The decision was excruciating, but it was one she had to make.

Emelida Michael knew the best chance for her son Julius' survival was to get him out of war-torn Sudan.

It was March 1997 and the Michael family had been bouncing around from one refugee camp in Uganda to another for several years, running from the civil war in Sudan. Tensions were beginning to rise as the natives felt like the Sudanese were trying to take over their land.

Julius Michael was the only boy in the family, along with five sisters, his mother and father Simon. He was trying to escape the fate so many young boys suffered in that region at the time — death or becoming a rebel soldier trained to kill anything in his path.

“They would come at night and break into our camp, rob the people, torture the people, rape the women and would cut off body parts and stuff,” Michael said. “It was getting really bad, so my mom talked to my aunt and asked her that if she left, would she take my son because he was the only boy, and if something happened to us he would still carry the family bloodline.”

In the Sudanese culture, close friends of the family are often called aunts and uncles. Martha Yuggu was not a blood relative, but she saved Julius as if she were.

Her brother Elikana Jale was already living in Houston, and that was Yuggu's ticket to the United States. She made good on her promise to Emelida Michael and took Julius with her in May 1999 after two years of paperwork and lessons on American culture.

Julius Michael boarded a plane and left his family not knowing what their fate would be. But he knew there was a reason his life was being saved and did not question his mother's decision to save it, even if it meant he would never see them again.

“I didn't let it get me down. I looked at it as an opportunity,” Michael said. “I wasn't sure why, but I figured it was for a reason, so maybe it was like my mom's prayers getting answered. I saw it as a good thing even though I had to leave my parents. I think about it, but not in a bad way. I just have to make the best of this opportunity.”

Michael made a new home in Houston with Yuggu and Jale. He attended Lamar High School and found a father figure in Redskins cross country coach Jerry Martinez.

Michael excelled at the sport and eventually earned a scholarship to Sam Houston State University, where he is about to begin his junior year thanks to the help of his high school advisor Patty Poff. Without his parents around to sign the necessary paperwork for Michael to get into college, Poff worked hard to make sure the opportunity wasn't squandered.

Michael's life today is much different than when he first started running — for survival — as a child.



'I was scared the dead people would come get me'

Running always has been a big part of Michael's life. It got him where he is today, and ultimately, it saved his life.

But when he began running he was not competing for ribbons or medals; Michael and his family were trying to escape the bloodshed in Sudan.

He does not remember the exact date or how old he was, but Michael will never forget the day that changed his life forever. He was a young boy, around the age of 5, living in the small village of Kajo Keji in Central Equatoria when the country's civil war found its way to his doorstep.

“I was sitting outside in our little village, and on top of a hill we could see some kind of rebels coming and they had some angry men that were shooting at the children,” Michael said. “From far away we could hear some guns and bombs and all kinds of sounds going off.”

War was nothing new to Michael; it had been going on his entire life. He watched every day as people from surrounding villages attempted to escape its path as they passed through Kajo Keji on their way to refugee camps in Uganda.

When the war finally reached his town, Michael and his family packed up everything they could and joined the march.

“The final push was when we saw those guys shooting at each other,” Michael said. “My mother told my father that it was getting too rough for the kids and we needed to move toward the Uganda border. We packed up food and stuff and my dad had a bike, which is like having a car over there. He put my youngest sister on the bike and we started riding away.”

Their exodus to Uganda was a dangerous journey. They traveled at night through the brush and hid in bushes to avoid rebels and thieves who preyed upon those caught on the road.

Michael saw terrible things that no human, much less a child, should ever see. He encountered corpses and people cradling starving children as they tried to make their way to safety.

“I wasn't really scared because I had been around that stuff for a while,” Michael said. “It was just normal. You would be traveling down the road and see an old person just laying on the ground waiting for their time to come, or you would walk by and somebody would be dead. There would be some kid just laying around and there would just be a skeleton. I just got adjusted to it.”

Michael stayed in Sudan for a brief time with his father's uncle while the rest of his family went to a refugee camp in Uganda. He tended to goats and cattle until one day he fell out of a tree and was injured.

Michael's father came to get him and together they rejoined the family while his mother nursed him back to health. They spent a short period at the refugee camp before moving to a United Nations camp where they were provided with a tent and given a small plot of land.

The U.N. gave the refugees beans, rice, corn, flour, salt, soap and blankets, however, the harsh living conditions still took their toll on the emigrants lucky enough to survive.

“It was so hot and people were dying because of dehydration. Water was rare to come by,” Michael said. “There was also bacteria and malaria. I don't know what kind of disease it was, but I remember I was sitting outside one time and there was this lady in the tent next to us that was just throwing up blood and eventually she died.

“People were dying from dirty water and at night someone would die and you would hear people crying. It was hot, but I would pull my blanket up over my head because I was scared the dead people would come get me.”

With death and suffering all around them, Michael and the other refugees found solace in sports. They did not have many options as far as equipment was concerned, but they made use of what they had. For a brief moment they were able to escape the agony of camp life.

“We would get a bunch of plastic bags and tie them together, which eventually would get bigger and bigger, and use it as a soccer ball,” Michael said. “We also invented a game that was kind of like baseball. We would get a long stick, dig a trench in the ground, place a stick in it, place a stick over it, hit the stick and as the other stick comes up, hit it again and run.”



Focused on the future

Michael has put the ghastly memories of war behind him and shifted his focus to making the best of his new lease on life.

Sure, he still thought about his parents and sisters over the past 12 years of separation, but Michael did not dwell on it. He couldn't. He had to keep a level head and not let the past derail his future. He hoped for the best, that maybe, just maybe, they had stayed alive.

“I thought about them, but I didn't think about it to the point where it messed with my mind and got me down,” Michael said.

In May, Michael had just wrapped up his sophomore year at SHSU when Yuggu made a trip back to Kajo Keji to attend a funeral. Since the village was so small, word got around she was there.

Twelve years of uncertainty came to an end that day.

“She went back to the village, all the way back to Sudan and was at a funeral,” Michael said. “The funeral was big and the village was small, so at the funeral she ran into my parents. They remembered each other and they started talking. It had been 12 years, and my parents had been looking for me, but they had no way of communicating.”

When Yuggu got back to America she told Michael about the reunion and gave him something his father wanted him to have. It was a picture of Michael and his family, the last photo that was taken of them together outside their tent in the U.N. camp a year before their separation in 1997.

They are smiling, posing with all their possessions — a bicycle, flash light and transistor radio. It wasn't much but at least then they had each other.

Yuggu also informed him that his father would be sending a letter, so Michael rushed to the mailbox each day anxiously awaiting its arrival.

“When she got back, she told me about it and I was super excited that my parents and family were still alive, and she gave me the picture. That was the first time I had seen them in a long time, and I was starting to lose any memory I had of what they looked like,” Michael said. “She also told me about the letter, and I was waiting, checking the mail every day. Then finally I found the letter in the mail and was like, 'Wow.' I read it and I could not believe it.”

It was the first time in 12 years Michael had any communication with his parents, and the contents of the letter filled his heart with joy. His family was not only alive, but doing well.

“I am happy to send my warmly greetings to you in God's name,” Simon Michael wrote. “How are you? I hope you are okay as ourselves.”

The letter also included a couple of telephone numbers and Julius began calling them right away, trying to get through. The first few attempts failed, but on July 5, he heard a voice on the other end.

“I could hear a voice but it sounded too young, so I did not think it was my mom,” Michael said. “She was finally able to hear me and I started talking to her. I could not believe I was talking to my mom. It was something that was unbelievable.

“I wanted to ask her a lot of stuff, but I couldn't get it all out. It was like when you have so much to say that you don't have anything to say.”

Michael never gave up hope, and soon he is going to be able to ask his parents whatever he wants. He is currently working on securing a trip to Kajo Keji sometime next year, preferably during the summer break so he will have plenty of time to get in all of those questions.

Michael has a student visa, but would like to become a permanent U.S. citizen before he goes back to Sudan in case the conflict, which has been dormant for four years, arises again.

“Ideally what we would like is for him to get his full citizenship,” said Jesse Parker, Sam Houston State's cross country coach. “That way, if the fighting came back while he was over there, it would be a lot easier for him to go to the U.S. Embassy. It would open up a lot more possibilities from a safety and a convenience standpoint. Getting his citizenship would be the way to deal with it.”

Michael has been running his entire life. But instead of running from camp to camp, his destination is a brighter future. He is set to graduate in 2011 and plans on being a world history teacher.

He has experienced so much in the 20 short years he has been alive. He wants to share that with future generations.

“I want to teach history in high school, and I think I have been outside of different countries and cultures and I can share that with kids,” Michael said. “I think I want to teach high school mainly because I wouldn't be here without people like coach Martinez, Mrs. Poff and coach Parker taking a chance on me, even though I wasn't the fastest kid in my region.

“All I needed was someone there to help me with the steps to go to college, and I feel like I can help kids the same way.”