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What They Meant for Evil by Rebecca Deng
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What They Meant for Evil

How a Lost Girl of Sudan Found Healing, Peace, and Purpose in the Midst of Suffering

$26.23

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Narrator Tsidii Le Loka

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Length 7 hours 18 minutes
Language English
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Many stories have been told about the famous Lost Boys but now, for the first time, a Lost Girl shares her hauntingly beautiful and inspiring story.
One of the first unaccompanied refugee children to enter the United States in 2000, after South Sudan's second civil war took the lives of most of her family, Rebecca's story begins in the late 1980s when, at the age of four, her village was attacked and she had to escape. What They Meant for Evil is the account of that unimaginable journey. With the candor and purity of a child, Rebecca recalls how she endured fleeing from gunfire, suffering through hunger and strength-sapping illnesses, dodging life-threatening predators-lions, snakes, crocodiles, and soldiers alike-that dogged her footsteps, and grappling with a war that stole her childhood.
Her story is a lyrical, captivating portrait of a child hurled into wartime, and how through divine intervention, she came to America and found a new life full of joy, hope, and redemption.

Rebecca Deng, of South Sudan's Dinka tribe, is one of the 89 Lost Girls who came to the United States in 2000 as a refugee after living eight years in Kakuma Refugee Camp in northern Kenya. The violence she experienced as a child during the Second Sudanese Civil War (1983-2005) has given her a deep empathy for children and young adults who face similar situations today. She became a US citizen in 2006.Today Rebecca is an international speaker and advocate for women and children who have been traumatized and victimized by war. She has spoken at the United Nations and served as a Refugee Congress delegate at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Washington DC. She also led a sixty-five person team of referendum workers at the 2011 Out of the Country Voting Center for the South Sudanese Independence Referendum. She currently works with the American Bible Society's Mission Trauma Healing program, formerly called She's My Sister.Rebecca speaks Dinka and English, and understands Swahili, Arabic, and Thai. She has a bachelor's in international development from Calvin College and a master's in ministry leadership from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary. She studied in Thailand with International Sustainable Development Studies Institute (ISDSI) and volunteered in a refugee camp for Burmese families, after which she got her foster family's neighborhood involved in a project to sponsor hill-tribes-minorities refugees from that area.She is married to Jordan Roeda and has three children, Cholie, Deng Jakob, and Leona. She resides with her family in Holland, Michigan, and attends Pillar Church.
Ginger Kolbaba is an award-winning author, editor, and speaker. She has written or contributed to more than 30 books, including The Impossible, Your Best Happily Ever After, and The Old Fashioned Way. She has also written a novel series Secrets from Lulu's Café. She is a contributing editor for Focus on the Family magazine and a regular columnist for Positive Note magazine. She has published more than 500 magazine and online articles. Ginger is the former editor of Today's Christian Woman magazine, Marriage Partnership magazine, and the founding editor of Kyria.com, all award-winning resources of Christianity Today.

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Shop the sale

In celebration of Independent Bookstore Day, shop our limited-time sale on bestselling audiobooks from April 22nd-28th. Don’t miss out—purchases support your local bookstore!

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Celebrate indie bookstores with our limited-time sale! Shop the sale