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Seminarian finds peace in midst of tragedy
by Dan Madden
 tephen
Hoth’s smile catches the eye like pearls on black velvet. It is his
mother’s smile.
Set against pitch-dark skin, it shyly reveals happiness and resolutely
masks pain.
 
The Sudanese refugee and priesthood candidate for the Archdiocese of
Omaha also has his mother’s eyes. He inherited her hands as well, and
her long-limbed frame. The taciturn Hoth shares his mother’s “calm”
bearing, which to the uninitiated might be mistaken for indifference.
But the treacherous journey from the war-torn deserts and jungles of his
homeland to the peaceful quiet of Conception Seminary College has denied
Hoth the luxury of indifference.
In 1999, a year after he fled Sudan for Egypt, Hoth received word from
his brother that their mother was presumed dead after government forces
from the north attacked her village in southern Sudan. She was last seen
fleeing the village alone, but her body was never found. The sad irony
was that Hoth had fled Sudan to avoid mandatory enlistment in the same
army responsible for his mother’s death. Two of his childhood friends
were executed for refusing to enlist, and last year his 14-year-old
brother was forced to serve.
Rather than allowing his grief over his mother’s death to deteriorate
into anger, Hoth says he chose to honor her with forgiveness.
“She was always very faithful,” he recalls. “All my life, I never saw
her quarrel with my father. She was hard-working, very loving, and
always willing to forgive others. My mother loved peace. I don’t hate
the people who did this, but I don’t like what they did.”
Alone and grieving on the streets of Cairo, the former altar boy and
seminarian went to a Catholic church. The strangers he met there prayed
with him, comforted him, and reminded him to rely on God.
“It was a very painful time,” he said, “but God gave me strong faith. I
realized I was weak and there was nothing I could do to restore my loss.
I knew the only person who could help me was Jesus.”
 Within a year, Hoth was granted a visa by the U.S. embassy, and moved to
Houston, Tex. Later, at the urging of fellow refugees in Omaha, he moved
there, found a job and enrolled at Creighton University. The pastor of
the local parish befriended Hoth and persuaded him to enter the
seminary. The decision was not difficult for Hoth, who for six years had
attended a seminary in Sudan.
Even though he stands 6-foot-5 (three inches shorter than his mother),
Hoth blends into the background of a noisy seminary hallway. But his
unassuming demeanor belies a passionate and tireless activism that, like
the stories of his past, he only recently revealed to classmates.
“He took us by surprise,” says classmate Nathan Veltrop. “Stephen was
always so quiet.”
Veltrop admits Hoth’s revelation hit him hard.
“All that he’s given up, the struggles he’s gone through, and he’s still
going strong,” Veltrop says. “The one thing he never gave up was his
belief in God. It really puts our lives in America in perspective.”
Father Samuel Russell, dean of students and Hoth’s chaplain, said the
adjustment to Conception wasn’t easy for Hoth or his classmates,
teachers and advisors. There were the struggles with language and
perhaps an even wider gap of culture.
“One thing was clear from the get-go,” Father Samuel recalls. “Stephen
was a determined worker and he had an unwavering sense of justice.”
While it took time for Hoth and his classmates to become accustomed to
one another, Father Samuel saw their relationships blossom last
semester.
“His classmates clearly hold him in very high regard and with deep
affection,” he says. “His smile is infectious, but I think it is the
result of steadfast faith and hope in the face of unspeakable suffering,
a suffering he is reluctant to talk about.”
Each month Hoth logs more than 200 telephone calls and countless e-mails
on behalf of the people of Sudan. He is the founder and president of the
Bentiu Liech Community Association (BLCA), a 3-year-old organization that
works to rebuild churches and care for
 orphans in Sudan. Through Hoth’s
networking efforts, the BLCA’s membership is 500 (mostly Sudanese refugees)
and growing. Last November, he traveled to Philadelphia and New York to
testify in a class-action lawsuit against a Canadian oil company drilling
in southern Sudan. He testified that the company is participating in
human rights violations. The company pays millions of dollars to the
northern government for drilling rights, money that purchases weapons
that are used against the south.
“They claim they do more good than harm,” Hoth says of the oil company.
“But that’s just not true.”
People in Bentiu, the southern state in which he was born, live in
constant fear, Hoth says. Ground troops and armed helicopters routinely
attack villages, killing unarmed women and children, destroying
property, and scattering survivors into the jungle, where many fall
victim to starvation, disease and attacks from wild animals.
“[The government is] displacing the indigenous people so [it] can take
the oil more freely,” he says.
The 20-year-old civil war between Sudan’s northern Arab-Muslim
government and the non-Arab, non-Muslim rebel forces in the south, and
related famines, have killed more than 2 million Sudanese people and
displaced more than 4 million. Hoth’s family had to flee its home at
least eight different times during his childhood. He is no stranger to
homelessness and hunger.
The government hasn’t allowed Hoth to return to southern Sudan, and
probably won’t until the war ends. He hears only sporadic news from his
brothers who live in the north. In fact, after 10 years without word, it
was only last October that he learned that his father is still alive. He
also received word that his sister had survived an attack on her
village, but her mind was shattered by its gruesome consequences.
“My sister had to run away to save her two small children, but her
mother-in-law was too old to run,” Hoth recounts. “When my sister
returned two days later, she found her mother-in-law dead, and animals
had been feeding on her body.”
A year later, Hoth’s sister has not recovered from the resulting
emotional breakdown.
Hoth tells such stories more like an objective observer than a worried
son and brother. He discusses the fate of his homeland with little
visible emotion. And while he is friendly and accommodating, he answers
questions with a reserve that borders on reluctance. But, as his
classmates can attest, it takes patience to get to know the quiet
African.
“Stephen has started hanging around with us more this year,” Veltrop
says. “He is really a fun-loving and talkative guy.”
One gets a sense that Hoth will be freer with his laughter when peace
comes to Sudan.
Peace talks in Nairobi, Zaire, between Sudan’s warring parties have
shown signs of progress, and Hoth is encouraged by diplomatic
contributions from the U.S. government.
"If there is no peace, many more innocent lives will be lost," he says.
It is the loss of one particular life that still haunts him five years
later.
"What is most painful for me is that my mother died alone and there was
no one there to bury," Hoth says.
Last year, a priest encouraged Hoth to write his mother's name on a
piece of paper, draw a cross, and then bury the paper.
"I'm going to do that someday," he says, gazing out a nearby window.
"Maybe sometime peace will come to Sudan. I'll go there and bring my
family together.
"And then we'll bury that paper."
To contribute to the Bentiu Liech Community Association (BLCA), send
checks to Conception Abbey, PO Box 501, Conception, MO 64433.
We welcome your comments:
communications@conception.edu
www.conceptionabbey.org
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