Lost Boys of Sudan: St. John’s Baptist Charlotte
For the Lost Boys of Sudan and St. John’s Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C. life is best lived when we learn to welcome and love one another. Almost two decades ago, this church embraced the refugees who resettled in their neighborhood fulfilling their mission to be a servant church. In turn, they received love and life lessons from their Dinka friends and now celebrate the launch of a new Sudanese church on their campus.
This series in the “Welcoming the Stranger” project is part of the BNG Storytelling Projects Initiative. In “Welcoming the Stranger,” we share the inspiring stories of the people and faith communities that are teaching us all to love our neighbor as ourselves.
This series is written by Norman Jameson. Photos are also by Norman Jameson.
Decades of life with the ‘Lost Boys’ from South Sudan: Charlotte church loves their neighbors as themselves
Photo Gallery: Lost Boys in photos
In this ‘Welcoming the Stranger’ series, we learn what happens when one church decides to live up to its covenant of “We will not let our differences separate us” and “We will be a servant church.” After some ‘Lost Boys of Sudan’ resettled in their neighborhood in Charlotte, they embraced them immediately, encouraging, mentoring, feeding and providing personal instruction on the baffling machinations of American life. Now, after decades of life together, they are like family and welcome a new generation of Dinka-Americans as they begin their own church on the same campus. St. John’s Baptist Church truly welcomed and loved the strangers among them.
View the photo gallery to see for yourself.
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Seed money to launch our Storytelling Projects initiative and our initial series of projects has been provided through generous grants from the Christ Is Our Salvation Foundation and the Eula Mae and John Baugh Foundation. For information about underwriting opportunities for Storytelling Projects, contact David Wilkinson, BNG’s executive director and publisher, at [email protected] or 336.865.2688.