became part of our family.  Everyone who met them loved them. We all worked hard to make their transition to the US as seamless as possible.   To this day, when they're not in school, they live with us and travel with us.  

 

During that first summer, the more we learned about Manny and Mak, their families and what they endured living through a 50-year civil war raging in Sudan, the more we loved them.  We’d stay up for hours talking.  We couldn’t believe the stories they told us in the broken English they’d picked up remarkably fast through music and tv.  

 

We learned that most of the roads where they lived are not paved.  Mak walked for 3 days to visit his dad.  Men “buy” young wives with cows. The wealthier the bride’s family, the more cows it takes.  Men like Mak’s dad marry many wives and have many children, often abandoning previous families as they move on to the next.   Manny’s parents were dead, which isn't unusual for young men and women.  Food and clean water are scarce.  Most villages have no running water or plumbing.  People eat what they can grow and raise, but there are droughts followed by monsoons, so nothing can thrive. People sleep on the ground with bugs and snakes.   Friends and family frequently die from illness due to bad health care. Young men are targeted and killed by rival troops or tribes. Young girls and women are raped.  Escaping wild animals is not unusual. Kids flee into the mountains to avoid murderous gangs from rival tribes.  Education doesn’t start until the teenage years, and usually only for wealthy boys.   And on and on and on.

 

It didn’t take long to understand how so many mostly single mothers could send their 15-year-old boys halfway across the world knowing they might never see them again.  They loved them enough to save their lives.  All these proud young men wanted was to get an American education and go back home to help their families in their newly independent country, South Sudan.  

 

In 2013, a funny, 7’2” kid named Bol from South Sudan arrived at the boys' school and quickly stole our hearts.   He was from the Neuer tribe, the sworn enemy of the Dinkas.  Back home, Manny, Mak and Bol would have been violent adversaries, but in the U.S., they are best of friends.  Bol became part of our family too.  Bol just recently started his freshman year in college.

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After high school graduation, Manny and Mak both received scholarships to play college basketball. This fall, they both started their senior year. Bol also received a basketball scholarship and is just starting his freshman year.  Because they will have received an American education and support from American friends and families, they all have an excellent opportunity to help their families and the future of South Sudan. These are smart, compassionate young people who will make a difference.  South Sudan needs more just like them to fix their broken country.

 

We have provided moral guidance and financial and emotional support for these young men for six years.  We are their American family and will be forever.  If we could afford it, we’d bring over as many South Sudanese youth as we possibly could.   We are establishing PASSKEY-SOUTH to extricate additional kids from a violent, war-torn country and provide real, sustained, compassionate support, loving families and a quality education.

 

This past May, Makur’s little brother, Marial, arrived in Indiana and our new PASSKEY – SOUTH SUDAN adventure begins…

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