Wavin’ Flag of Freedom

Since Kony and the LRA are becoming more famous, we thought we’d share a short film we created last year about some of our work with youth who were child-soldiers. Be sure to read the description below it.

During their time as child-soldiers with the Lord’s Resistance Army, these youth were used and abused in the most extreme senses of these words. They were tied up and had to walk hundreds of miles barefoot. They were regularly beaten and tortured. They were shot and stabbed. They were raped. They went without food for days. They went without clothes. They were forced to

• go through satanic rituals,
• torture and kill others (including babies and children),
• carry heavy loads,
• rape,
• eat dead people,
• drink human urine and blood
  … the list goes on.

When they escaped and returned, most were not greeted with a warm welcome. Their families and communities feared them. Many found that their parents or other family members had been killed. They were teased and avoided. They were stigmatized, stereotyped, neglected, even hated. They suffered from nightmares and depression and had no one to talk to.

As a result, they believed Satan’s lies that they are worthless and that God hates them and would never accept them, that He doesn’t care and is cruel. They believed they had no hope or future, that they were destined for a life of poverty, pain, suffering and ultimately hell… that they were cursed. They were bound by shame, guilt, anger, bitterness, hatred, fear, and unforgiveness.

Really, their psychological and physical state directly corresponded to their spiritual state as orphans with no one to provide, protect and love them. Yet, in love, God allowed them to get to that point of low despair, that perfect and necessary place for them to see their need for Him. God used for good what was meant for evil. And God brought us, (with your partnership,) as His co-workers, to them.

By the power of the Holy Spirit in their lives, these youth are growing stronger, discovering and living in the freedom, joy, and hope of being extremely loved sons and daughters of the Father, through Jesus. Their eyes and hearts are being opened to the truth of God’s Father-heart — His unconditional love as Father and His specially designed purpose for them to simply be His children. Out of this transforming worldview in their hearts, these youth are spreading the Father’s love through their actions, attitudes, and powerful testimonies. They are truly a waving flag of freedom.

We share this with you for 3 reasons:

1. To help you get a picture of the people we work with and what we are involved in. Our team’s mission is to walk alongside the local church to reach out to the oppressed in Teso and beyond. In regards to the former child soldiers, we seek to energize, equip and engage passionate Christian youth leaders who live in the vicinity of these youth, providing them with opportunities to grow personally in the Father’s love and to relate to and spiritually shepherd the youth with the Father’s love.
2. To ask you to pray for the former child-soldiers that we work with, that as they grow older, they may grow stronger in their faith, continuing to open their hearts to the Spirit of sonship and thus all-the-more experience freedom through Jesus Christ, as extremely loved sons and daughters of the Father
3. To encourage you to open your hearts more and more to the Spirit of sonship that you may all the more experience and know in your hearts the love of the Father and the freedom, peace, and joy of being his precious sons and daughters. If God can transform the hearts, minds, emotions, and wills of these youth, He can definitely transform you.

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