San Jose Sudanese Graduates

From the Rev. Jerry Drino, Hope With Sudan:

Gabriel Makuei Tor arrived as a refugee four and a half years ago from Kenya.   He had watched as his friends left in 2001 for the US never thinking that he might never be called.   In the meantime he followed his vocation to ministry by teaching English and leading Bible classes for over a hundred Sudanese widows in Nairobi.  Then his day came to be relocated to San Jose.   This last Saturday he graduated from De Anza College with plans to enter San Jose State University in the fall in pre-nursing.  His ultimate goal is to be a priest.  He is a gifted choir leader, hymn writer and poet.   This is one of his poems that appears in the recent De Anza Journal, The Red Wheelbarrow:

Deep Down Beneath
Gone are the dead
Leaving with no pain
Leaving the pain behind
With remnants to bear
Missing nothing
But being missed
Deep down beneath the reach
Dead is dead
Not only dead
Dead has paid the debt
Under the world of no obligation
Wit no hand to give
In the dark, idle corner
The silent remains
Gone forever are the dead
Taking nothing more than wisdom
Were all ages and races meet
To live in peace then piece
Where sexes do not belong
Is where one lives again
Here,lay the dead.