Action of the People

I just watched a powerful YouTube movie on the Invisible Children.  These are children of Uganda who are being captured by Joseph Kony for a secret army.  Young children are being turned into fighters and killers while their sisters are becoming sex slaves.  It had to realize that this is occurring in the 21st century, but here it is.  Many people believed slavery ended years ago, but there are places in this world where slavery is the very truth of life.  It is just as we read in the American history books.  People are captured from one place and sold to a person as property.  I am amazed by some of the reports in the movie that were made, but at the root I am more amazed at who is not standing up for these children.

I am a Presbyterian minister.  I serve in a denomination that fights for the rights of people around the world.  We have had boycotts on Taco Bell to support tomato pickers in Florida.  There is a Presbyterian Coffee project to help coffee growers get a fair price on their coffee.  Yet, I have never heard of the Invisible Children or Joseph Kony from the leadership of my denomination.  It took a post by someone on Facebook to enlighten me to the plight of the these children.  Who is it that is raising this awareness?  Who is raising the funds to get the #1 international criminal off the streets?  It was a group of young people who went and saw the plight of these children.  They heard their cry and responded by getting others to listen, getting Congressional members and the president to hear them.

I am frustrated because the Presbyterian Church has focused on issues in my lifetime.  I mentioned some of the big ones above.  So many problems seem to go unnoticed by the leadership.  We have called for a decade and century of the child, but here are God's children wishing to die rather than living in fear.  The message and hope of Jesus Christ is not being given to these young people. 

This might just be why young people are not coming to the church.  We are not responding to the needs of people and spreading the heart of Christ.  And, we are being a little hypocritical.  What I struggle with is the fact of how much faster the process could have been to help the children of Uganda.  The network and finances would have been in place and we could have used offices already established.  But no matter, the children are being helped.  I just hope when we cry out, God will not turn a deaf ear to us as we have to others.