So today was a good day. I actually have two great stories... but it's late here and I am tired so I will save one for tomorrow (for those of you who are now addicted to my blog ;-)
So we had a team meeting tonight to nominate team captains and also to nominate someone from our team to carry the USA flag in the opening ceremonies. The person that gets nominated from our team to carry the flag gets put on the ballet with whoever is nominated from the other USA sports and then I believe the final person is then chosen by the International Olympic committee. The person that we nominated from our team was one of our 1500 meter runners named Lopez Lomong. We had him stand up and give a speech about why he would like to carry the flag and his story nearly brought tears to my eyes.
Lopez was born in Sudan and when he was 6 years old he was at church with his family when soldiers came into the church and took all of the children away from their families. They were all put in a truck and blindfolded and basically kept as prisoners. Many of the children died because they were given grain and sand to eat. But his friends warned him not to eat too much because it would kill him. One night, his friends found a hole in the fence and they got Lopez out of bed in the middle of the night and escaped. They ran for 3 days and 3 nights. Eventually they were caught and arrested by the Kenyan police and taken to a camp in Kenya where he stayed for 10 years. One day, an American man came to them and said that if they wrote letters to the U.S. Ambassador and told them their story, that they might be granted U.S. citizenship. Lopez wrote the letter and was granted citizenship. He moved to New York and has a kind of "adopted" family there. Just a year ago he went back to Sudan to visit his parents and siblings who he had not seen in 17 years.
He started school in New York and his high school coach recruited him to come out for the team. He remembers seeing that the athletes on the team wore team jackets with their last name on the back. In Africa, it was a big deal to have your name on something like that. So the jacket was the only reason that he even started running track!
Wow. That is all I could think when he was done speaking. He survived all of that and is now an Olympian! There is no way that you can hear that story and not be proud to be an American. It brought a whole new meaning to the term "representing your country." We have so much to be thankful for as citizens of this country that so many of us take for granted on a day to day basis. Lopez does not take any of it for granted and he helped to remind all of us in that room not to either.
I hope that Lopez gets chosen to carry that flag. I can't imagine anyone deserving it more than him.
On a lighter note... I'll be back tomorrow (well, technically tonight for you guys in the U.S.) with some stories to make you laugh from my excursion today :) Goodnight!!!
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