阿尔索·彼得·朱阿在19岁的时候为了逃离利比里亚的内战，乘坐火车去了几内亚。

他一点也没料到，这趟旅程会让他历经八个国家，并在14年之后带着他的印尼妻子重回家乡。

1992年，阿尔索离家后的生活过得很艰难，所以他很快就离弃了他儿时去参加聚会的基督复临安息日教会。

在一家慈善机构的帮助下，他才完成了他在几内亚的学业，但是最后他发现自己无家可归。于是他用他能想到的一切办法来挣钱，他卖过海洛因、骗别人的钱，也洗过钱。

 一年后，他渴望遇到新的机遇，因此他非法购买了几内亚的护照，然后搬去了塞内加尔。四年中，他卖海洛因、骗人钱财并洗黑钱。为了获得更多的机遇，他又去了突尼斯，之后去了约旦、印度、泰国以及印度尼西亚。在所去的每个国家，他都卖毒品、骗财并洗黑钱。挣够维持生活的钱后，他就搬去别的地方。他发现钱什么都买得到，包括他去其它地方所需要的签证。

在印度尼西亚的首都雅加达，阿尔索开始思索生命的意义。他想起来以前在安息日去教会，他的良心过不去，因为他知道他没有遵守上帝的诫命。有一天，当他在和一个陌生的西班牙人打台球的时候提到了上帝，结果这个陌生人就邀请他下周日去拜访他的教会。有个来自美国的传教士是这个周日教会的领袖，当他听完阿尔索的故事后，他提议帮他交房租。但是作为交换，他要在教会的场地工作，并且管理教会的音响设备。

阿尔索一直在想关于安息日的问题。于是他找到了一个复临教会的地址，开始参加每个安息日的敬拜，同时他周日仍在另一个教会工作。因为他只是高中毕业，他渴望上大学，但是似乎没人能帮助他。周日教会没帮他，复临教会也没帮他，不过他们帮他重新联系上他在利比里亚的父母。逃离利比里亚后，他就没和他们通过话了。

三年后，周日教会不再帮助他。阿尔索又开始卖毒品、骗人和洗黑钱了。但是在那时候，他生命中发生了一件重要的事，他结婚了。在周日教会工作的时候，他爱上了传道人管家的亲戚瓦斯缇娜。

一段时间后，阿尔索又有这种想要寻求新机遇的熟悉渴望，所以他又搬去了中国。四个月后，他邀请他妻子也过去。在中国的时候，他又开始思索上帝，并且在一家书店找到了一本英文版的《圣经》。一天，他的目光落到了传道书1:2，上面写到“虚空的虚空，凡事都是虚空。”

“我的生活充满了空虚，”他想到，“我要回家，回非洲。”

在2006年，他和瓦斯缇娜飞向了利比里亚。回家后，他和父母的重聚充满了泪水。他把他的心交给了耶稣，并且每个安息日都会去教会。瓦斯缇娜后来也与他同去，一段时间后，她也接受了耶稣。

如今，阿尔索在布坎南当伐木工，瓦斯缇娜在他们住的房子前面摆摊卖米、油及其它生活物品。他们有三个孩子，分别是12、8和5岁。阿尔索总是随时准备与他人分享上帝在他生命中的恩典。

“敬畏耶和华是智慧的开端，”他说，“但我感到愧疚的时候，心中就油然而生对耶和华的敬畏，他使我充满智慧。”

Long Road Back Home

Long Road Back Home

At the age of 19, Alphanso Peter Juah fled civil war in Liberia by boarding a train and traveling to Guinea.

Little did he know that the trip would take him to eight countries and that he would return home with an Indonesian wife 14 years later.

Times were tough when Alphanso left in 1992, and he quickly abandoned the Seventh-day Adventist Church of his childhood.

With the help of a humanitarian agency, he finished his studies in Guinea but then found himself homeless. He resorted to any scheme that he could think of to earn money. He sold heroin. He tricked people out of money. He laundered money.

After a year, he longed for new opportunities, so he illegally bought a Guinean passport and moved to Senegal. For four years, he sold heroin, tricked people out of money, and laundered money. Seeking more opportunities, he traveled to Tunisia and then to Jordan, India, Thailand, and Indonesia. In each country, he sold drugs, tricked people, and laundered money, earning enough to live on and to move to the next place. He found money could buy anything, including visas to pursue his travels.

In Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, Alphanso began to think hard about life. He remembered attending church on Sabbaths. He felt bad because he knew that he wasn’t obeying God’s commandments. One day, he spoke about God while playing pool with a Spanish stranger. The stranger invited him to visit his church the next Sunday. The U.S. missionary who led the Sunday church listened to Alphanso’s story and offered to help pay his house rent. In exchange, Alphanso worked on the church grounds and managed its sound system.

Alphanso kept thinking about the Sabbath. He found the address of an Adventist church and began to attend worship services every Sabbath while still working at the other church on Sundays. With only a high-school education, he longed to study at a university, but no one seemed able to assist him. The Sunday church didn’t help. The Adventists also didn’t help, but they did reconnect him with his parents in Liberia. He hadn’t spoken with them since fleeing Liberia.

Three years passed, and the Sunday church stopped supporting him. Alphanso returned to selling drugs, tricking people, and laundering money. But something big happened in his life around that time. He got married. While working at the Sunday church, he had fallen in love with Wastinah, a relative of the missionary’s housekeeper.

After a while, Alphanso felt the familiar desire for new opportunities and moved to China. After four months, he sent for his wife. While in China, his thoughts returned to God, and he found an English-language Bible at a bookstore. One day, his eye fell on Ecclesiastes 1:2, which reads, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”

“My life is filled with vanity,” he thought. “I need to go home to Africa.”

He and Wastinah flew to Liberia in 2006. Back home, he had a tearful reunion with his parents. He gave his heart to Jesus and went to church every Sabbath. Wastinah joined him and, after some time, gave her heart to Jesus.

Today, Alphanso works as a logger in Buchanan, and Wastinah sells rice, oil, and other groceries from a roadside stall in front of their house. They have three children ages 12, 8, and 5. Alphanso readily shares his story about God’s grace in his life.

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” he said. “When I felt guilty, the fear of the Lord emerged in my heart, and He made me wise.”