This morning I woke up on the lawn of the Minnesota State Capitol (don't worry, I remember vividly how I got there). Curled up in my $12, 40 degree, camouflage, Target sleeping bag, I looked to see if my feet were still there, considering I had lost feeling in them hours before. I peeked my head out, and felt a cold sprinkling of raindrops falling from a gray morning sky. As I sat up, I groggily gazed upon many other sleeping lumps scattered about the grass. "Can we go now?" was the question posed to me by my two companions who had been "sleeping" on either side of me. Looking at my watch and seeing that it was just past 6:00 (surely the buses had to be running by now...), I responded in the positive and we swiftly removed ourselves from damp sleeping bags and blankets, packed up, and headed towards the bus stop.
So why is it that we were sleeping on the Capitol lawn?
We were joining with tens of thousands of people all over the world to raise a voice for abducted children in Uganda and the surrounding area in East Africa. In an attempt to continue a 23 year long war, rebel leader Joseph Kony is abducting children and turning them into soldiers for his army (the Lord's Resistance Army). Children are impressionable and easily influenced, which is exactly why they are the prime targets to be seized and taught the ways of violence, war, and terror. AK-47s are placed in the hands of kids as young as 6 and 7, and they are taught how to use them to the advantage of the LRA. If they don't do as they are told, they are threatened with torture, mutilation, and death. They are kept in place by seeing friends and family members killed or mutilated in front of them. Thousands of children have been abducted. Millions more live in utter fear wondering if they're next.
It's unbelievable and intolerable.
Who's going to rescue them?
Yesterday, I abducted myself along with hundreds of others in St Paul in order to save the abducted. The event was put on by Invisible Children (www.invisiblechildren.com), a non-profit devoted to raising awareness and money to bring an end to the war in Uganda and to free the invisible children. This event took place in 100 cities across the globe-tens of thousands of people pledging not to go home until they were rescued. In order for a city to be rescued, they have to get the media and a mogul to come and rescue them. By mogul, I mean and political or cultural leader, local or national. In St Paul, there were about 500 of us and we were rescued just before 9:00 last night! The Minnesota Daily, Star Tribune, and Channel 5 (KSTP) were our media rescuers, they all came out and covered the story. Our mogul was a representative of U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who arrived with a signed letter from Sen. Klobuchar pledging her support of the cause. Later on, as a State Representative House meeting adjourned in the Capitol building, several Reps stopped by to say a few words. They said things like how inspiring it was to see all the energy out on the lawn, and so many "young people" joined together for one cause. The atmosphere was overwhelming.
This is Kingdom stuff. Unifying our voices to speak out against injustice.
Even though we were "rescued", we were still encouraged to spend the night to "stand in solidarity with the child soldiers". Even though we were rescued, they haven't been. Even though we succeeded in making our presence known to the culture defining forces (media and moguls), the kids in Uganda are still being abducted.
Those of us who chose to stay, were choosing to sacrifice our comforts, our time, ourselves for one night. We didn't have to stay. We could have gone home. We could have said "Sweet, we got rescued...see you next time". But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the kids in Uganda don't have the choice. They can't choose to go back to their families, their homes, their lives. They give themselves a death sentence if they do. Every time I woke up last night feeling cold or sore or wet, I tried to tell myself "They don't have a choice, why should I?".
This is Kingdom stuff. Sacrificing time and comfort to try to relate to the experiences of brothers and sisters in less fortunate situations than our own.
Earlier in the evening, before we got rescued, a spontaneous prayer circle got started in the middle of the lawn. Invisible Children is not a "Christian Organization", nor was this event a "Christian" thing. Some event participants just decided to stand in a circle, hold hands and pray together. Before they knew it, the group had grown to more than a hundred people. The circle was so big that we could hardly hear prayers from people across the circle from us. Prayers were lifted to God for the child soldiers, for the Ugandan Government, for Joseph Kony, for the event itself, for God to move in us to make a difference, and for our voices to be heard. Even though we didn't know each other, we were joining together as one body, praying to one Lord.
This is Kingdom stuff. Unifying under the name of Christ, crying out to God for the end of unspeakable injustice and oppression, speaking up for those who can't speak for themselves.
It was worth it to wake up cold and wet in the middle of downtown St Paul this morning.
It was worth it to be a part of some serious Kingdom stuff.
Jesus encourages us to further the Kingdom of Heaven here on Earth.
And when we do, God works in incredible ways.
Let's keep it up,
for the child soldiers in Uganda,
for the victims of human trafficking,
for the starved and homeless,
for all the injustice that ravages the world we live in.
Let's experience the Kingdom.
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