Kony2012

Like the rest of America and all across the world wherever Facebook is used, our family watched the Kony2012 video two nights ago. What a well done film.  What a moving video!  I think something like 45 million people have viewed it so far.  Amazing.  I am so proud and heartened by my 13 year old daughter, Ruthie, and my 11 year old son, Sam, who were touched and inspired to "do something" to help after watching this video.

The timing of the video's release, for our children, really couldn't have been better.  It highlighted some of the reasons, in a roundabout way, as to why on earth we would leave Kerrville, TX to go and work in Rwanda.  (No, we aren't going to fight the LRA.  But yes, we hope to do what we can to help, and to share the love of Jesus.)  Yes, there are many, many ways to minister here in Texas.  And there is SO MUCH, and SO MANY DEAR PEOPLE we will miss.

But, there is great need in Africa, and as Tim said before, "If I leave Kerrville, there are many doctors who will take my place.  But World Medical Mission has been listing a critical need for a surgeon in Rwanda for many, many years.  I'm sure someone else would go if I didn't, but the fact is, I believe God wants me to go.  The pool of available surgeons is much smaller in countries like Rwanda than in the US."

I know nothing about the Invisible Children organization, except that it just helped bring lots of awareness about a part of the world that has great need to a part of the world that has great wealth and who could be used in a big way to help.  That is a very good thing!  I was, however, disturbed to read in Atlantic Monthly, and in quite a few other places that, by their own account, Invisible Children only uses 1/3 of the funds they raise to actually accomplish their goals.  That's not a very good financial track record for a non-profit organization.  There are many other organizations out there who spend their money a lot more .... efficiently.

But, I really am a "know nothing" on this topic, so I shouldn't say any more.  As a mom, I'm thankful for the video.  It brought an important conversation to the cafeteria tables in my local Jr. High and High School.  How awesome is it that the adults of tomorrow are now talking and thinking about how they can help children in Africa in addition to their everyday conversations about the latest trends, styles, music and who is dating whom?  Not that I'm against styles and trends and romance, but how awesome that they're thinking about how to love their global neighbor!  That's wonderful.  No way around it.  It is just wonderful.  I'm proud of and encouraged by our kids, who so desperately want to help others.  That is so cool.

I woke up to read a post written by a medical doctor who, until very recently, lived in Uganda for 17 years.  She now lives in Kenya.  While I am a no-nothing about Kony and Africa, etc., she certainly is a know-something!  Her thoughts are worth listening to.  She's lived all of this.

http://paradoxuganda.blogspot.com/

  To entice you to go and read her entire post, I've copy/pasted some of the quotes that hit home hardest for me.  But don't do the post the injustice of only reading what I've copied!  Most of this is directly quoted from her blog, but the few words in parentheses ( ) are words I added for clarification, since I've copied only snippets which sometimes don't make sense out of context.

Thank you, Jennifer, for these thoughful comments on Kony2012:

"First, what I LIKE about Invisible Children.......

Eight million children die in the world every year.  Four million of those deaths occur in Africa, invisibly to most of the rest of the world.  The people with money and power and weapons and decisions are not often confronted with the most significant realities of our current time.  So when talented passionate young people with resources pour their lives into making the invisible visible, that is a step towards change.  We are a global community and the voices of the most vulnerable will not be heard, their faces will not be seen, unless someone with cameras and internet access and computers and the ability to write and speak in widely accessible languages, takes time and money to do so.  When Jesus was walking around Palestine, he stopped to touch and listen to and heal very marginalized people, often to the dismay of his supporters.  The Lord's Resistance Army has left a decade-long trail of abduction, murder, rape, arson, enslavement, war, and chaos in a swathe across central Africa. ..........

Invisible Children has brought this story to the world.  And has used some of the resultant revenue for tangible good. ........ My own daughter Julia slept in a dorm built by the Invisible Children organization at a school in Gulu when her Ugandan football team played in a national tournament there.  She was the same age as most abductees.  I was thankful for the solid walls and doors that kept her safe at night.


(But....)

I give the creative team some benefit of doubt, perhaps this helps a wider audience relate to the problem.  But for me it was too cutesy, to trivializing.  One "bad guy" is not the root cause of the problem.  Kony only continues to survive, and perhaps thrive, because the issues he feeds on are broader and deeper.  .....   Adults  join rebel movements when they are desperate.  You don't find the well-off taking those risks.  It's easier to believe the "other" tribe is a danger to your survival when your survival hangs by a thread. Poverty and fear are the context for the LRA, and those are complex problems that require life-long investment.  Perhaps life-ending investment.  Jesus defeated evil by laying down his life.  Christians today can not defeat evil by pushing a share button or attending a fundraiser.  Those are good things, but at some level a bigger sacrifice is required.  To build schools and bring clean water, to protect the widow and orphan, to care for the environment creatively so that food and fuel are adequate to sustain life, to embody the love of Jesus in a way that the poor can hear and see and touch and be transformed.  I know this sounds hard, and I don't mean it to sound self-righteous.  We struggle with this issues, with our natural tendency to walk across the road and ignore the beat-up man on the ground.  I hope the excitement and awareness of this generation will propel hundreds and thousands to turn away from a life devoted to comfort and enter into the hard and dangerous work of teaching and healing and preaching.  It won't be easy, or quick.  Real solutions rarely are.

Children join rebel movements against their will, but then they stay.  Because they've been traumatically psychologically injured and enslaved in a way that is powerful and binding.  They are targeted because this is only possible with humans who are at critical formative stages of development.  Removing Kony from his position of leadership is a good thing.  But there are tens of thousands of children who are now in their teens and 20's, who need reconciliation with their communities.  Who need land and jobs and homes and an alternate way of life.  This requires counselors, teachers, medical people, artists, parental influences, pastors.

(However....)

It's always easy to find something to criticize when 32 million people jump on a bandwagon.  I won't say much here, but there is one issue I can't ignore.  Many of the critical comments imply that the UPDF, the Ugandan army, is just as bad the LRA.  Having been personally rescued from rebels by the UPDF, I have to say this is not a fair comparison.  They have done some bad things, as has the American military.  But as African armies go, I would rather meet the UPDF in a remote jungle than any other I can think of.  Ugandan political decisions have taken a bad turn in the last couple of years in suppressing dissent.  And whenever you have young men with guns some bad things will happen.  But the UPDF is a force of stability, working in harsh conditions, with minimal resources.  They are in no way comparable to the LRA which only exists to prey upon innocent civilians.  That said, supporting the UPDF has little impact on Kony now.  They must stay vigilant, but in reality Kony has fled far from even the border of Uganda for many years now.  It is really an African Union issue.

(In summary....)


Jesus and politics do mix, just not in the way most think.  Jesus was a politically challenging figure.  It is good for Christians to think about and involve themselves in issues like war and international courts and school buildings and media.  But we shouldn't confuse our American ideals with Christian truths.  Sometimes they are parallel, but often they are not.  Even as Jesus lived on earth, much of what he said was politically shocking and confusing to his followers and detractors alike.

Let us follow in (Jesus') steps, into harm's way, to spotlight injustice, to walk alongside the suffering, to lend whatever gifts God has blessed us with to bless others.  And let us remember that our real enemy is not Kony, but the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms, the forces that will only be overcome by prayer and service, by the blood of Jesus and the living word and testimony of His followers who do not love their lives unto death (Rev. 12:11)." ~ from Jennifer Myhre's blog, www.paradoxuganda.blogspot.com.