A Story of War, Adoption, and the Purpose Found in Between

STOLEN CHILDHOOD

Peacefully asleep in his family’s Liberian home, seven-year-old Cammué (whose name was later changed to “Jackson”) was awakened by an explosion. A civil war was raging in Liberia, and rebels had come to his village. “The smell of gasoline fills my nose and smoke clouds my vision as the sounds of war erupt around me. Guns firing. Bombs exploding. Women screaming for their children, who yell back in terror. I cover my ears, trying to block the awful cries of girls being raped, of bodies being chopped with machetes,” Jackson painfully recalls. He didn’t know where his parents or siblings were, and started to panic. “A gurgling sound comes from high above me outside as rebels pour gasoline over our scrap metal roof. I’m still inside when my home bursts into flames.”