LRA Violence and Joseph Kony

Did you know that over 30,000 children have been abducted by Joseph Kony, the leader of the "Lord's Resistance Army" in Africa?

These children are being brainwashed and forced to become soldiers or sex slaves. Kony has been on the run for years, as he is considered one of the world's worst war criminals. Now is the time to arrest him and put an end to this wickedness.

Kony 2012 Video

Kony 2012: Part 2

LRA Crisis Tracker

Invisible Children - Response to Critics

Please spread the word!

Where is the Love?

People killin', people dyin'

Children hurt and you hear them cryin'

Can you practice what you preach?

And would you turn the other cheek?

Father, Father, Father help us

Send some guidance from above

'Cause people got me, got me questionin'

Where is the love?

     Hate abounds everywhere. War rages across the globe, pitting man against man in a whirlwind of death and destruction. Racism beats down people just because they're "different". Children are abused by adults and bullied by their peers. Half of marriages in the US and Canada now end in divorce.

     In short, the world needs more of this thing we call love. Every single person I know would agree with that. But where can we find it? Visit my blog tomorrow to find out!

The Kingdom of Utopialand

        Editor: The Kingdom of Utopialand is currently at war with the Republic of Dystopialand. After a rout of the Royal Utopialandian army, the Kingdom is being overrun by Dystopialandian troops. The foreign army is quickly pressing toward Poohbaville, the capital of Utopialand, where His Excellency the Sir Grand Poohba, Supreme Commander of the Utopialandian Armed Forces and Most High King of Utopialand is in conference with his Ministers and Advisors in his royal palace.


        “Hey, slave boy, bring me some more donuts! And make it quick!” declares His Excellency. “This meeting is now officially and royally declared open.”
        “Your Excellency the Sir Grand Poohba, Supreme Commander of the Utopialandian Armed Forces and Most High King of Utopialand, here are your donuts,” says the slave, bowing.
        “Your Excellency the Sir Grand Poohba, Supreme Commander of the Utopialandian Armed Forces and Most High King of Utopialand, Dystopialandian troops are marching toward Poohbaville this very minute. Their ETA is 1400 hours tomorrow. I propose we blow them all up with our nuclear warheads. This would stop their advance and have the beneficial effect of completely destroying their army, allowing us to invade Dystopialand unopposed!” yells the Right Honourable Sir Minister of Military Affairs and Blowing-Things-Up Affairs.
        “Hmm… yes, that does make sense,” says His Excellency, his mouth full of donuts.
        “Your Excellency the Sir Grand Poohba, Supreme Commander of the Utopialandian Armed Forces and Most High King of Utopialand, what the Right Honourable Sir Minister of Military Affairs and Blowing-Things-Up Affairs has said is completely ridiculous. We must keep our heads in this situation and act in a civilized manner. I propose that we send a delegation of accomplished diplomats to meet the enemy before it arrives,” says the Right Honourable Sir Minister of Foreign Affairs and Respectable Diplomacy.
        “Hmm… yes, that does make sense,” says His Excellency, his mouth full of donuts.
        “Your Excellency the Sir Grand Poohba etc., sending a delegation of paper pushers to meet an enemy army is cowardly, foolish, utterly, utterly… foolhardy!” stammers the Minister of Military Affairs and Blowing-Things-Up Affairs. “The plan presented by the Right Honourable Sir Minister of Foreign Affairs and Respectable Diplomacy makes absolutely no military sense!”
        “Hmm… true, true. Well said, Right Honourable Sir Minister of Military Affairs and Blowing-Things-Up Affairs,” says His Excellency in between bites of a triple chocolate donut.
        “Your Excellency the Sir Grand Poohba etc., deploying nuclear weapons against armies on our own soil would be disastrous. Many of our own tax-paying citizens would die, and our land would be rendered uninhabitable due to nuclear contamination. In short, your Kingdom would be destroyed. My plan is the only chance we have to save Utopialand,” says the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Respectable Diplomacy.
        “Hmm… I think… I think these are good donuts!” says His Excellency. “Send my compliments to the Royal Chef at once, slave boy.”
        “Your Excellency! This is a matter of great importance! We require your decision at once!” exclaims the Right Honourable Sir Chief Advisor to the King.
        “Oh, right. Well, uh… we certainly don’t want my Kingdom to be destroyed, now, do we?” says His Excellency. “Sir Minister of Foreign Affairs and Respectable Diplomacy, put your plan into effect immediately.”
        “Marvelous! Marvelous, your Excellency! I will form a committee to pick the diplomats for the delegation at once!” replies the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Respectable Diplomacy.
        “A committee? A committee?” yells the Minister of Military Affairs and Blowing-Things-Up Affairs. “We don’t need a committee! We need military action! Your Excellency, I propose—“
        “Now, now, Minister of Military Affairs and Blowing-Things-Up Affairs, you heard my decision,” says His Excellency. “We need to keep a civilized head and all that. The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Respectable Diplomacy will handle the situation now. You know, I find this all dreadfully boring—I hereby officially and royally declare this meeting adjourned. Say, why don’t you blow up another garden fountain on the palace grounds, like you did last week? My, that was fun!”
        “Your Excellency, that reminds me. For some reason, both the Royal Gardener and the Royal Custodian of the Palace handed me their resignations yesterday…” says the Chief Advisor to the King.
        “Oh, no matter. Hire new ones at once, Right Honourable Sir Chief Advisor,” says His Excellency. “Come along, Minister of Military Affairs and Blowing-Things-Up Affairs. Tell me, what explosives should we use this time?”


        The next morning, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Respectable Diplomacy opens the first meeting of the Royal Emergency Utopialand Diplomatic Defense Committee, a committee put together to select the diplomats to meet the Dystopialandian army.
        “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the first meeting of the Royal Emergency Utopialand Diplomatic Defense Committee (REUDDC for short). I have the privelege of chairing this committee. Dystopialand’s armies are rapidly pushing toward Poohbaville with minimal military resistance, as our military has, er… fallen apart. Let this ever be a reminder of the futility and undependability of military strategy, so that we may fully know that respectable diplomacy is the only—” The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Respectable Diplomacy is interrupted by a loud explosion from outside the palace which shakes the room violently.
        “Slave boy! Please tell His Excellency and the Minister of Blowing-Things-Up to keep it down. Tell them to use lower power explosives or something—we’re trying to have a meeting here!” says the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Respectable Diplomacy.
        Another explosion rocks the room.
        “This is really too much! These explosions are getting out of hand—” the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Respectable Diplomacy is interrupted again, this time by the meeting room door being thrown open and a dozen soldiers in Dystopialandian uniforms rushing in.
        “Everyone put your hands up! I am Colonel Hitlerstein of the Dystopialandian army, and I am taking charge of this palace!” yells a burly soldier with a heavy foreign accent, gun in hand.
        “Who, what, when, where, why, how?” stammers the former Minister of Foregin Affairs and Respectable Diplomacy.
        “That was an excellent demonstration of language proficency—the five W’s and one H. But I am not interested in you—where is the King?” yells the Colonel.
        “I don’t know! I don’t know! You guys weren’t supposed to arrive for another four hours!” replies the former Minister.
        “Hey, you! What are you doing?” the Colonel yells at me.
        “I’m just recording the minutes of the meeting!” I reply.
        “Give me that paper!” he says as he

Editor: The manuscript ends here.

Libya, the new Afghanistan?

Photo from Operation MOBILE website

    Today John Baird said that Canadian troops may stay in Libya longer than originally planned. The first thing I thought when I saw this in the news was, "Oh great. We just left Afghanistan and now we may be starting it all over again in a different country."
    But is it really that bad? No Canadians have died in the operation yet. I guess that as long as our troops aren't getting blown up by improvised explosives, we might as well assist a country in their pursuit of peace and democracy. Just my thoughts. What do you think?

Spiritual Warfare

     I recently visited the house of a man of God for a delicious supper and dangerous prayer meeting. I say "dangerous" because God was really to be found there and one's life could be changed by it. It soon became obvious that he had an uncommon amount of faith in God. But every time someone said something about how inspiring his testimony or his faith was, he would point them back to God. He knew that he himself wasn't great, but the One he had put his faith in was all-great.
    After sharing his testimony, he began to talk about how Islam is harmful and threatening and reminded us that we are in a spiritual war against the powers of darkness, to which Islam belongs. Here my mind started to rebel.
    "War? Really? That's a strong word. We need to be accepting of Muslims and love them, not wage war against them," I thought. "Doesn't this go against everything that I think about open-mindedness and multiculturalism?"
    I struggled internally with this for a while, then found myself thinking about a previous testimony I had heard - from a former Muslim who gave his life to Jesus and now reaches out to his own people with the good news. He talked about God's unconditional love and about how Muslims need Jesus.
    Then something clicked inside of my mind. Love. As found in 1 Corinthians 13 and 16:14, 1 John 4:7-21, Matthew 5:42-44 and 22:39, and hundreds of other verses across the Bible. We don't kill and destroy - we forgive and build up. Ours is different kind of war, not a crusade to "kill the infidel". Our war is a war of love. Our weapons are peace, hope, and love (but the greatest of these is love). We don't fight against flesh and blood. In our fight against the darkness, only the Fruit of the Spirit will be effective and only God will conquer.

"The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." - 2 Corinthians 10:4-5  NIV

    We tear down the walls that divide us - walls of race, colour, ethnic origin, prejudice, pride, hedonism, sorrow, bitterness, anger - and let all men know that God loves them and wants to know them. We replace hatred with divine love. We replace mediocracy and complacency with a passion for Jesus.
    That's our war.
    On a side note, killing nearly a hundred innocent people in an attempt to protest against Muslims is obviously grossly wrong, and I have no doubts when I say that the terrorist who did this, Mr. Breivik, is not a born-again Christian (in fact, he himself admitted to not having a personal relationship with Christ). Hatred and murder is about as nonChristian as one can get. You shall not murder, says Exodus 20:13. Jesus said to love both our neighbours and our enemies (Matthew 5:43-44). It is my opinion that multiculturalism is the best way to accomplish this, because then people can keep their identities while co-existing with other people in peace. Then when they come to Jesus, they can worship in their own culturally comfortable ways.

Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." - Matthew 28:18-20  NIV

    Now go. Jesus didn't say, "Sit at home and hope someone comes to you to ask you about your faith." He commanded us to go and make disciples of all nations. Whether that means going to the ends of the earth or just reaching out with love to the people in your own town or city, go!
    Canada is a multicultural country and embraces all cultures and people from across the world, which adds another dimension to evangelicalism. We have the chance to reach out to people from around the world here in our own country and in our own cities.
    So go, and serve in whatever way God wants you to serve. If you are only a teen, know that being a youth is no excuse - read 1 Timothy 4:12 for proof of that. If you are poor, know that God will provide. If you are scared, know that Jesus is with you always, to the very end of the age. If you think that you aren't qualified enough, know that being a child of God is qualification enough.
    I've finally reached the point of faith in my life when I can truly say, "Lord, just point me in the right direction. Make it clear where you want me to be, and I promise to do your will."
    God is calling you. Will you follow him?