尼奥克是1980年代末期逃离苏丹内战的20000名“失落男孩”（”Lost Boys“）之一。当时，为躲避暴力，他长途跋涉，穿过埃塞俄比亚和乌干达，最终到达肯尼亚的一个联合国难民营，成为那里的万名难民之一。

在这个难民营，尼奥克第一次遇到了美国外交官。他记得，他们对待他的方式让他感到“有尊严，受尊重”。

经过与联合国和美国官员的一系列面谈，尼奥克成为大约4000名获得美国庇护的 “失落男孩”中的一个。

他在弗吉尼亚州(Virginia)的一个寄养家庭开始了新的生活，并以优异成绩提前从中学毕业。随后，他从弗吉尼亚联邦大学(Virginia Commonwealth University)获得经济学和国际关系的双学士学位。

但是，适应美国的生活并不容易。先从语言来说：尼奥克会讲英语，但有时仍听不懂当地人说话，别人有时候也听不懂他的口音。

还有其他方面需要适应。

他说：“在苏丹和东非，年轻人在与权威或长辈说话时，不直接目视他们的眼睛。” 他说，而在美国，直视别人的目光是一种尊重的表示。

尼奥克说：“所幸我在[中学]足球队里有美国朋友，所以也没花太长时间就完全或几乎完全适应了。”

如今，尼奥克正在学习西班牙语，为去委内瑞拉的加拉加斯(Caracas)美国大使馆工作作准备，这是得到的国务院的第一项工作任命。

他表示：“我希望能成为一名好外交官，尽职工作，尽全力为我的国家服务。我希望能够激励其他年青人，不仅仅是美国新移民，也包括那些早已成为美国公民的人。”

 
This ‘Lost Boy’ is now a U.S. diplomat

In 2001, 15-year-old Sudanese refugee Gai Nyok arrived in the United States. In September 2015, he was preparing to represent his adopted land as a newly minted diplomat.

Nyok was one of 20,000 “Lost Boys” who fled the Sudanese civil war in the late 1980s. To escape the violence, he trekked through Ethiopia and Uganda before joining 100,000 other refugees in Kenya at a U.N. refugee camp.

In that camp, Nyok first met his first American diplomats. They treated him “with dignity, with respect,” Nyok recalls.

After a series of interviews with the U.N. and U.S. officials, Nyok was one of about 4,000 Lost Boys granted asylum in the U.S.

He lived with a foster family in Virginia and graduated early from secondary school with excellent grades. Nyok then earned a dual undergraduate degree in economics and international relations from Virginia Commonwealth University.

But adjusting to life in America wasn’t easy. Start with the language: Nyok spoke English but sometimes struggled to understand local accents, and people sometimes struggled with his.

There were other adjustments.

“In Sudan and East Africa, young people, when they speak to somebody of authority or someone who is an elder, people do not look at them in the eye,” he said. In America, it’s a sign of respect to look people in the eye, he said.

“But luckily, I had my American friends on the [secondary school] soccer team, so it did not take too long before I was completely or almost completely adjusted,” Nyok said.

Today, Nyok is learning Spanish as he prepares for his first State Department assignment — to the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela.

“I hope to be a good Foreign Service officer, to be able to do my job and serve my country in the best way that I can,” he said. “I hope to be able to inspire other young people, not just new Americans, but people who have been American for a long time.”