Chris Garang, who settled in Tucson after being plucked from a refugee camp in Africa and flown to the United States, has become a U.S. citizen and a certified nursing assistant. Garang, who will soon be testing to become a licensed practical nurse, plans a return visit in May to Sudan, where he intends to provide medical supplies to a clinic.

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There is a calm, a serenity about Chris Garang that belies his life. When he was 7, his village in southern Sudan was attacked by Arab Muslims from the northern part of the country, tearing Garang away from his parents and younger brother, perhaps forever.

For the next 11 years, he would endure banishment, bombings, starvation and disease, earning him yet another name: Lost Boy.

Orphaned or separated from their families after the fighting broke out between the Islamic government and the Sudanese People's Liberation Army in the mid-1980s, the Lost Boys, numbering in the thousands, spent years wandering in the wilderness or living in refugee camps.

Garang, now 23, was no different. But he was one of the lucky ones.

In April 2001, he was plucked from a Kenyan refugee camp in Kakuma and flown to the United States, settling in Tucson.

Since then, he's gone to school, gotten a job and become a U.S. citizen.

"This is my home now," he says in the soft, singsong English he learned in the refugee camps.

Still, his other home, the one he was forced out of so long ago as a little boy from the Dinka tribe, keeps calling him back.

This May, Garang, who for years has worked in a Tucson nursing home, will return to Sudan, by way of Nairobi, Kenya.

There, he hopes to buy $10,000 worth of medical supplies — everything from first-aid kits to anti-malarial drugs to aspirin to wound dressings.

The supplies will be shipped by the relief organization Heart to Heart International to a clinic in Akon, Sudan, a feeding center for 93,000 refugees.

Garang plans to work at the clinic for the rest of his month in Africa before returning to Tucson.

He's well-suited for the task.

A certified nursing assistant who will soon be testing to become a licensed practical nurse, Garang hopes someday to become a registered nurse.

While taking more than two years' worth of classes at Pima Community College and at Pima Medical Institute, he continued to work full time at the Posada del Sol nursing home, most recently in its secured behavioral unit.

The work is neither easy nor uplifting. Even so, the "patients just love him. He's so kind and tender-hearted," says Suzanne Reinecker, the nursing home's operations manager.

He's also a rock, she adds. "Some of the staff won't take certain shifts. Not Chris. Every time he's asked to do something, he just does it."

If there is time while in Sudan, Garang will look for his family members, though he has no inkling if they are alive or dead.

Letters he sent from the refugee camps to the village where he last lived with his family were all returned, unopened.

Before the bloodletting began, his father was a teacher; his mother, a midwife.

Garang still remembers his last night with his family, the night his village was attacked.

"My brother and I went to bed. My mom and dad went to their bed. I woke up in the middle of the night. I heard gunfire. The goats were screaming.

"I got up and saw a big flame. The house was on fire. I did not see my parents. My brother and I fled in two different directions. I ran to the bushes. I never saw any of them again."

Even so, Garang is no longer without family.

About four years ago, Tucsonan Carol Tierney, 74, started doing volunteer work with the Lost Boys, taking them to appointments and enlisting members of her church to donate furniture and household items for their apartment.

"I shouldn't be saying this, but in meeting them all, I liked Chris best," says Tierney.

In no time at all, Garang was invited to various gatherings involving the Tierney family, which includes Carol, husband Bill and their six grown children and 19 grandkids — most but not all living in Tucson.

It didn't take long before Garang became yet another member of this family, whose matriarch he now calls "Mom."

"He has taught us so much about accepting faith and helping others no matter what you have gone through," says Carol Tierney. "And our grandchildren also understand more of what is going on over there."

They wanted to help Chris get back to Africa, too.

When granddaughter Carly Cutshaw turned 13 last October, she invited 40 friends, including Garang, to her party.

"My whole class came," says Carly. "I asked them for donations for Chris, instead of presents. We raised $500."

Carly's brother, Chris Cutshaw, is a freshman at Salpointe Catholic High School. He is also a member of the Salpointe Charity Coalition, formed last fall after students in a social justice class viewed a documentary about children in Africa.

When Carol Tierney heard about the club, she arranged for Garang to speak at a meeting, says Mike Meaney, co-founder and president of the club.

"Everybody was pretty stunned," says Meaney. "He had seen his best friends eaten by lions."

Before long, the club was focusing its efforts toward getting Garang back to Africa. In October, members held a carwash that raised $600.

"Chris worked the hardest of anybody," says Meaney, whose club is planning several more fundraisers before Garang departs.

In October, Garang also traveled to Kansas to meet with members of JumpStart Sudan (jumpstartsudan.org), a nonprofit organization that provides humanitarian aid to the Sudanese people.

Based in Olathe and founded by Lost Boy Akot Lual Arec, the organization is in the midst of building a new clinic in Akon, where Garang is heading.

"He's following in Akot's footsteps," says Debra Ross, president of JumpStart Sudan.

Like so many others, she was overwhelmed when she heard Arec's Lost Boy story.

"I said I would be his American mom," says Ross, whose church raised enough money to send Arec on a trip back to his home "to see if anyone was still alive."

From there, they came up with the name and mission of JumpStart Sudan.

This is also the organization that Garang is using to handle his fundraising efforts. "Every penny he gets," says Ross.

Meanwhile, Garang is still spreading the word.

In December, he spoke at a luncheon for the Phoenix law firm where Dan Quigley, son-in-law of Bill and Carol Tierney, is a partner.

"Everybody came up and talked to me. They were interested in helping," says Garang, who received more than $2,000 in donations.

While in Phoenix, Garang also was handed a check for $100 by yet another grandchild, Shannon Tierney, 18, a high school senior living in Phoenix.

"She has a part-time job, and this was from her earnings," says Carol Tierney, who spends much of her time ferrying Garang to various appearances and helping him with his presentations.

That was the case last month when Garang also spoke to employees of Pima Medical Institute, where he graduated in 2004.

"We have an alumni coordinator. Her job is to build a network of alumni, learn about their stories," says Dick Luebke Jr., CEO of Pima Medical Institute.

"When this one came back to us, we thought, 'How did we miss this?' "

And so Luebke invited Garang to tell his story. "I had more employees come up to me afterward and tell me, 'My troubles seemed to melt away,' " says Luebke.

He also gave Garang a check from Pima Medical Institute for $1,000, along with the promise to match other donations "out in the community," dollar for dollar, up to $10,000 in total, using JumpStart Sudan as a conduit.

"Our goal is to get this kid to Africa."