November, 2007
Why Darfur?
Why would anyone in their right mind want to step foot into the Country of Sudan? Much less, Darfur, Sudan. When one person I know found out Chris and I had been called to Kenya in 2008- they actually said these words: “I personally think you need to see a psychiatrist.” I don’t understand. When people ask “why?” I say “why not?” I mean the last time I thought missionaries were crazy I was a little girl in GA’s. I didn’t understand the importance of spreading God’s love and sharing the most important news anyone will ever hear. Surely our faith is a little stronger than an 8-year-old girl’s by now. “But aren’t you scared?”
2 Timothy 1:7-10 (NIV)
7For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. 8So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God,9who has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, 10but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.
Those are some of my favorite verses. I understand peoples’ fear over perceived danger. It does sadden me, though. Many disciples around the world risk their lives every day for the gospel just as Jesus told us to do (Mark 8:34-35). It saddens me when American Christians are for missions, but want to do it without any risk. They seem to think that, if there is any danger, then it must be someone else’s responsibility. We will send troops to fight and kill other people in very dangerous places, but we forget about the real war of spiritual struggle, that is going on and do not take responsibility for it. I know that seems a little hard, but over one billion people are in these Muslim, Hindu, and communist areas without any way to hear about salvation through Jesus. And Jesus is waiting for us to take the gospel to them. I say hard things because people need to hear hard things.
This is why Sudan is a heavy burden I carry:
I, honestly, cannot comfortably climb into my warm bed at night, safe in my home, and not think about the people who are huddled under trees in Darfur because they have absolutely nothing. They have no cover, no food, no water, and some have no family. They have nothing because rebel forces have raided their villages and all their belongings have been destroyed or stolen. They have no water because the Janjaweed contaminate their wells, and rivers. Because of this, more are dying due to disease and famine. Their parents, children, husbands, and wives have been hacked to death with machetes, burned alive inside their own home, and shot down with AK47’s. Children have watched as their mothers are gang raped and even murdered. The Janjaweed use rape as a weapon against these terrified, defenseless women and children. Approximately 1,000 are killed and 300 are raped daily. Women with their babies on back, dragging their children, are maliciously shot down as they run for their lives. The breasts of nursing mothers are cut off so they can no longer provide food for their newborn babies. This is all too horrifying to be true, right? Wrong. “Genocide” is what it has been called, but I don’t think there is a word in our vocabulary strong enough to describe this.
Option 1: We can choose to ignore this. Think there is nothing we can do about it.
Option 2: Do something! First and foremost, we need to be dedicated prayer warriors for the Darfurians. We can sign petitions and write letters to urge our senators to pass bills that will place powerful economic pressure on the Sudanese government to cooperate with international efforts to end violence in Darfur.
(Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act of 2007, S.2271) Current Status: SADA is currently being held up in the Senate.It has been put through a hotline process, which means that it must be approved by all Senators, of both the majority and the minority. After it clears both sides, there will be a quick unanimous vote and it will officially pass the Senate!
How in the world can one or two people make a difference in a place like that? I wish could answer that. But I don’t know. All I do know is that there is so much work to be done. Not only are these people dying horrible deaths, they are dying without ever hearing the name of Jesus Christ. I can’t ignore this. I don’t claim to have anything great. The only greatness I possess is my savior. If anyone is in need of a savior it is these people!
Will you choose to ignore this? Will you choose not to read about these things happening because they scare you? You hate the way it makes you feel? It might give you nightmares? Think about the nightmares of the Sudanese and know that yours will never ever compare to theirs. The difference in your nightmares and theirs is that theirs are real and when you wake up you have the comfort of your family, behind your locked doors, in your warm home. They do not. When they wake up they get to wonder if they’ll ever see their family again; or if this hunger pang will be the death of them. Not all of us are called to leave here and go do foreign missions and I am so thankful for that. It breaks my heart to see how clueless this resourceful nation is. I heard someone once say, “Americans live in Disney World and they don’t even know it.”
My goal here is not to make the person reading this, cry. It is simply to inform you. It is to inform you since the media doesn’t cover this stuff. It is to inform you to pray without ceasing for this pitiful nation that has little hope. Though I have wept and wept for these people and even gone as far as asking God “why?” The Spirit gave me these verses in which I often take comfort in:
Lamentations 3:31-33 (New International Version)
31 For men are not cast off by the Lord forever. 32 Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love.33 For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men.
Darfur for Dummies:
Definitions:
Janjaweed: Arab militiamen who have carried out much of the pillaging, killing, and raping in Darfur. These men, who receive orders on Thuraya satellite phones, have joined with the Sudanese Air Force and Army . . .
Darfur People: Black Africans. Muslim subsistence farmers. At the hands of the aforementioned Evil Horsemen, over 2,000,000 are now displaced, spread across western Sudan and neighboring Chad. Anywhere between 50,000 and 500,000 are dead.
The Rebels of Darfur, Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) and Justice and Equality Movement (JEM): The SLA is a large military faction composed of Black African fighters from Darfur. Originally organized in the late 1980s to defend the people of Darfur against the threat of the – then under-armed – Evil Horsemen, they are the only thing standing in between the Warrior King and the people of Darfur. To fend off the Evil Horsemen, the SLA have joined forces with the JEM. It is a shaky marriage at best.
The JEM are a newer, smaller Islamist rebel group led by Hassan al-Turabi, who was once a close ally of Sudan’s Warrior King. The JEM have strong links to radical Islamist groups like Hezbollah and al-Qaeda. The Warrior King, al-Bashir, is perhaps most fearful of the aspirations to power secretly held by the JEM.
Conflict to begin understanding Darfur, toss religion away as a motivating cause. Though religion fueled the twenty-year Sudanese civil war between the Muslim North and Christian South, Darfur is not a religious genocide like the Holocaust. It is first and foremost a political conflict between a geographical region and its government. But as with many other African nations, the political and the ethnic are often two names for the same thing.
Put simply, the people of Darfur have been left out of the Sudanese government for years. The people of Darfur were accustomed to threatening the government with secession. Their anger reached a breaking point in early 2003 when they attacked government positions in Darfur. The Warrior King Al Bashir, sensing a threat to his power, unleashed his Evil Horsemen on the civilians of Darfur. The wheels of the Darfur crisis were then put in motion.
