The human face is a vessel capable of carrying the weight of a thousand experiences, and a myriad of subtle, even contradictory, emotions even the best poets would be hard-pressed to describe.
When we study another’s face, search another’s eyes, each of us sees something different, maybe even a reflection of ourselves.
I am not a photographer who seeks peak action or overt emotion. I am drawn to the quieter, more complex expressions.
Recently, my family and I listened to a young man named Bol Aweng tell the story of being separated from his family and fleeing his village in Southern Sudan while under attack by government troops. Aweng was just six-years-old when he ran for his life and began a trek to Ethiopia and then to Kenya. He spent 14 years in various refugee camps before arriving in Nashville, Tennessee, in 2001. He became a U.S. citizen in 2007 and said “it was the first time he felt he had an identity.”
Bol Aweng
Now living in Ohio, Bol Aweng is one of the 35,000 Lost Boys of Sudan.
I watched the kind face and contagious smile and shot about 30 frames during the hour-long presentation, watching intently for one frame, one expression, that might summarize what my ears and my heart were hearing. But nothing I saw through the viewfinder matched what I heard in his voice. And then, for a half-second, it was as if a veil covering the past was lifted, and an expression as deep and complex as any I had ever seen emerged.
Hidden beneath the warm smile, I saw a shadow of the frightened six-year-old separated from his family by war. I imagined the cruel memories Aweng must have of the 18,000 countrymen who were slaughtered, starved to death, or killed and eaten by lions and other wild animals while walking 1500 miles in search of food and safety. I saw a young man living in refugee camps for more than a decade, wondering if his parents and siblings were dead or alive; a family he would eventually see again 24 years later.
In this proud face I also saw faith in the God who led him to America.
“I started feeling that God is here and if there is something bigger, then I need God to be the one to help me in that,” Bol said of his time in the refugee camps.
“I was so excited when I received the letter,” remembers Bol. Finally, after a long wait, he was going to escape the horrors of war and finally realize his dream to come to the United States, “a safe place.”
His face held the story of finally escaping the horrors of war and realizing his dream to come to America, only to be delayed en route to New York on Sept. 11, 2001.
Bol said he questioned himself, “Is it me following war, or war following me?”
But also in this wise face I saw an educated man, a soul tempered by gratitude and filled with guarded hope for peace and the future of his countrymen, especially the mothers and children. His eyes spoke of quiet strength, purpose and a steel resolve to help his family, bring healthcare to his people and continue rebuilding the village of his childhood in South Sudan.
I saw a talented artist, able to communicate in colorful paintings the scenes from his incredible journey.
Above all, in this amazing face, I saw an incredible tapestry of sadness, joy and hope woven so tightly together they are inseparable.
To learn more about this amazing soul, please see the following links.
Bridges and Angels 
When truth and honesty and character and integrity and empathy come together it is a place where our mind wants to put it in a package……. can this exist in one place? Perhaps a photograph or painting or a poem …..perhaps not at all. Some say a picture is worth a thousand words…..when it is not words that can explain nor deliver. One in a million survive to tell stories for many who did no make the journey. His search for God and his faith is that little story…..that still small voice. We can listen or chose to ignore. Well done article to show us more about yourself. Thanks. Mel