Canceled: One of Africa's 'Lost Boys,' Bethel grad to tell story of faith, survival

5/3/2010 editor's note: The event described below has been canceled.

A witness of the deaths of thousands of innocent people, Obang Okello walked for 40 days through the African wilderness and spent five years in a refugee camp. He was only 11 years old when he experienced all of this and more.

Hear him tell his heart-transforming story at 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 5, in O’Shaughnessy Educational Center auditorium.

While living in a border village between Ethiopia and Sudan, Okello was a constant witness to the endless peril of war. One day in school, the building was bombed and in the resulting inferno he escaped. Left orphaned and homeless, he began his treacherous 1,000-mile barefoot walk to the refugee camps of Kenya. He has been on a journey of justice and peace ever since. Read more about his story here.

He will share how his faith in God sustained him and gave him the hope that he had survived for a purpose.

Okello is a 2004 graduate of Bethel University with a double major in theology and business administration. He is also the 2005 recipient of the Viterbo University Pope John XXIII Award for Distinguished Service.

This event is co-sponsored by Campus Ministry and Justice and Peace Studies.