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GREENSBORO - Wel Jok flew home Friday night.

He carried one suitcase , along with his Bible and his U.S. certificate, and trekked halfway around the world to see his mother, brother and two sisters in Sudan.

He hasn't seen them in 22 years . Jok doesn't even know what they look like.

His family thought he was dead. For good reason.

The last time they saw him he was 5 , playing with clay cows in the dirt. His mother was three blocks away. She was washing something in the river when the Sudanese government stormed their village of Juba in southern Sudan and blistered everyone they saw with bullets.

Now, Jok is 27 . He's a UNCG student majoring in chemistry. He wants to work in medicine to help his home country. But as he said goodbye Friday to his friends scattered around Greensboro and High Point, he just wanted to remain calm.

"Are you nervous?" someone asked Jok as he parked himself in a UNCG hallway, talking to friends.

"Yeah," he responded, laughing. "A little bit."

He'll stay for a month in Sudan. He'll take pictures, see friends and buy a cow for a celebration. Then he'll come back and finish his education at UNCG.

Jok suspects his mom may know about his journey. But she hasn't heard from him that he's coming, not even a mention. Why? Jok has his reasons. Good reasons.

"People gave her news that I was dead, and she didn't know where I was, and all she knew was children went to Ethiopia. And she thought I might be there," he says. "So, if I didn't tell her, I'd show up and it would all come to - complete."

Or closure. Jok wants to see his life's journey come full circle, and he believes this trip will do just that.

He's one of the Lost Boys of Sudan, the 30,000 boys sent adrift by Sudan's bloody civil war nearly two decades ago. They all have seared into their brains images that no one, let alone a child, should have seen.

Ask Jok about that day in 1987 , and he'll recount it, in his quiet voice, like a scene of a movie. For him, it's still real.

The boom, boom, boom of guns. The four days in the bush. The images of huts burning, people screaming, an older man running covered in blood.

And the monthlong walk toward Ethiopia. Jok, barefoot and naked, was carried by his father's friend, or he walked in the middle of a line that stretched for miles.

They walked at night to avoid government soldiers, guided only by moonlight, a touch on someone's shoulder, a grasp of someone's clothing. Jok heard screams, and when he did, he knew someone was getting attacked by lions or hyenas.

And the whole time, as he walked, Jok wondered if he would be next.

When Jok made it to the refugee camp, he heard someone tell him, "You'll see your parents in a month."

That didn't happen. Jok spent 15 years in refugee camps in Ethiopia, Sudan and Kenya. He never saw his mother, his two older sisters or his younger brother. His father was kidnapped in 1985 and killed. So he didn't have much hope. Neither did his family.

It wasn't until 2005 - four years after an evangelical group known as World Relief brought Jok and other Lost Boys to High Point - that Jok heard his mom's voice on the telephone.

"Mom, is that you?"

"Yes," she responded. "But is that you?"

Since then, Jok has talked constantly with his mother, sometimes for four hours, as often as every other day. Since then, he has sent money home to pay for his brother's education and his mother's treatment for typhoid and cataracts.

But like any college student, Jok is far from rich. He's saddled with $23,000 in loans, sometimes working two jobs - including as a security guard and a lab technician - to pay for his education.

In October 2007 , Jok became an American citizen. Last month, he voted. Meanwhile, his American friends gave him money and their frequent flier miles so he could make the trip home - something he has wanted to do since he first heard his mom's voice.

Her name is Aluel (pronounced a-LU-el), and she's in her 60s. That's all he knows.

"I finally get to see the woman who brought me here, but it'll be very difficult," he says. "I'm trying to make sense of it in my heart, but I can't. But when I get there, I'll know. I'll really know."

Contact Jeri Rowe at 373-7374 or jeri.rowe@news-record.com