KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A man who left Africa as a child nearly 30 years ago with other Lost Boys of Sudan recently learned his mother still is alive, and he wants to return to Sudan to see her.

Joseph Taban Rufino, who lives in Kansas City, was 11 years old when he and a neighbor fled as fighting erupted in his hometown between northern Islamic forces and southern Christian rebel fighters.

"She told me she was not going to risk having me go back home to find my mother," Rufino told The Kansas City Star. "She said we would meet up with her ahead."

That was nearly three decades ago. Rufino believed his mother and entire family were dead, and became one of the 20,000 Lost Boys of Sudan who walked barefoot for months across deserts and mountains seeking safety in Ethiopia. He made it to a refugee camp where he stayed five years, attending high school. That ended when militia chased the refugees from Ethiopia.

He resettled in 1992 in Kenya, where he spent nine more years in another refugee camp and worked as a medical assistant.

In 2001, after watching thousands of Lost Boys airlifted from the camp by the U.S. State Department, the Don Bosco Center brought him and 30 other Lost Boys to Kansas City.

Rufino, who speaks English, Arabic and Swahili, has spent more than 11 years in Kansas City working mostly low-paying jobs. He still hopes to go to college.

Last year, a friend found his mother, Perina Rufino, in Sudan, and she and her son finally were able to speak online. Supporters are hoping to raise about $20,000 to send Joseph Rufino to see his mother.

"Even though I was so young the last time I heard her voice, when I heard it again I recognized that is my parent, and I really cried," Rufino said.

She wanted to know when he would come to see her. "As soon as I can," he said.