Obang Okello
Sharing Faith, Hope, and Courage
after
Escaping Genocide
Orphaned and Homeless New Life in United States
Chairperson of Anuak Justice Council Inspired by Peacemakers
Keeping Faith and Hope Alive
Obang Okello’s life changed forever when he was 11 years old. One minute he is playing with classmates; a short time later he is fleeing for his life. He became a refugee at a very young age after experiencing horrors that most of us can not even imagine.
One wonders? How many people would have the inner resources and deep faith to survive a similar journey?
The awful turn of events began one day when Okello -- the youngest of seven children of a family living in a village on the border of Sudan and Ethiopia -- was enjoying a school lunch break when they heard a large explosion nearby. 
A short time later, having been born “in the middle of war” because of the conflict between groups in Ethiopia and Sudan, Okello and his classmates were not shocked to see two bodies in the street.
All 2,400 students quickly rushed back to the school for safety. After two hours huddled in classrooms, listening to gunfire and bombs, the students noticed that it was getting hotter. Their school was on fire! Okello broke out through a window and was able to help a few others to escape; however, all but 17 of his classmates perished in the inferno.
Following his harrowing escape, Okello hid in the bushes for three days while the military ravaged the area. When he returned to his village, bodies were unrecognizable; he thought his parents and siblings were dead. In his loneliness and terror, he cried out for his mom and dad. God spoke to him that moment, and he found the courage to begin a treacherous, grueling 1,000-mile, 40-day barefoot walk to a Kenyan refugee camp.
After five years of loneliness in the camp, Okello was one of the few chosen, for sponsorship, from the thousands waiting to escape war and famine. He lived for one year with a family in Washington, DC, until he learned – through a chance meeting in a museum with someone from his home country – that one of his brothers had survived and was living in Minnesota. He moved in with his brother and enrolled in high school as a sophomore.
After high school, Okello enrolled at Bethel University. Students and staff supported him as he struggled with separation from his family and as he continued to learn the complexities of the English language. In “Obang’s Odyssey,” Julia Taylor shared how he “loved the community and integrity of Bethel,” and that he found “Bethel to be a place where people care not only for one another, but for suffering worldwide." For his classmates, Okello blessed the “Bethel community with his gracious leadership skills, passion for the oppressed, extensive knowledge of African politics and culture, and personal experiences of suffering for his faith.”
During this time, Okello and his brother learned, via an exchange student, that their parents had survived! With hands shaking, Okello called his parents. His mother fell to the floor in shock when she learned that her sons, 
whose funerals had been held six years earlier, were still alive. The reconnected family members were able to keep in contact by phone until more turmoil and killings in Ethiopia caused their parents to go into hiding in the bush. Focusing on his schooling, while worrying about his parents, was especially stressful for Okello, but he persevered.
He graduated from Bethel in 2004 with a double major in theology and business administration. He is working as an accountant and in between times shares his inspiring story of faith, courage, and tenacity in the most trying of circumstances.
In May 2005, Okello was awarded the Pope John XXIII Award for Distinguished Service by Viterbo University. Sister Marie Leon LeCroix, FSPA, also an award recipient, was very impressed with Okello. As she says, "He is the most inspirational person that I have met in many, many years. I am amazed at his hope, unbounded cheerfulness, and deep faith in God. He has such hope in humankind, even though humankind has treated his people so badly."
In a few years, Okello hopes to enter seminary and become a teacher or an evangelist.
In 2005, Okello was selected chairperson of the Anuak Justice Council (AJC), founded in 2004. It is a representative group of the Anuak dispora “formed in response to an urgent need to represent the Anuak (the word “Anuak” means people who do everything together) as they seek justice following the 2003 massacre in Gambella, Ethiopia. In his role, Okello has lobbied the U.S. Committee on Appropriations (holder of the purse strings on military aid) for Ethiopian aid contingent on human rights and on an immediate end to violence against the Anuak.
The World Organization Against Torture has received reliable reports of “ongoing crimes against humanity and acts of genocide being perpetrated by the Ethiopian Armed Forces and ‘highlander’ militias against the Anuak (or Anywaa) indigenous ethnic group, which comprises around 100,000 persons, in rural areas of Gambella, Ethiopia.” Anuak land has oil deposits that the Ethiopian government wants; government officials refuse to respond to the allegations of genocide made by the World Organization Against Torture. With assistance from human rights lawyers, the AJC is also lodging an official genocide case against Ethiopia at the International Criminal Court in the Hague.
This is dangerous work.
But Okello is committed to it in order to help set his people free. He yearns for the day when he can return to his country and be reunited with family members, who he hopes are still alive, despite rumors that they have been killed.
There are times that Okello wants to strike back at those who have caused so much suffering and killing in Ethiopia. However, he is inspired by the lives of strong leaders who brought peaceful, positive change – via nonviolent resistance – in their struggles for justice.
He immersed himself in watching civil rights-era videotapes to learn from peacemakers who have gone before him: “How can I train myself to be so disciplined, and so obedient, to fight back only with words and never to hit anybody? Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, and Mahatma Ghandi did not use violence and they changed the world. I think that’s the right way and it’s the most effective way.” (Sept 30, 2004, McGill Report)
A successful film director wanted to do a movie about Okello's life -- with the addition of a fictional love story. Okello refused to sell the rights to his story. Instead, to be able to share his story, he is studying movie production, is taking the necessary legal steps, and is working with a Christian script writer on a book and movie project.
He wants to “show the documentary as a message of hope. My story is that there is always hope in God. No matter how dark things seem, there is always hope.”
Acknowledgement
Map: thanks to Anuak Justice Council; used with permission.
Picture of Okello: by Tara Patty; thanks to Bethel University; used with permission.