In Northern Uganda there is a war that has been going on for 21 years now, making it the longest running war in Africa. The LRA, a rebel army, has been kidnapping children to make them into child soldiers so regularly for the last decade that children of all ages flee for miles every night to get to a safe haven where they can sleep, only to repeat the process the next night. In an attempt to guard it’s people, the Ugandan government evicted 1.5 million people from their homes and placed them in displacement camps – ten years ago. Due to corruption, lack of funds, overcrowding and a dozen other issues, these camps are now one of the worst humanitarian crisis’ in the world. What clean water there is is miles away, food is scarce, disease is rampant, and there is almost no education with which to train new doctors, teachers, builders, farmers, or any other essential roles in a society.
A few years ago three teenage guys with an aptitude for film making discovered this, made a movie, and started a movement called Invisible Children. Last April they held an event all accross the US called the Global Night Commute, where people did for one night what the children of Uganda do every night – they walked to a designated area in their city to sleep on the ground. While there, they listened to speakers, wrote letters to politicians, and rose awareness for the situation in Uganda. 80 000 people came out to do it. Two months later, the US got involved in peace talks in Uganda.
Last weekend myself and 4 others went down to Seattle to attend ‘Displace Me’, where we all entered a simulation displacement camp for a night, sleeping in cardboard houses, writing letters demanding more plans be put in place to help the people of Northern Uganda, and doing some activities that gave us an idea of what daily life has been like over the last decade for these people.
There were a thousand thoughts and experiences from this I could write about, but the one I’m going with is hope.
Not just how inspiring it is to see a person born with AIDs maintain hope for something better and aspiring to become a doctor in order to help others like her. Not just the hope I have that things will change in Uganda. And not just the hope being brought to the people of Uganda by programs like Invisible Children’s ‘Schools for Schools’. What hit me about this event was that of the 4 or 5 thousand people at the Seattle location for this, I was among the older crowd. The fact that my generation and even more so the one behind mine are already stepping out and saying enough is enough, that we are willing to fight for justice in this world – THAT gives me hope. It’ll take more than a night out, we know that. Not all of us can go, not all of us can send funds, but we can all do SOMETHING by talking about it, demanding change, and refusing to just remain apathetic to the needs of this world. That so many already recognize this at a young age, that so many feel this calling whether they recognize it as a calling or not, THAT gave me hope. So often I feel like there are so few of us with God’s compassion for people on our hearts and I get discouraged, thinking I’m being pushed back faster than I can push forward, but last weekend showed me that that’s not true, and that believer and non-believer can stand united when it comes to doing what’s right. When we join in one voice, we can be heard. And if three teenage film makers can have such impact on one country, how much more will our world race team have going out with God at our head?
This is my hope, my dream, and my heart. I’m not alone in this fight. And though I can’t save everyone that needs saving, I can do something to save some. This is why I’m a world racer – to see God change this world. And maybe I’ll even get to see Him change Uganda first hand.
