Thursday, April 9, 2009

The Rescue!


Chris and I have committed to participating in The Rescue - a call to action for Invisible Children. The Rescue will take place in Austin, April 25th (not to mention about 100 other cities, both international and stateside). Invisible Children is about rescuing and putting an end to the children that are abducted by the LRA in Sudan, Uganda and throughout Africa. The LRA cannot find any adults that want to participate in their genocide war and have resorted to abducting young boys, ages 5 - 12, brainwashing them and either making them kill others or be killed. There really are no words to describe the brutality.

Several years ago, 3 college students went to Africa seeking the truth and documented it in this amazing video. They have since put together and promoted various outreach "activities" in order to educate not only us "lay people" but to educate the government of the US. How could we possibly continue to turn our heads when children are being massacred, and made to kill in order to survive? How is it that America watches 1000s of families, many children whose parents have died, being displaced into refugee camps for the sake of survivable, yet only to slowly die because of lack of food, medical care, etc?

Chris and I have always supported Invisible Children; we've bought bracelets (which the money goes back into the refugee camps) every year since we first discovered the organization. We give them as gifts, we share the DVDs we've bought with anyone that will pay any attention to them. We have always had a youth event during the big Invisible Children events, and so this year, we are delighted to be able to fully participate in the event.

The premise is that a huge contact campaign has already started by participants to the media moguls as well as political figures and celebrities in order to get the attention this cause needs. We all walk 1 - 3 miles to our "refugee" site, and wait to be rescued (media, moguls, celebrities). We can't leave until someone shows. And we all wear the same shirt. There are approximately 800 people registered and confirmed for the Austin event. We are so excited.

If you want to learn more, check out their website at www.invisiblechildren.com. If you want to participate, find a city near you and register. If you want to support, we encourage you to do so. $12 for the Tri Campaign will help us save about 3000 children who are currently working in the LRA war. That's a month. That's two fast food lunches you would give up, 2 ventis at Starbucks, or the money that has slipped into the cushions in couch.