They Come Back Singing: Finding God with the Refugees

by Gary Smith

Book Overview

A moving and inspiring account of one priest's
life-changing experience among
Sudanese refugees.

In 2000, Gary Smith, a Jesuit priest, left a familiar life in the Pacific Northwest to live among Sudanese refugees struggling to survive in refugee camps in northern Uganda. He traveled to this dangerous, pitiless place to be with these forsaken people out of a conviction that "Jesuits should be going where no one else goes." But...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0829427015
• ISBN13: 9780829427011
• Release Date: February 2008
• Publisher: Loyola Press
• Length: 226 Pages
• Weight: 0.78 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.1" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Must Read!

This is a very touching and inspiring book composed of short stories of a Jesuit Priest's every day experiences in Uganda with Sudanese refugees. Full of Catholic Theology but does not argue religious propositions.

THEY CAME BACK SINGING, FINDING GOD WITH THE REFUGEES

This is a very moving book about a man finding the Lord in very deplorable situations. Seeing the strength and humor and watching him grow spirirtually is an awesome experince for the reader. I would love to see him write more books as he journeys through life.

Deeply Moving and Hugely Interesting

The author, a Jesuit priest, spent about six years working with Sudanese refugees living in Uganda; he was "with them" in every way possible and came to love and be loved by many. The book is a series of rather short vignettes of his experiences and profoundly personal reflections drawn from those experiences. There is no effort in the book to prosyletize or argue religious propositions; but most of the primarily reflective pieces do draw on Catholic theological vocabulary. As one who has never been in Africa, I came away from this book with a very very different sense of the ordinary people there than I started out with. Nothing I have seen in the media has come at all close to describing the situation of Sudanese refugees with the poignancy or nitty-gritty detail of this enormously readable book.