The African nation of Sudan has had a troubled past, and Bay Area residents may be a key part of its future. The country is composed of two disparate parts - a Muslim-dominated north and a southern region mainly populated by Christians and followers of indigenous animist religions.

In 1983, the fundamentalist government in Khartoum, the nation's capital, declared that "sharia," the Islamic code of law based on the Qur'an, would be binding throughout the country.

When the eight million Christians living in the south refused to accept this decree, they were persecuted by the government and genocide followed. In the decade between 1985 and 1995, villages were burned, water poisoned, children enslaved and more than two million people were reportedly killed.

Many young boys escaped murder because they were tending flocks of sheep in the fields when their villages were destroyed and their parents killed. As many as 40,000 of them fled their country to live in refugee camps in Ethiopia.

When the Sudanese government arranged for Ethiopia to expel them, they were forced to flee again, making a hazardous trek to refugee camps in Kenya and Uganda. They became known as the "Lost Boys/Girls of Sudan."

In 2001, 12 boys aged 17 to 20 arrived in San Jose, Today San Jose and San Diego are home to nearly 4,000 Sudanese refugees. An ecumenical Sudanese Ministry located at San Jose's Trinity Cathedral is supported by both the Episcopal and Roman Catholic churches. This community includes many active members and their families who are Sudanese. Their worship traditions and language add an important dimension to Sunday services.

Many success stories have come from this population, among them:

n Samuel Garang Akay became a U.S. citizen in 2006. After graduating from Stanford University, he retuned to Sudan to do an educational needs assessment for the New Sudan Education Initiative, and then returned to the U.S. to attend graduate school.

n Abraham Thon Deng also became a citizen in 2006, attended San Jose State University and is secretary of the National Coalition of the Willing, which seeks to build schools in his home province of Jonglei.

Today Father Drino serves as executive director of Hope with Sudan, a nonprofit agency focused on providing education to Sudanese. Since few schools are able to function in their troubled homeland, the focus is mostly on supporting refugees in camps located in the neighboring countries of Uganda and Kenya.

He says that "good schooling and basic-level food and necessities for students costs as little as $140 per month," but donations are declining because of the current poor economy.

On May 31, two leaders of the local Sudanese community, Peter Nok and Simon Deng, were interviewed about the conditions in their homeland as well as the status of Sudanese immigrants in the U.S. An episode of the "This Is Us" series, the program aired on KTEH, channel 54.

For more information about the Lost Boys/Girls or to make tax-deductible contributions to reduce the suffering in Sudan, visit www.hopewithsudan.org or call (408) 259-2111.

Chuck Flagg Chuck Flagg is a retired teacher with a passion for religion. Reach him at cflagg@svnewspapers.com.