Uganda

After spending 3 days in Ethiopia, Joel and Adam flew to Kampala, Uganda. Right after getting off the plane, they met up with a friend and drove 10 hours to a small village in northern Uganda.

The people here are extremely poor and are trying to recover from a 20-some year long war. The history is very sad and the war in northern Uganda has been called the most neglected humanitarian emergency in the world.

Since 1986 there has been conflict between the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the government of Uganda (GOU). But it is the children that have suffered the most! LRA leader, Joseph Kony, has built his army mainly through violently abducting children. It is estimated that 30,000 to 66,000 children have been kidnapped and forced to terrorize others!

If hearing about this doesn't make you angry, then I don't know what will. If hearing about this doesn't break your heart, then I don't know what will. Can you imagine your own child being violently kidnapped and forced to become a child soldier!? Can you just imagine the horrible things these children have endured!?

Just because these aren't our "own" children does that mean we should care any less? Does that mean we should love them any less? Why should it be any different just because these children are half way around the world and we aren't confronted with their terrible suffering everyday? We don't see them everyday, we don't know about how much they are suffering, what they have to live through every.single.day. We can just go back to our normal every-day lives and just ignore them and pretend they don't exist. But they do exist. And God knows their suffering, and God hears their cries!

How can we possibly hear about things like this and just go back to our normal life? Why doesn't this anger us! Why doesn't this make us want to do something, to help in whatever way we can, to spend money, time, all our resources?! Why don't we care about the things that are on God's heart? Because let me tell you something, God's heart is for the orphan, the widow, the oppressed, the destitute, the sick, the lost, the dying, the poor! If we aren't caring about the things on His heart then do we really even know Jesus?