Sometimes it Takes a Celebrity

It’s kind of sad when one’s awareness of the humanitarian issues in this world of ours has to be prompted by the sight of a celebrity in handcuffs. You would think, as a Christian, and involved in Mission work, you ought to already know this stuff, and be ahead of the game a bit more. But when George Clooney was filmed being arrested, along with his dad, no less, on the steps of the Sudanese Embassy in Washington, it made me think, well, what’s put him off his coffee?

But what he did, through that act of civil disobedience, was to bring to MY notice, at least, (and hopefully to a few million others) what’s going on in Sudan. Since South Sudan gained its independence from the north, it has kind of dropped off the radar a bit, but there’s still a massive policy of injustice being meted by a brutal regime against the displaced people of Darfur.

In my further browsing about the Sudanese, I came across quite by chance, an amazing documentary about the so-called “lost boys” of Sudan. I think I was intrigued b the title of the movie “God Grew Tired of us” which is sort of extracted from something one of the central characters John Bul says in the middle of the film.

“In my imagination.I though that God felt tired of people on earth here, felt tired of the bad deeds, the bad thing that we are doing.... I thought God got tired of us and he want to finish us. When I think of it back then..."

They were a group of 27,000 thousand displaced boys and young men, who fled Sudan in the 1990’s and walked for hundreds of miles, first into neighbouring Ethiopia and then, when that country became unstable, all the way back through Sudan to the Kenyan border, to find refuge. Eventually some were brought to the USA, and this was their story. What made the documentary so important for me, was, on the one hand the incredible dignity, poise and faith of these young guys who had suffered so much, and on the other, the bemused and sometimes humorous ways in which they observed North American culture, and to be honest in certain respects, found it spiritually poor and wanting, compared to their rich Sudanese way of life.

You can find the whole documentary, even though its a few years old, available to watch on youtube, by following the link below. It’s in various segments

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-JrOXwGWzM

Or you can see George Clooney's appeal for the Sudan here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p89OuPODBMM

And, if you want to listen to a bit of cool African music, here’s the opening track of the film “God grew Tired of Us” , a song called "Guramayle" sung by an amazing Ethiopian singer I just discovered called Gigi.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlOygCw764A