They Come Back Singing: Finding God with the Refugees

For years, Gary Smith, a Jesuit priest, led a familiar life in the Pacific Northwest. Then, one day in 2000, he left that life behind to spend six years among Sudanese refugees struggling to survive in refugee camps in northern Uganda. He traveled to this dangerous, pitiless place to be with these forsaken people out of a conviction that “Jesuits should be going where no one else goes.”
Smith’s journal is a vivid, inspiring account of the deep connections he forged during his life-changing experience with the Sudanese refugees in Uganda. Along the way, he discovered a suffering people who, despite being displaced by a brutal civil war, find the strength to let go of the many and deep sorrows of the past.
Ultimately, They Come Back Singing is a window to the spiritual life and growth of a priest whose generous spirit and genuine love allow him to serve—and be served—in truly extraordinary ways.

Gary Smith, SJ, worked for six years with the Jesuit Refugee Service in Sudanese refugee camps in Uganda. He is the author of They Come Back Singing, a journal of his time in Uganda, Radical Compassion, an account of his ministry to the poor and disabled in Portland, Oregon, and Street Journal.