Invisible Children
Last night I watched "Invisible Children." It is a documentary that three young American guys made about the kids who live in Northern Uganda and in constant fear. They tell the story of the thousands of children that travel to the city every night to seek shelter and safety from the rebel army comprised mostly of other children. The children hide for fear of being abducted/kidnapped and forced to become child soldiers in this rebel army themselves.
The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) are the kidnappers. Their goal is to build power and of course eventually overthrow the government. They have found that the easiest way to build a strong army is to kidnap kids from age 5 to 10 and brainwash them. Many of the kids have lost their parents to AIDS, the Sudanese war, and various other attacks on their villages. The documentary is moving, disturbing, and just what I needed to see.
After a day of watching the commercialism-materialistic-profit-driven Super Bowl (easy now), I needed to be brought back down to earth (groaner pun intended). I came home from some friends' house after the game, turned on the fire, and warmed up in my cozy recliner to watch the movie. My thoughts at this point aren't to make myself or anyone else feel guilty for being so wealthy - my thoughts for now are to simply be reminded of the size of the world and my place in it.
I (we) have been blessed to bless others. For some strange reason, we are some of the wealthiest people in the world. Our job now is to look outside of ourselves to the world around us (including Uganda and downtown Denver) and ask the questions: "What's going on? And what am I to do about it? How can I use what I've been given (education, wealth, etc.) to bless others?"
I've been able to travel a lot and see parts of six continents. I've never been moved more than when I visited Nairobi, Kenya for a summer. There, with a team of college students, we worked with homeless children that literally lived in trash piles. It changed my view of the world and my course in life forever. (I am humbled by Charles and Darlene Coulston, my ultimate heroes in life.)
This quote from photographer, Dan Eldon (killed in Mogadishu in 1993), sums up my thoughts well:
"Once one has been to these challenging terrible places, they're always strangely drawn back . . . because there's nothing that can compare to seeing the raw reality of the basic human need for survival. It disgusts and inspires."
So now I sit here and try to bring back my feelings for these truly poor, underprivileged, and marginalized children of Africa back onto the streets of Denver. What disgusts and inspires me? The homeless kids that I work with here are wealthy compared. But . . . they too are invisible children. They live in fear: of others, of being hurt or abused again, of not knowing where they are in life, of not knowing who they are; afraid of themselves. They live within this raw need for survival. Ugandan children are invisible because they are thousands of miles away and for a thousand other complex reasons. The street kids of the U.S. are the invisible children that live right here beneath America's nose.
Their wars have looked much different. They gather and sleep within the city. They too live in fear. They too are alone.
The world became smaller to me tonight. "Invisible Children" is one of those stories that makes me want to pack up and move to Uganda right now to rescue these kids! The movie-maker's job has been accomplished. So. . . I'll keep asking, "Why me? Why here? Why now? What do I do?" And finally, I am reminded again of how big and how small the world is. In the least, I am moved into action.
