From Sudan to San Diego: 'King Tut' Finds Home on Court

SAN DIEGO, CA (February 28, 2004) - "Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary" - Galatians 6:9, NASB.

A few years ago, I used to play basketball with a little Sudanese boy after church.

While I enjoyed watching him enthusiastically shooting the ball at the hoop on our church's parking lot, the grade schooler struggled to find the bottom of the net as he learned a new sport.

Now a high school senior, Tethloach Tut of College Center Covenant Church, where his father Thomas, is now a pastor, has come a long way since then. He's no longer little, for one thing - he's 6-foot-7 - and he's now the starting center for the Crawford High School varsity basketball team. Shooting is still not his specialty as he averages just three points per game. But his defensive play has been stellar - he leads his team in rebounding and blocked shots this year after having hardly played the season before.

Tethloach's progress on the basketball court is just a small step of a journey that spans thousands of miles and includes hardships few in North America have experienced. When he was 6, he and his family were among thousands of Sudanese Christians living in Ethiopia, having fled Sudan's bloody civil war. At one point, they tried to return to their homeland and the group they were traveling with was bombed by government helicopters. Tethloach was injured by the impact of a bomb that nearly hit him.

Tethloach, his parents, four brothers and two sisters - all members of the Nuer tribe - then went to a United Nations (U.N.) refugee camp in Kenya, according to a profile on Tethloach that appeared recently in the San Diego Union-Tribune. Two years later, the U.N. arranged to have a large contingent of Sudanese flown to the U.S. Some went to Tennessee, others to South Dakota and Texas, and many others were sent to San Diego.

The Tut family met the predominantly Anglo congregation of College Center Covenant one February Sunday morning in 1997, while I was a parishioner there. I was a greeter that morning as about 80 Sudanese men, women, and children walked into church while the congregation was singing the hymn "White As Snow."

A man named Choul Mat brought the Sudanese to the church. Years earlier, he had been resettled in South Dakota and had worshiped with a Covenant congregation there. He remembered how friendly his previous church had been when he moved to San Diego to find work. And there were plenty of friends he could bring to church. More than 1,500 Sudanese lived in a small complex of apartments just a mile from the church.

At first, we weren't sure how to help the Sudanese and had no idea what they had gone through during their trek through the wilderness. Our congregation held a Question and Answer session with Thomas to find out more about the refugees a few weeks after they arrived at the church. The Sudanese newcomers were relatively young and one Anglo parishioner asked why there weren't any elderly people in their group. "They do not run fast," said the Sudanese pastor.

Within a few weeks, however, our congregation of more than 100 began finding practical ways to be of assistance. The nursery, which once averaged two babies, now cared for a dozen babies during Sunday worship and volunteers stepped up to care for the extra babies. Marc Bellaart, then College Center's pastor, began talking with Sudanese leaders and began tweaking the worship service format to help the newcomers feel more comfortable. Tethloach and a Sudanese youth choir often sang to the beating of drums and Bible readings were read in Nuer and English.

The women helped the Sudanese women learn how to use a stove and how to shop in the local supermarkets. Tethloach and his family regularly assisted other Sudanese as they arrived in San Diego and the church helped where it could, providing ESL classes and helping new refugees fill out job applications. Parishioners also helped refugee families move into the area more easily by procuring clothes, beds, and other supplies. It wasn't always easy - as new refugees have an endless array of needs. But the congregation did its best and I've never felt more proud to be a member of the body of Christ as I did during 1997 at College Center Covenant.

Among the Sudanese refugees, the children had the greatest advantage in assimilating into the U.S. culture - they picked up the English language quickly at their local schools, which had as many as 50 different ethnic groups attending classes in East San Diego. Still, it wasn't easy. Tethloach told the Union-Tribune that he learned English by watching a lot of television. "I knew two words - yes and no - when I arrived in the United States," he told the Tribune. "The first three years of school I really didn't feel comfortable, I didn't always understand, so I stayed by myself...Finally, I felt like I belonged in the sixth grade."

Sports also provided Sudanese children with options to assimilate. They played soccer on the weekends at the local park and competed with each other in basketball on the outdoor courts. Eventually, the coaches at the local schools took notice. When he was a junior, Tut was urged by Crawford basketball coach Chris Burns to play for the Colts during his junior year of high school. Tethloach's cousin Buai Tut and his best friend Pur Lam - two others who I knew from church - also tried out for the team.

Tethloach experienced a bit of a growth spurt last year and now he's four inches taller than any player Burns has ever had during his coaching tenure at Crawford. Having an athletic big man helped the Colts post a 14-13 regular season record and earn a berth in the San Diego section Division III playoffs.

A few years ago, I drove Tethloach Tut and some of his friends to a University of San Diego men's college basketball game. They got to step on the court, riding tricycles and operating remote control cars for half-time prizes.

Next winter, Tut could be stepping on the college court as a player. Basketball recruiters from Point Loma Nazarene College in San Diego and other small colleges in California are interested. In the classroom, he has scored nearly 1000 on his Scholastic Aptitude Test, has a 3.2 grade point average (on a 4.0 scale) and tutors Crawford students in his spare time. His goals are to use education to become a doctor or a teacher and return to the Sudan.

Tethloach says that he wants to make his mark in the world. He already has - all the way to the bottom of the net.

To find the recent Tethloach Tut feature in the San Diego Union-Tribune, check the newspaper's website (www.union-trib.com) and search under "Tut."

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