Responsible

Thoughts that challenged me on campaign day. 

Actually let me be more specific, God, who challenged me on campaign day...

It's Friday the 20th of April 2012. 

Today is the official international awareness day of Joseph KONY.

The awareness day was started and propelled predominantly through social networking and today is the day you'll probably receive an email, see numerous facebook profile updates, tweets and perhaps even tagged road signs and t-shirts baring the logo... Whether or not people participate, the goal of the KONY campaign has been that people would be made alert and would take note of the injustices within Uganda as well as in the rest of the world.

At Pray Friday this morning we were reminded, outside of the campaign and all the other news that is milling about, that God is in control of the world. He Brings the sun up in the mornings and makes it set at dusk, He rotates the seasons in perfect synch and holds the entire universe in His hands. He never sleeps, and nothing nothing nothing on the face of this planet slips past His notice. Not today, not tomorrow, it didn't yesterday, and hasn't since the foundation of the earth. God's sovereign hand is guiding the world. That has not and will not change. 

All of a sudden when one allows oneself to truly fathom the sovereignty and HUGENESS of God, something like the KONY campaign takes on a different position in one's mind. It has too. God moves our hearts and wants to wake us up to the reality of our broken world. Social injustice is not okay. Something like the KONY campaign, wakes us up to the reality of injustice, hurt, greed, hate, war etc. Thus the necessity of change becomes very real. The real test however lies in what is done with awareness and knowledge? 

And here is where people are overwhelmed...

Overwhelmed will be your position if you try do this on your own, or assume that a campaign, status update, action group, NGO will do it alone.

Keep it simple.

Focus on God.

Allow God to expand your vision for a greater Kingdom than just your own, where His justice and righteousness rules. Then sign up to be a part of His campaign by being faithful with that which He places in your life and around you. There are people and situations around you that need God's love and reign. You are the answer. With God, we are far greater and more powerful than any campaign, if we would just listen and obey. 

"Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all else will be added to you." 

Matthew 6:33

Under God's reign, there should be, will be social justice. 

KONY 2012

So what's it all about?
The red triangular logo is popping it's head up everywhere. If you haven't yet heard about it chances are good you've at least seen it. KONY 2012 is a campaign to bring awareness to an injustice against children in Uganda by a tyrant Joseph Kony. He has got away with more than murder/s and other horrific injustices, and the 'Make Kony Famous' campaign was initiated to make a noise loud enough to wake the world up...with the end hope of stopping Joseph Kony. Here's the official video and the follow up to give a better idea of what it's all about:

Call the campaign naive and unrealistic, or brilliant and inspiring...whatever your stance may be the fact remains they've managed to make a large part of the world take note and consider, where for a long time the war in Uganda has been ignored by the rest of the world, or not even known about. What excites me the most about the KONY 2012 campaign is to have observed over the last 2 months, the awareness that has been brought to the world, through sharing stories through social networking. We live in a time where ordinary people who believe in a cause can really make the world stop and listen...

So it's a great cause, but what does it mean to you?

My KONY pledge is to make a stand and fight injustice. But, I am challenged beyond the borders of Uganda, into the neighbourhood I live in. There's need for a campaign in the current community I live in. I believe that my pledge isn't an optimistic paste of a logo for the sake of tagging onto a 'cause'. KONY 2012 awakens me to the realities in my own physical community - just as broken. May we be inspired to be just as outspken, bold and active as the KONY campaign has chosen to be, within our own direct reality.  It's time for Africans to build and fight the injustice in Africa. An american based campaign can and has gotten the world's attention, but we have the resources and access within this continent to DO something. If you are African and living in Africa I challenge you to add your pledge to the campaign by becoming active in fighting injustice and corruption in your own community. 

The campaign is not the answer, what we DO with the obvious injustices that have been revealed through the campaign is and will be the real test.

"Let our sympathy not be a substitute for our actions" 

(the tag line from another Pretoria based organisation +RE Foundation which works in Uganda) 

To live in this generation, in this time with all the access and information we have, with the tools and availabitly of social networks added to that, asks something of us...

What are you doing with the knowledge and resources you have to make an active difference?

Visual Prayer

A few images I collected from the world wide web imagery library, added words to them and composed a prayer...enjoy.

crush life

flight

inside scattered silence

King, which way

under

over.

Amen.

City Sight

A collection of pictures of the city I love. 

This is why I stay 

here.