Originally posted in Prayer Warriors forum by mistake :embarasse
Hi everyone,
I spent 3.5 months in Uganda last fall, including some time in the war-torn north. There is a rebel army there called the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) who are notoriously cruel. More than 80% of the army is made up of abducted children, often as young as 8 years old. More than 25,000 children have been abducted, including 15,000 in the last 3 years. They are made to do things you cannot even imagine - too graphic to post here. The things I *will* tell are things like hacking their families to death, smashing babies against trees, hacking limbs, noses, breasts, etc. off women and children collecting firewood, ambushing vehicles, etc. Often they, like the 1.6 million displaced persons living in IDP (essentially, refugee) camps, are near-starving, so they will attack the camps to get food and abduct children, often burning down huts and killing adults. When I was there we would often hear rifle and machine gun fire in the night.
Recently there has been a resurgence of activity, and in the past several weeks there have been several ambushes on foreign aid workers. I met many wonderful people there - please pray for their safety. One woman I met is a dynamic, Godly woman named Lois. She is a nurse from New Zealand and she lives there, taking care of 32 children. Every day a Ugandan man named Dave - their waterman - pumps over 700 litres of water by hand, transports it in jericans on a bicycle, and dumps it into their tank. Please pray for Lois and the kids as they try to raise money to build a new home where they will have a fence and their own water bore. All of the kids have been orphaned by either AIDS or the rebels.
Please pray also for the children who have returned to their homes after being abducted. Many spent years in the bush - some were born there to mothers who were sex-slaves, although those babies are often killed. Often the villagers don't trust the children who have been rebels, and often the children were forced to kill their own families and so have no one to return to. It's a brutal, tragic war - and the world knows little about it. It has been called the worst humanitarian crisis by the UN, worse than Darfur - and yet nothing is done. I am searching for a solution, or at least SOMETHING that I can do, but I am at a loss. Please pray for wisdom for me as I wrestle with how to go about this.
I can only trust these children to Jesus, and yet this all seems so senseless. The LRA claims to want to place their leader, Joseph Kony, as president of Uganda, so they can rule the country based on the 10 commandments. Apparently they did not read the "thou shalt not kill" part. You can imagine what non-Christians would think of Christianity as a result of the LRA. Also, Kony claims to be led by "spirits" who tell him what to do, including a Congolese spirit named Who Are You which tells him to commit the most heinous acts. Clearly this is as much a spiritual battle (or more) as a physical battle.
Please pray for the young girls who are used as sex slaves and who give birth in the bush. We had a 15 year old girl arrive at the hospital in labour - she needed a C-section. She was skin and bones, and the baby did not survive. This is very typical. Please pray also for the aid workers after they have returned home - there are few who can understand the things you see there and the ways in which they affect you. Even myself... I was only there a short time - a few weeks - and yet nearly a year later, sitting on my bed at Halloween I heard fireworks and just about jumped out of my skin. My stomach turned over and I was immediately back in Kitgum... you can imagine the impact on those who have lived there much longer.
I did not mean for this prayer request to be a dissertation
It's just once you start praying for this area, there are just more and more things to pray for! Thanks for making it this far, and please pray as much as you can for this. Thank you!
~Sarah~
Hi everyone,
I spent 3.5 months in Uganda last fall, including some time in the war-torn north. There is a rebel army there called the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) who are notoriously cruel. More than 80% of the army is made up of abducted children, often as young as 8 years old. More than 25,000 children have been abducted, including 15,000 in the last 3 years. They are made to do things you cannot even imagine - too graphic to post here. The things I *will* tell are things like hacking their families to death, smashing babies against trees, hacking limbs, noses, breasts, etc. off women and children collecting firewood, ambushing vehicles, etc. Often they, like the 1.6 million displaced persons living in IDP (essentially, refugee) camps, are near-starving, so they will attack the camps to get food and abduct children, often burning down huts and killing adults. When I was there we would often hear rifle and machine gun fire in the night.
Recently there has been a resurgence of activity, and in the past several weeks there have been several ambushes on foreign aid workers. I met many wonderful people there - please pray for their safety. One woman I met is a dynamic, Godly woman named Lois. She is a nurse from New Zealand and she lives there, taking care of 32 children. Every day a Ugandan man named Dave - their waterman - pumps over 700 litres of water by hand, transports it in jericans on a bicycle, and dumps it into their tank. Please pray for Lois and the kids as they try to raise money to build a new home where they will have a fence and their own water bore. All of the kids have been orphaned by either AIDS or the rebels.
Please pray also for the children who have returned to their homes after being abducted. Many spent years in the bush - some were born there to mothers who were sex-slaves, although those babies are often killed. Often the villagers don't trust the children who have been rebels, and often the children were forced to kill their own families and so have no one to return to. It's a brutal, tragic war - and the world knows little about it. It has been called the worst humanitarian crisis by the UN, worse than Darfur - and yet nothing is done. I am searching for a solution, or at least SOMETHING that I can do, but I am at a loss. Please pray for wisdom for me as I wrestle with how to go about this.
I can only trust these children to Jesus, and yet this all seems so senseless. The LRA claims to want to place their leader, Joseph Kony, as president of Uganda, so they can rule the country based on the 10 commandments. Apparently they did not read the "thou shalt not kill" part. You can imagine what non-Christians would think of Christianity as a result of the LRA. Also, Kony claims to be led by "spirits" who tell him what to do, including a Congolese spirit named Who Are You which tells him to commit the most heinous acts. Clearly this is as much a spiritual battle (or more) as a physical battle.
Please pray for the young girls who are used as sex slaves and who give birth in the bush. We had a 15 year old girl arrive at the hospital in labour - she needed a C-section. She was skin and bones, and the baby did not survive. This is very typical. Please pray also for the aid workers after they have returned home - there are few who can understand the things you see there and the ways in which they affect you. Even myself... I was only there a short time - a few weeks - and yet nearly a year later, sitting on my bed at Halloween I heard fireworks and just about jumped out of my skin. My stomach turned over and I was immediately back in Kitgum... you can imagine the impact on those who have lived there much longer.
I did not mean for this prayer request to be a dissertation
It's just once you start praying for this area, there are just more and more things to pray for! Thanks for making it this far, and please pray as much as you can for this. Thank you!~Sarah~
