Benjamin Ajak shares his story at SHU

As part of the Lynch Lecture Series, Benjamin Ajak and Judy Bernstein, co-authors of “They Poured Fire on us from the Sky: The True Story of Three Lost Boys from Sudan,” visited Seton Hill University (SHU) on Thursday, October 2, 2008; for small group discussion and a packed auditorium for an evening lecture, entitled A Portrait of Survival.

Ajak was born in 1982 in a village in southern Sudan. In 1987 Ajak's village was attacked because a civil war broke out between Northern and Southern Sudan and to escape death or induction into the Muslim army, at the age of five years, Ajak fled alone into the night. Several days later he found his cousins, Benson and Lino, seven years old, and they joined the exodus that became twenty thousand boys fleeing a thousand miles across Africa's largest country. Only half survived and made it into Ethiopia and became known to the world as The Lost Boys.

The book, “They Poured Fire on us from the Sky,” was selected to be this year’s SHU summer reading. “The discussion day for the summer reading included 570 students, faculty and staff, the largest group to ever participate,” said Mary Ann Gawelek, Provost and Dean of the Faculty.

Ajak was on campus throughout the day talking first in a small discussion, held in the Greensburg Room. In this discussion, Ajak shared his story and tales about his life now in America, as well as took questions from those in attendance. “The speech by Benjamin Ajak was very interesting and motivational, but at times a little hard to understand," said Jenna Costello, a senior. "I liked the group discussion and when he took questions after the speech more, because that's when his true personality showed and the audience could really get to know him."

In an evening lecture, Ajak and Bernstein spoke about the book and Ajak’s reasons for writing with Bernstein and his cousins. “We did not write this book to get money - we wrote it to educate other people about what had happened,” said Ajak.

“He is now speaking up for those who are suffering silently,” said Bernstein, who served as Ajak’s, and his cousins’, mentor when they first arrived to America.

However, when Ajak and his cousins arrived in America, they received a rude awakening. Arriving on September 11, 2001 - the boys came from war and were put into another. “When we came to America we were told it was safe and free and yet we saw a kind of war that killed thousands and thousands of people in one minute,” said Ajak, “I had never seen a war like that before, that is when I was truly scared.”

As Ajak, his cousins and Bernstein travel around to speak, they have one goal in mind. “I’m speaking up for those who cannot do so themselves and to educate other people,” said Ajak, “…through this, my dream is to bring the peace to Sudan, stop the violence in Sudan and to make all people equal in Sudan.”