Video Links

A couple posts back, I told you that when I decided to go on this trip to Uganda, I realized that I didn’t know a lot about the history of Africa.  Reluctantly, I must admit that I am only slightly more familiar with the current events of the past few years. 

What better place to get your education than YouTube, right?  As I was preparing, I watched several videos on YouTube that helped me understand the situation in Uganda and what the people there have been experiencing. 

I have posted the links below, with a short description of each.  I want to let you know that watching these particular videos will not be easy.  They will break your heart and make you want to cry (and maybe want to vomit- they are graphic).  Why would I post this harsh material for you to view?  I want to recommend that you watch these videos because I think it’s important for us to know what is going on around the world outside of North America.  I also think it’s helpful to know what our brothers and sisters in Christ are experiencing every day.  How can we pray for them and actively help change their living conditions if we don’t know about them?

1. War Dance

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3o40iteImCI&feature=related

War Dance is a feature-length documentary about a group of school children from the Patongo displacement camp in Northern Uganda.  The film documents their journey to compete in a national music festival- I absolutely loved the music in this film!  You can watch it in 10 parts on YouTube.  This film contains interviews with children who share graphic stories.

2. Uganda Rising

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

Uganda Rising is a documentary about the sufferings of the Acholi people during the guerilla war with the Lord’s Resistance Army in Northern Uganda.  You can watch it in 9 parts on YouTube.  This documentary is the most graphic one I watched- it contains interviews with graphic descriptions of events as well as graphic images.

3. Invisible Children

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qds5MQCqWnk

This is a home-grown documentary made by the men who founded Invisible Children.  You can watch it in 6 parts on YouTube.  This was probably the least graphic video I watched, but still contains very hard material.  This is probably the most fun to watch, because it’s about regular people like you and me who didn’t know what they were doing, but went to Africa, saw a problem, and did something about it.

Same Lake, Different Boat

Ah, summertime! Every summer, as I was growing up, my parents had my siblings and I set summer goals. There were several categories of goals, and one of them was reading. I now associate summer with reading projects, among other things. This summer my reading project is to get ahead for my fall classes by reading four books about suffering and disability. This fall, I will be taking a class called “A Biblical Theology of Suffering, Disability, and the Church.” I’ve been wanting to take this class for a couple semesters now, so I am excited both about taking it this fall and doing the reading this summer.

I just finished reading my second book for this class, titled Same Lake, Different Boat by Stephanie O. Hubach. The one-line description for the book is “coming alongside people touched by disability.” This was an excellent read. I personally found this book to be interesting because I face disability every day in nursing. Many of the patients I know suffer with disability. This book is very helpful in highlighting the needs, challenges, and value of those touched by disability. It was also greatly informative of how the church can develop a mindset that both includes people with disabilities in the body of Christ while ministering to their needs.

What I found most interesting and most personal in Same Lake, Different Boat were Hubach’s insights on grace, brokenness, suffering, and relationships. I was fascinated by her ability to take her experience with disability (her son Timmy has Down syndrome) and shed light on much of theology. She begins by reminding her readers that because of the fall we live in an abnormal world- not as God intended it to be. Because of that, brokenness is a normal part of life that we all experience. Disability is simply a more noticeable form of brokenness- a more obvious reminder of our desperate need for grace.

We are the ones with desperate needs, and God, who is rich in grace, has met us in our need. He alone is the one operating from a position of strength. He is the one who is active in our lives- preaching, proclaiming, recovering, and releasing. The beauty of the gospel, if we truly understand it, is that each of us faces a complete barrier to participation in the kingdom of God due to the profoundly disabled condition of our hearts. The good news is that Christ’s perfect sacrifice applied to us makes our full participation in the life of God a reality.

I found chapter 7, “On Negotiating a Path to Acceptance,” to be personally challenging and helpful. Hubach is speaking specifically about how to come to a place of acceptance when realizing that disability will be a permanent part of your life. I think these truths can easily be applied to anyone facing a difficulty in their life, whether it is a disability or not. In this sense, acceptance could be defined as developing peace about the presence of a difficulty in your life. Here is the process Hubach suggests for gaining peace: release expectations, redirect by building a new life that incorporates the difficulty, incorporate new responsibilities, relinquish control to God, and realize the benefits of the place where God has taken you.

There are many more jewels I could share, but maybe you would enjoy reading them for yourself!