"Fear is an understatement"

Those powerful words are sticking with me from a film we watched as part of my Discipleship Training School. A Ugandan government official made that statement regarding the lives of children who are abducted and forced to fight as part of the Lord's Resistance Army.

We watched the short American documentary "Invisible Children", made by three young men in 2003 who traveled to Africa to learn more about the situation in Sudan, and ended up telling the stories of children in Uganda.

The images were tough to watch. Thousands of children forced to sleep on a bus depot floor after running away from home, for fear the LRA was coming to get them. Arms and legs tangled together for the night. Waking up before dawn to roll up their sleeping towel which is essentially their only belonging.

But what left me challenged was how to fix this problem. Being a pacifist, I think peace is both the goal and the method in which to reach it. So how do we stop a rebel group from hunting down children so they can brainwash them to be killers?

I don't have the answer.

Also today, we heard from an Australian soldier/base chaplain.  He talked to us about being diligent in our faith so that we can be ready for anything with instinct. I know that we are sometimes referred to as "Christian Soldiers" because there is an eternal/spiritual battle happening around us. I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about it. Because I think that we are called to peace, not war. Maybe that's just against other 'men', and we should be ready to 'fight' Satan's attempts to steer us away from God.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) begins our first real day of lectures. And our base director - Dave Neibling - will be kicking it all off. Interestingly enough, I am now his personal assistant as my work duty on base. I was hoping for kitchen, but was placed in the base office and chose the assistant task over just the basic office help. Not only will I be a help to Dave, but he's letting me have personal use of his office if I need quiet time (an extra blessing he calls it!) and I'm really hoping to learn a lot from him.

***
This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn't go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again.  John 3:16-17 (The Message)