Part One
1991 – 2001
Chapter One
Kimotong (Sudan)
In
1991, Lopez had his eyes closed in prayer when the trucks pulled up. He heard
them before he saw them. The soldiers poured into the small outdoor Catholic
church yelling: “Everybody down! Now!”
Lopez knew that Sudan was at war but he never expected to see soldiers
invade a church service.
The
priest tried to reason with them. The leader of the soldiers ignored them.
“We’re taking the children!” he screamed. Lopez did not know it at the time,
but his childhood had just ended. He was only six years old.
Lopez
was placed into a hot, dirty, metal truck covered by a green canopy on the top
and the sides. For the next four hours, he endured his very first truck ride.
The summer sun beat down on top of the truck turning the dirt in the truck bed
into mud from the sweat pouring off too many bodies in too little of a space.
When
the truck stopped, the children had hoods placed over their heads. The hooded
children placed hands on the person in front of them and were herded for
several miles. The end of the journey was a shove into a one-room hut. This
one-room hut became home to eighty children.
For
the next several weeks, Lopez lived in this single, one-room hut. He had no mat
to sleep on. He had to endure the hot summer days and cold summer nights. He
had to learn how to eat sorghum while avoiding the sand that had been mixed in
to stretch the porridge. He had to learn how to accept the stench of children
doing their “business” in the hut because they were beaten if they asked to do
it outside. He saw children not waking up and quickly learned that they had
died right in front of him.
The
older boys were taken out for hours at a time to be trained in how to become
soldiers. The younger boys were just left to die. They were simply not strong
enough to carry rifles and become soldiers. The transformation of the older
boys took only a matter of weeks. Soon they would be soldiers, ready to go off
and fight. The question now became, when their training was complete, “What
would become of the young boys who managed to still be living?” What would they
do with Lopez?
Management Lesson #1 -- Do Not Panic
It is easy to panic when we are given a task
that it overwhelming. It is easy to panic when the unexpected occurs. It is
easy to panic when disaster strikes. Don’t! Like Lopez Lomong, we need to keep
our heads. We need to focus on the solution to the problem, not the problem
itself. We need to be strong for those that look to us for leadership. We need
to not panic.
[1]
Lopez Lomong with Mark Tabb, Running for
My Life. Thomas Nelson Press, Nashville.
