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Wednesday April 2, 2008
Category: Ah, Texas, Culture"God is my provision"
The current issue of The Advocate, a neighborhood magazine here in Dallas, tells the story of Joseph and Priscilla Deng (see page 51 on the PDF). They are a young Sudanese refugee couple who found refuge in Dallas. They met and married in a refugee camp in Africa, but Joseph got to America before Priscilla, who was stuck in the Kenyan camp, pregnant with their daughter. Like a number of the Lost Boys of Sudan, Joseph found work at Central Market, a grocery store in my part of Dallas, and a place where we shop once a week or so. You see these guys working there, and you can't help wondering what their stories are.
This is a great one. From the Advocate:
For Priscilla and Joseph, the necessary money may as well have fallen from the sky. Most Lost Boys are employed in fairly low-paying jobs due to their lack of education, and Joseph was no different. For more than a year after first moving to Dallas, Joseph was employed as a shopping cart retriever at Central Market, sending money to Priscilla when he could, but far from earning enough to get her and his new daughter, Aguer, to America. Until one day Joseph made a fairly unusual discovery — a shopping bag filled with $3,000, innocently sitting in an abandoned shopping cart.“Now, this money could’ve changed his whole life,” says [volunteer counselor Anne] Worth, who tells the story with far more enthusiasm than the reserved Joseph and Priscilla. “He could’ve used it to help people in the camps, get his wife and son over, so what does he do? He gives it to his manager.
“The manager is just flabbergasted. He’s like, ‘Are you serious? Joseph, why didn’t you take this?’ And Joseph tells him, and I quote, ‘God is my provision.’ ... Naturally, they give him a job handling the store’s cash.”
With his extra income, and a job in the store's bakery he secured for Priscilla, his wife and daughter were able to move to Dallas. Now they have another baby, and life is good for them. What good people. Hope!
Filed Under: Dallas, Lost Boys of Sudan
posted by Rod Dreher @10:50pm Permalink 
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Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
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A propos, some people describe taking family to USA as something easy as going for a walk, demanding only some cash for the ticket, and nothing else. It is interesting how they manage to get visas for their poor relatives? One russian woman who is married to the USA citizen complained that her poor father is denied visa, he can't come to see her even as tourist (he has small income, and obviously it is presupposed that he will not want to return home), generally people with official income lower than a certain level are not allowed to enter USA as tourists, and some people are denied visas just without any explanation. Grown-ups can get employment invitations, but i wonder how pensioneres and little children get to them? Maybe relatives of employees from different countries are approached in different ways.
Posted by: maria | April 3, 2008 5:55 AM
Nate: This is a bit off topic, but is Central Market as impressive as the website makes it seem? I'm moving to Dallas in the fall to study at SMU, and as the food lover that I am, I'm always on the lookout for great places to get groceries.
Yeah, it really is that great -- and it's about a minute's drive from SMU. When we were moving to Dallas from NYC, I was broken-hearted about leaving New York, and Julie softened the blow by renting us a house not far from CM.
Posted by: Rod Dreher | April 3, 2008 7:07 AM
Quite natural behaviour for an honest man. He found it in the shop, not on the street, owner of the bag might remeber where he left it and return for it. Is the fact that the man was black and poor presupposed that he 100% should have stolen it?
Of course not. The money was not found in the shop, but in a cart in the parking lot -- that's not clear from the story, I see. But I shop at this store, so I understand from that knowledge that the job Joseph had in those days was to retrieve shopping carts left in the parking lot. Anyway, the amazing thing about this was that any man, whatever his color, who was desperate for money to bring his wife and daughter into America from a refugee camp, would be tempted to take that money. I hope that I would have had the honesty to have done what Joseph did, but to find that kind of money sitting on the street, basically, and to be in such need -- well, I don't know what I would have done.
Posted by: Rod Dreher | April 3, 2008 7:12 AM
Central Market is more than just "a grocery store" it is an experience. Every time I visit Dallas I make sure to make at least one trip to CM. If you're a real foodie you'll love the store. Wish we had one here in Richmond Virginia
Posted by: Peterk | April 3, 2008 11:16 AM
Oh goodness ... is someone really turning this into a race question? The only mention of race is where the gentleman was from in order to show his need. When in need ... there is a different kind of temptation. He could have reasoned with himself and said that God was providing for him in this way ... many people would have thought that. Rather, he had the high moral integrity to see through need and justification and do what was right ... no matter who he was or where he was from. But the truth is ... so many people use need of any kind (financial, emotional ...) to cloud their decisionmaking and justify wrong behavior. Applaud the young man and don't turn something that was never about race into a race question ... for any reason.
Posted by: Brooke | April 5, 2008 4:51 PM
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