Darfur, a Primer

It's election season here in the U.S., and much of the country is all a-twitter in pundtry and prognostication. This is customary here in our lumbering, 200 year-old democracy. Our cars are festooned with candidates' bumper stickers and our lawns are perforated by myriad signs silently holding forth our politics. November 7 will come and go, and shortly thereafter an enormous amount of political power will be peacefully transferred to incoming leaders. Our griping will hardly be interrupted.

But for Africa's largest country, Sudan, November 7 will silently fade into obscure infamy as hundreds or perhaps thousands of people will be slaughtered, starved, raped, displaced, and neglected by their own government. While we exercise our civic right to fundamentally affect our leadership, they will simply try to survive their own. The Sudanese government in Khartoum is as corrupt and violent as they come. In 1983 it instituted Sharia law, during the 90's it habored Osama bin Laden, and it responded to a rebellion in 2003 by hiring Arab fighters (Janjaweed) to carryout a campaign to systematically destroy the people of Darfur. They have their campaigns, and we have ours.

This little girl was hit by a Janjaweed bullet. No, it didn't rip that gash in her side. Look below where the index finger is pointing. The bullet went through her tiny lung.


























I know you are busy people, and that the human capacity for concern is limited. The human capacity for outrage is even less. And the capacity to actually do much about Darfur seems almost nil. But you probably have time to click on a few links and learn a few things about the people of Darfur. To that end I've created a little springboard from which you can launch into a couple of the main points about the crisis in Darfur, Sudan.

An interactive grid explaining the nexus of relationships in the crisis

An interview with a Janjaweed defector

A brief Realplayer movie produced by a PBS journalist

Facts and Stats

A Time photo essay

First-hand photos of the atrocities of Darfur *warning: graphic content*

Human Trafficking Stories #1

In April of 2002, Dr. Ernest Taylor first met a few of 1,200 hundred boys who worked as slaves on the shores of Lake Volta in Ghana.


Boys as young as five were subject to backbreaking toil from dawn until dusk, day after day, casting fishing nets into the water and dragging them back in. The boys had been trafficked into the area and many of them did not know where they were from.
Likely some of the boys had been sold into slavery by their families, though often the "sale" happens because traffickers mislead the parents into believing that their children will be taken care of.



These are three of those 1,200 boys.













Dr. Taylor and the International Organization for Migration have worked on freeing many of the boys, and it appears that their efforts are being rewarded. IOM has taken on the entire 1,200 person caseload to free the boys, and, consequently, public awareness is growing in Ghana as more people realize the devastating effects of slavery. Dr. Taylor found that only after he began to free the boys did the slave masters begin to realize the immorality of their actions. Apparently, the wickedness of slavery is not easily recognized by the human heart, or, if it is recognized, is quickly chilled by the icy rationalizations and justifications of human pragmatism.

Check out the photo album of the boys of Lake Volta. Perhaps it sound cheesy, but say a prayer while you're at it. I think it may make up for in sincerity what it lacks in duration.

For more info about IOM's work, click here.

Who Hasn't Conquered the Middle East?

Why Settle Any Longer For Mere Unregenerate Potpourri?

Does your life reek with the stench of sin? Or is that odor in your apartment simply the rancid bacon molting in your fridge? Whatever the cause, do not worry anymore. There is hope. There is redemption for those pugnant particles floating in the air.

The answer your depraved olfactory bulbs have been seeking?

The scent of Jesus himself.

Sorry this post coudn't be longer, I need to go find my credit card . . .


See also, Jesus Junk. [ht: www.evangelicaloutpost.com]

A Message for Bored Christians

This is a simple, rich message from Gary Haugen, the president of International Justice Mission.
His opening salvo:

Writing more than one hundred and fifty years ago, a social theorist named John Stuart Mill was commenting on the way the most radical and startling teachings of Jesus could, over time, come to “coexist passively in the minds of Christians, producing hardly any effect beyond that caused by mere listening to words so amiable and bland.”

Aimiable and bland.

Revolutionary words that are not lived become the most bland of all. Just like continually overheated rhetoric eventually fails to burn anyone anymore. We should be cautious about our use of Jesus' words about death and taking up our cross and the kingdom of God. Obviously, this is not to say that we shouldn't publicly confess believing his words; it means that we weigh those particular words more heavily than all others. They should not roll off our tongues without first jarring our hearts or getting lodged in our throats. Again, I say this in the context of Mill's quote above, and not to discourage anyone from always being ready to give a reason for the hope we have.

My own tendency has been to pull out the most devastating words of Christ in moments where I needed them to buttress my particular point - points often made in the building of some argument that exists more for my ego than for building up the Body or encouraging a brother. Jesus did not say what he said primarily that I might have disquieting rhetorical devices, he said what he said so that I would hear and be saved. I needed someone to teach me about God, and to save me from God and from myself, and to call me to a life that looks away from my own desires.

Jesus' words are not spiritual slogans, nor witticisms, nor are they meant to make us feel clever. They are meant to rend our hearts and call us to love and obey God. And if the speaking of them does not produce those effects, then let my words be few.