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I was born in Jambo in a small village 70 miles from Juba, the capital city of the southern Sudan. I have three brothers and two sisters. Growing up in rural area I had a great love for higher education, a passion for people, and a commitment for my faith. With such zeal, I attended primary school in Jambo. Upon completion, I was transferred to Juba to continue with my elementary and secondary schooling under the guidance of my elder brother, Robert.
It was there I was introduced to more abstract thinking, patterns of logic, through a Roman Catholic Father who was both my friend and a Christian Religion teacher. He welcomed me to study in his home library where I read about Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, Hegel, David Hume, John Locke, Rene Descartes, and many others.
However, my keen interest for African philosophy and passion for people caused me to concentrate on the work of the late Leopold Ceder Sengor, poet and philosopher and the first president of Senegal, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana.
It was from such inspiration that I saw myself as a potential and capable leader to bring change in Africa, starting from my own country, Sudan, which has been torn by civil war for four decades. Due to the ongoing persecution of Christians in Southern Sudan by the militant Islamic government of President Omar El-Bashir, I fled to Egypt in 1992, then to Kenya in 1994, in search of safety and training to fulfill my dream.
From 1994 to 1997 I spent three years in college. In 1997 I visited the war torn Southern Sudan only to find that people were in great need of physical development. This challenged me to return to Kenya and join Daystar University to study Community Development and to then return to fight against poverty, disease, illiteracy, injustices, and marginalization of the Christians caused by the Islamic government.
While in Daystar University I learned about Taylor University and the exchange program between Taylor University and Christian colleges in the USA. However, to qualify for the exchange program a student must have a cumulative GPA of above 3.0 for a 4.0 system.
As a determined young man, I worked hard and achieved the grades required and made it to Taylor University, Upland, IN, USA. It was here that I started to realize my dream through the support of Pastor Jerry Dean of Union Chapel Baptist Church, the Voss family and St. Peter's Church in Lincoln in England, to whom I owe a great deal of gratitude and without whom I would not have achieved what I have done.
Credentials
MPA Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, IL, USA 2004
BA in Community Development, Daystar University, Nairobi, Kenya 2003
BA in sociology, Taylor University, Upland, IN, USA 2002
Diploma in Theology, St. Paul's United Theological College Limuru, Kenya 1997