c. 2008 Religion News Service

TULLY, N.Y. _ Robert Rogers was intrigued seven years ago by the advertisement in a church bulletin seeking foster parents for “Lost Boys” from Sudan.

“This looks interesting,” he told his wife, Barbara, at the end of Mass at St. Leo Church.

He still remembers her reaction: “You’re out of your mind.”

He was out of town on the day of the meeting about the foster children, so his wife went. “When I came home … we were all signed up and ready to go,” he said.

Two months later, the couple welcomed 16-year-old Joseph “Lopez” Lomong. He would be the first of six foster sons from Sudan they took into their home.

Since that July day in 2001, the Rogerses have quietly served as foster parents for the young men who spent much of their childhood fleeing war, trekking all over Sudan and living in a refugee camp in Kenya for 10 years.

The Rogerses’ work became more public when Lomong, now a 23-year-old track and cross-country star, made the U.S. Olympic track team. On Friday (Aug. 8), he carried the American flag as he led the U.S. delegation into Beijing’s National Stadium.

Locals here have rallied to raise money to help send the Rogerses to Beijing to watch their adopted son compete in the 1,500-meter race.

“It’s been amazing, everyone is a part of it, and Lopez wants everyone to be a part of it,” said Barbara, 49. “All along his journey, since the time he arrived here, everyone has been involved in interacting with him.”

The couple moved here in 1987 when their son, Robert Jr., was 5. They got involved in the community, volunteering and supporting various causes in the schools and at St. Leo and St. Patrick parishes. They own 27 apartments and a Laundromat in Tully, and Robert, 51, buys and sells construction equipment.

The Rev. Louis Aiello, the Rogerses’ former pastor, said it was a delight to have the couple as parishioners because they were strong supporters of his ministry and other causes in the community.

The couple bought cars for a nun and a deacon. Robert built a steeple for St. Patrick Church, put a garage behind the church and installed a handicapped ramp at St. Leo.

The Rogerses are truly living the gospel message to love others through their support in the church and for fostering the young men from Sudan, Aiello said.

“It was exciting to see these young men become a part of our community,” said Aiello. “Rob and Barb have done great things for Lopez, but they’ve done an equally great thing for that parish and community.”

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The Rogerses said their charity began when they went bankrupt in 1984.

At 30, Robert said, he had lost a $1.8 million investment in a failed subdivision in Binghamton. For the next 10 years, the couple struggled to get out of debt.

They had both grown up Catholic, but neither had a strong connection with God. While listening to Christian radio, Robert started to analyze his faith and realized that he needed to trust God more.

He started tithing even though he didn’t have much money. He gave 10 percent of his income to God, and “miracles started happening at a rate that would scare us,” he said.

He took a sales job that promised $45,000 a year but ended up making $138,000 in the first year, he said. The job enabled the couple to pay off all their debts.

“This is the basis for why we got the boys,” Robert said. “I started saying if 10 percent of my money is what God wants, then he certainly wants 10 percent of my efforts and time.”

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When the couple was thinking about expanding their own family, they looked into foster care. First came a 15-year-old boy, who lived with the couple for about a year and half. In 1999, they took in a family of 11 from Kosovo for eight days while Catholic Charities prepared an apartment for them.

“When those people came off the plane, they were terrified,” Robert said.

“And I got the privilege of being the person that represented America to that family when they came here, and then as each one of (the Sudanese) boys came, I was the guy who took them by the hand and led them to America,” he said. “That’s an extreme privilege to be in that position in someone’s life where you’ll be remembered by that person for the rest of their lives as the person who represented America to them.”

The couple had been empty-nesters for six months _ their son was in college _ when they saw the church bulletin ad that changed their lives.

“When people decide to have a baby or something like that, this is a life-changing experience,” Robert said. “But to bring teenage boys from such a radically different culture into your home, and accept them as your children fully, it totally modifies your life and the size of your grill.”

The call about Lomong’s arrival came two months after the couple completed the six-week process to become foster parents. The only information they had about Lomong was his name, age and arrival date.

Initially, the couple decided to take two boys because they thought Tully would be too isolating for one. Nearly a year after Lomong moved in, they took in Dominic Luka, a 15-year-old who was living with some young Sudanese men in Syracuse. Lomong and Luka would star in track and cross-country at Tully High School.

Three months after Luka settled in, Peter Anthony moved in. In December 2005, the couple welcomed 15-year-old Ohure Sam. Two months later, the couple was at a neighbor’s party when their phone rang. Catholic Charities needed to find a home in two days for two brothers who came with their uncle, who was too sick to care for them.

Obang Okor, 15, and Omot Okor, 17, didn’t speak English and had a fifth-grade education. The boys lived with their aunts and uncles after their parents were killed in the war.

“I said, `Barb, this call is for you,”’ Robert said.

“All the other boys, there were lots of discussions, lots of planning, but the last two we just decided at that party with two minutes’ notice,” he said. “God was telling us that’s what we were supposed to do; otherwise they wouldn’t have called us.”

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Barbara said her faith grew stronger during the difficult financial challenges and in the last seven years when she and her husband opened their home to the boys.

“When he was going through all those financial troubles, I kept asking him what’s his plan, and he said, `I don’t have a plan. I’m trusting God.’ I said, `That’s not good enough.’ That was pretty testing. I know my faith has grown stronger since and with these boys, I know God is certainly watching out for them.”

The young men said the couple are like their real parents; they call them Mom and Dad.

“They accept me as one of their sons,” said Luka, 23, who runs indoor and outdoor cross-country at Norfolk State University in Virginia, where he’s a senior majoring in business management and information systems. “I feel comfortable with them. Everything they taught me is like a father and mother tried to teach their son.”

When he learned he was coming to America, Lomong thought he would have to get a job and support himself. He didn’t expect to have such supportive parents.

“I just thought they would just keep me for a little while, but they convinced me that this is your home,” he said.

Anthony, 20, is a junior political science major at State University at Buffalo, where he plays soccer. In his first six weeks in America, Anthony went to Disney World, Washington, D.C., and Boston. He surprised the Rogerses when he told them the most amazing thing he had seen in America: “parents.”

(Maureen Sieh writes for The Post-Standard in Syracuse, N.Y.)

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