What is This Holiday About? This Halloween?

We have quite a few Sudanese refugee families in neighborhoods near ours. I first became aware of them several years ago when a woman was taking several young men, all with distinctive tribal markings on their cheeks, through our grocery store. I was fascinated but had no idea where they had come from. Later I heard about the Lost Boys of the Sudan and realized that these must be some of the same.

A nearby parish, St. Patrick's, has an active ministry helping the people adjust to our culture. There are so many things that they don't have any frame of reference for. Hannah volunteered there one year and told me about a family who had gotten some Christmas wrapping paper. When a volunteer went to their apartment, it had been taken off the roll and taped to the wall. As a decoration.

The Central Market hires a lot of young Sudanese men. It gives me great pleasure to have watched them work their way up, from rounding up carts, to bagging groceries, to manning the registers. I enjoy chatting with them and the day before Halloween, when all the CM employees who cared to had dressed up, a very friendly young man asked me that question about Halloween when ringing up my groceries. It led to quite an interesting conversation during which I was able to ask him about a few of his adjustments to this country. He was quite cheerful about it but I think it must be like going to live on the moon in comparison to his country.

All of that is a lengthy introduction to why the trailer for God Grew Tired of Us garnered my immediate interest. I will definitely be going to see this one.

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity