A chance meeting between a future Weill Cornell Medical College (WCMC) student and a security guard in Syracuse, N.Y., not only has led to the creation of a Cornell group that hopes to provide support to a medical clinic in Sudan, but also recently brought one of the "lost boys" of Sudan to WCMC as part of its Humanities and Medicine program.

In 1987, John Bul Dau was forced to flee his Dinka tribe in Sudan as northern, government-backed Sudanese soldiers swept southward, systematically attacking villages and slaughtering or enslaving entire families, he told an audience at WCMC Jan. 3. Dau found himself among roughly 20,000 orphaned boys roaming the tribal countryside evading thirst, starvation, wild animals and disease -- in addition to marauding soldiers. He would spend the next two decades fleeing and rebuilding his life on a path across three continents as one of thousands of "lost boys" who were eventually relocated to the United States.

Dau and film director Christopher Dillon Quinn spoke about their film, "God Grew Tired of Us," which follows Dau and two other "lost boys" on their remarkable journey from refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya to suburban life in Syracuse and Pittsburgh, Pa. The film, which won both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, was screened in WCMC's Uris Auditorium.

Dau's leadership is central to both the film and the greater family of "lost boys" now living in the United States. As tens of thousands of boys coalesced in southern Sudan and began their trek, Dau, only 13 at the time, was elected to lead 1,200 boys -- most no more than 5 or 6 years old. Since relocating to the United States, Dau has written a memoir and founded the American Care for Sudan Foundation. He is currently director of the Sudan Project at Direct Change, which raises funds for work in southern Sudan.

The film and Dau were brought to Weill Cornell by first-year medical student Dan Friedman, who met Dau while working over his summer vacations as a mental health counselor in the psychiatric emergency program at St. Joseph's Hospital in Syracuse, where Dau was a security guard. Over lunches and at night, Friedman and Dau would talk about meeting girls, life in Sudan and, eventually, Dau's dream of starting a clinic in Duk County in southern Sudan.

"After arriving [in the United States], we got huge help -- we didn't know how to cook, grocery shop or go to work, and people helped us," said Dau. "I thought, 'Do I want to be just receiving, not giving?' I knew it would be good to give." Since then, the American Care for Sudan Foundation, headed by Dau, has been formed with the support of U.S., Sudanese and Norwegian organizations, and with the help of churches, to build the Duk Lost Boys Clinic, which is expected to open this year.

Like many who have met Dau, Friedman found his life changed. He has since started Cornell Health Advocates for Southern Sudan with other students and Weill Cornell faculty to provide support for the Lost Boys Clinic -- and has begun entertaining the idea of a career in international medicine. "It just kind of happened that I met this very special person," Friedman said. "He's very modest, but he blows me away. I wanted to get involved."

During a question-and-answer session following the film screening, Dau's charge to students and faculty on hand was characteristically modest: "Spread the word. Be a citizen of the world."