One world, different lives

• Ojullu tells story

Abang Ojullu (in back) is seated with her six children, Rebecca (left), Ananaya, Ahmitara, Anna, Gilo and Ajuda, inside their Worthington home. Ojullu has lived in the United States since 1993, and in Worthington since 1996. (By Julie Buntjer/Daily Globe)

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• Abang Ojullu talks about the difficulties she faced during her early years in America.

WORTHINGTON — Abang Ojullu sat in the middle of her living room floor on Sunday morning and told the story of her first Fourth of July experience in the United States.

Born in Sudan, Ojullu knew well the sounds of war. The constant battles, the sounds of gunfire and the need to flee — they were all a part of her past.

So, when she was living inside a small apartment in Sioux Falls, S.D., and heard the “boom, boom” in the distance on the night of July 4, 1994, she grabbed her infant daughter and her 4-year-old son and hid in the closet. They hid there as the booms and cracks of fire power lit up the night sky. She was too scared to leave the closet when her baby’s diaper needed changing … too scared to make them food when their tummies started to growl.

“In my country, there’s a lot of fighting all of the time,” Ojullu explained.

On that night, she thought the fighting had begun in America.

“I heard the boom … and thought, ‘Oh, I’m dying here,’” she said.

The next day, neighbors knocked on Ojullu’s door. She didn’t answer. Friends came to visit her, but again she didn’t answer. She thought those who stood outside her apartment were the enemy, and they were going to kill her family.

It wasn’t until her friends from Lutheran Social Services came knocking that Ojullu finally answered.

“First thing I asked was, ‘What happened last night. There was a big fight,’” she recalled. “They started laughing and laughing. ‘It’s not a fight, it’s the Fourth of July’ (they said).’”

As Ojullu shared the story, her children sat on the couch in the background giggling. They have heard the story before, and they laugh about it each time it’s retold. They have grown up with the Fourth of July celebrations here in America, and while Ojullu still doesn’t care to watch or hear the fireworks, she’s no longer afraid.

“I know now that it’s just a holiday in America,” Ojullu said.

Life on the run

Abang Ojullu was born in Sudan, but because her family and countless other Christians in Sudan were under attack by the country’s Muslim leaders, she and her parents fled to Gambella, in the western tip of Ethiopia. She grew up there, attending school through the ninth grade.

“In seventh grade I got pregnant with my son, but I could still go to school,” she said.

While Ojullu was in the ninth grade, Ethiopia’s leader requested that all refugees leave the country because of the war. She and her husband fled with their son to northern Kenya, where they were taken in by the Walda Refugee Camp.

“There was a lot of fighting between the refugees because there were so many tribes there,” Ojullu said. “The United Nations tried to move us to different refugee camps.”

Eventually, Ojullu received resettlement papers, allowing both her and her son, Ajuda, to relocate to the United States. The family moved to Langata, an area in southwestern Nairobi City, Kenya, until the final papers were in order for them to make the trip. For whatever reason, her husband wasn’t allowed to travel to the United States at that time.

Pregnant with her second child, Ojullu said she didn’t want to have her baby in the tent they were living in at Langata. So, she said her goodbyes to her husband and left Kenya behind in 1993, boarding a plane filled with other refugees on their way to a new life and brighter future in the United States. The plane brought them to Sioux Falls.

Period of adjustment

That first year in America wasn’t easy for Ojullu. She couldn’t speak English, she didn’t have a way to get around and she was trying to raise two young children without her husband.

“My life seemed like it was getting worse,” she said. “I tried to cry, I want to go back because I don’t have family here. I told Lutheran Social Services to take me back to where I come from because it’s too much.

“They told me American life to everybody is too much,” she recalled. “It takes time for you — just be patient.”

Through her belief in God and prayer, Ojullu said she was encouraged to move to Worthington in 1996. She believes that God was trying to help her.

“When I moved here, I got to … English classes,” she said. “Here, the bus can pick you up and take you home. That’s the best because I (didn’t) drive.”

Ojullu took one year of English as a Second Language classes offered through Community Education. With her new skills, she was able to apply for a job, get hired and go to work. Since 2001, she has worked as a certified nursing assistant at South Shore Care Center in Worthington.

Faith and family

A single mother to six children, Ojullu reconnected with her husband when he was finally allowed to relocate to the United States in 2003. The 10 years they’d lived apart had changed both of them, and while he lives in Worthington, Ojullu said they continue to work on their relationship.

She earned her U.S. citizenship in 2000, and is proud to see that her children are getting a good education in the United States. Her oldest, Ajuda Alwal, graduated from Adrian High School in 2008 and just completed his first year at Northern State University in Aberdeen, S.D. He is a member of the college’s track team.

The rest of the family includes daughter 15-year-old Ananaya, 10-year-old Ahmitara, 7-year-old Rebecca, 4-year-old Gilo and 1-year-old Anna.

Without her church family at Worthington’s Christian Reformed Church, Ojullu said she might still be struggling.

“I really thank God for the Christian Reformed Church,” she said. “Before, I was thinking I was a lonely person, but God seen my heart. God moved me to them, and now they are my family here in Worthington.”

Ojullu said she now encourages her people to settle in Worthington when they relocate to the United States. For her, it was a place to learn English, to raise her children and to be accepted.

Worthington — America — has everything anyone could want.

“I tell my children when I was back home, I would go two days without food. I had one pair of shoes and two pairs of clothes and to me, I (was) a rich person,” she said. “The way I’m raising my kids seems like (how) the president in my country raised his kids. What a great life we have here.”

Ojullu said that people in America think this country is the world. She wants her children to know that it isn’t. There is one world, but many different lives.

She grew up having to go to the river for a drink of water, to wash the dishes and the clothes. She had to grind corn into flour, and walk to and from school. There was no time to play, no time to relax.

“I tell (children) that if I had been born here, maybe I would have been a doctor, because I have everything,” she said.

She uses those words to inspire her own kids.

“What I want them to have here is an education. To finish high school and go to college,” Ojullu said. “If you want to be a doctor, be a president, if you want to be anything, go for it! Everything you want to learn you can learn, because there’s no war here.”

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