Changing the World, One Step at a Time
By Katherine Keel, Team USA
A hand roughly shook his shoulder as he heard the panicked whispers from his friends, “Wake up, Lopepe, we have to go NOW!” Though his legs felt like lead, the soles of his feet were bloody and he could barely walk, he began shuffling forward as fast as he could.
After running for two days straight, Lopez Lomong somehow mustered enough strength to keep moving. A 6-year-old is not meant to run for 72 hours straight, but Lomong had no choice.
Lopez Lomong’s childhood was stolen from him at an early age, his innocence shattered and his eyes opened to unimaginable horrors in a matter of seconds. Held at gunpoint and torn from his mother’s arms, Lomong was kidnapped intentionally to be trained as a child soldier. His home country of Sudan was in the midst of a civil war and on that fateful Sunday morning in church, Lomong was suddenly forced into the battle.
Continue reading at: teamusa.org
