Rape as a military weapon to terrorize civilians

Last night I was reading an investment report which referred to 2 wars--one in Europe and one in the Middle East. And self said, what about Africa? What about South Sudan, Sudan, and Ethiopia? Millions of people, don't they count? So, I started looking at other news sources. South Sudan seems to be holding in a weak cease fire; Sudan is going full-bore killing thousands and making millions refugees; and Ethiopia's problems--I get so confused with the tribal names and the government and non-government militia, I just had to give up. Although in Africa, it isn't skin color or religion, it's all about the tribes. All seem to be on the edge of a food crisis.

Then I came across the horror statistics about rape. I don't remember if it was South Sudan or Sudan but the figure was 70% of the women had been raped as part of war booty--the soldiers are paid with whatever they can loot or steal and permission to rape and torture.

One of the illustrations (journalists try to bring horror down to a manageable level) was about a young woman who had used her college holiday to travel back to her home village, and got caught in one of the raids. Her parents and grandparents were killed, and she was taken hostage and held in a slimy snake filled pit and raped every day. Finally, she was starving so they just expelled her from the camp to make her way back home. And she survived (although these women are usually not accepted back into community). In what she calls a blessing, she learned she was pregnant, and had her baby, who is the delight, love and hope of her life. With the help of other disgraced women who have banded together, she hopes to earn enough to return to college and make a life for herself and her child.

Please vote for life today, November 7, 2023, if you're reading this in Ohio. Vote NO on Issue One to change Ohio's constitution, a bill which is far beyond what most Pro-Choice voters can imagine, and they don't even realize it. They are believing lies. Many call themselves Christians. I know some of them. I grieve.

African food crises

 Conflict Remains the Dominant Driver of Africa’s Food Crisis (africacenter.org)

Highlights of the report

• An estimated 149 million Africans are facing acute food insecurity—an increase of 12 million people from a year ago. This equates to a risk category of 3 or higher (Crisis, Emergency, and Catastrophe) on the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) scale of 1 to 5.
• Some 122 million of those facing acute food insecurity are in countries experiencing conflict—82 percent of the total—accentuating that conflict is the primary driver of acute food insecurity in Africa.
• 8 of the top 10 African countries experiencing acute food insecurity are facing conflict.
• The 149-million-person figure represents a 150-percent increase in the number of Africans facing acute food insecurity since 2019 when 61 million people were in this category.
• This highlights the compounding humanitarian effects of Africa’s unresolved conflicts.
• While 38 African countries are experiencing some level of acute food insecurity, roughly two-thirds of this threat is concentrated in five countries: the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Nigeria, Sudan, Ethiopia, and South Sudan—all of which are conflict-affected.
• Nearly all of the continental increase in acute food insecurity in the past year was a result of the eruption of conflict in Sudan and a deterioration of security in northern Nigeria.
• Four of the top 10 countries facing the most acute food insecurity are in East Africa—Sudan, Ethiopia, South Sudan, and Somalia.
• 19 African countries have at least 10 percent of their populations facing acute food insecurity.
• Conflict compounds the impacts of other external shocks like climate change, inflation, and the disruption to global grain supplies caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Moscow’s withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain deal that enabled 33 million MT of grain to reach global markets and lower food prices, especially in Africa, has further worsened the food outlook.
• Historically, El Niño climate patterns, which have now returned, have historically led to decreased precipitation in Southern Africa, Western Africa, Sudan, and Ethiopia.
• There have already been fatalities due to hunger reported this year in Ethiopia and Somalia. WFP has predicted that before year’s end, 129,000 people are expected to experience Catastrophe levels (IPC 5) of hunger in Burkina Faso, Mali, Somalia, and South Sudan. A rapid scale-up of assistance has averted even more people facing starvation.

This is the one where our church has a mission--South Sudan.  Technically, it is a Christian country, but Sudan, which is Muslim, is also having a war and food shortages.

South Sudan

In South Sudan, 7.8 million (71 percent of the population) faced Crisis and above levels of hunger this year. This number included 2.9 million people facing Emergency levels of hunger countrywide and 43,000 facing Catastrophe levels in the state of Jonglei.

The situation is being driven by rising levels of violence and insecurity  as well as “chronic vulnerabilities worsened by frequent climate-related shocks (severe flooding and dry spells), the macro-economic crisis, and low agricultural production.”

Since the outbreak of the Sudan conflict in April this year, almost 293,000 South Sudanese returnees and Sudanese refugees have entered South Sudan. This influx is exacerbating the already severe humanitarian situation in South Sudan, placing additional strain on limited humanitarian resources and escalating food and fuel prices.

Read the rest of the report for the other countries.

Ideology of power

 Remember when Hitler in the 1930s and 1940s blamed all Germany's problems on Jews? The U.S. went to war to stop him. Now we have a fascist group in power in all areas of our culture from government to corporations to teachers unions who are blaming all their problems on a race, particularly white Christians. Was Hitler wrong because of the group he chose to hate, or because his ideology of blame was used to expand his power base? We can examine three civil wars going on right now in 2022--Ukraine/Russia, South Sudan and Ethiopia--where the same ideology is put forth about "otherness" to create dissension, division and disaster among those of the same nation/people/religion. But at the base is lust for power.  #TruthMatters.

Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch and today's problems of race

Our sermon today focused on the apostle Philip (feast day May 1) and the Ethiopian eunuch who was an important government official, who was baptized after Philip explained to him the meaning of the Prophet Isaiah's words. Our pastor mentioned that the Lutheran Church of South Sudan which our church supports was no longer in South Sudan, but in refugee camps in Ethiopia, the oldest country to officially be Christian, and home of the largest Lutheran church in the world. That wasn't the topic of the sermon, but my mind went to the trouble makers in the U.S. who would have you believe that color (white) is the problem. That's just to raise money from guilt-ridden, virtue signaling whites and woke corporate CEOs who see an opportunity for a profit. Not so, if you follow the civil wars and unrest in Africa. If race were the problem, then the Irish and English would never have had a war, the Germans and French would have never had a conflict, nor the Ukrainians and Russians and the Japanese and Chinese.

In Sudan, there was a long civil war (about 50 years, 2 million dead) which included black Muslims (backed by Arab Muslims), indigenous peoples and black Christians tribes. After the South Sudan was created in 2011 and that civil war ended, then the politicians in South Sudan (which is 60% Christian) began to fight each other based in tribalism and the churches as peacekeepers were overwhelmed.
https://www.meforum.org/22/sudan-civil-war-and-genocide

I looked through the centuries of history for this area and it's terribly complex involving languages, cultures, tribes and religions, but skin color is the least of their worries. Anyone who believes the BLM and Democrats' lies about race (which is a Marxist ploy) just needs to look at the on going wars and power strubbles in Africa.

Lutheran Church of South Sudan

Our Sunday School class today had the opportunity to hear Rev. Jordan Long, President of the Lutheran Church of South Sudan, and to hear about some REAL persecution which in turn is spreading the gospel to the refugee camps of millions of Sudanese who have fled the violence to neighboring countries. During their civil war 2.5 million were killed, and now that they have their own country (primarily Christian) and aren't fighting the Arab Muslims who oppressed them, they are fighting each other! All politics is based on family and tribes, he said, and it is that way in all of Africa.

Three members of our church had traveled to South Sudan to observe and learn about opportunities there for service. They are endless! But as I listened I recognized the problems in our own country--how even in times of peace there will be people who sow doubt and anger in order to obtain or keep power. Their tribal system reminded me how our powerful Democrat and Republican "families" and tribes in D.C. or the state capitals don't want to give up their power.

The Lutheran Church of South Sudan has started a seminary, and because there are 64 languages spoken in that small country, all instruction is in English, which is also taught in the high schools. Sometimes we Americans don't appreciate the beauty or unity of having a single language--and there are even trouble makers among us, especially academe, who claim it's xenophobic and racist to be unified that way.

Five years ago they had a handful of students meeting under a tree, and now have buildings and 2700 students. They are moving ahead with western partners for pure water, "welcoming" bath rooms, and computers for their computer room in the seminary.

http://lutherancss.org/about.shtml

The refugee crisis in South Sudan

You haven't heard about it?  Not surprised. This summer at Lakeside we had a speaker from South Sudan who now lives in Columbus, Bol Aweng  one of the "Lost boys of Sudan" who were in the news some years ago. He has a non-profit and is also a very talented artist.  I subscribe to a Catholic news service which is covering the tragedy in South Sudan and noticed its story.  So I Googled it. "South Sudan refugee crisis." The top seven entries (mostly paid ads) were all charities, Save the Children, Doctors without Borders, CARE USA, Rescue. org, Mercy Corps, UNHCR, and Oxfam. No news from the major MSM in the U.S., but some from BBC and Aljazeera.  Contrast that story which involves millions of people and ethnic (black on black tribal and political violence) conflicts with the Google search "Trump Charlottesville" and you'll find the top entries CNN, NYT, WAPO, Politico, Fox News, NY Post, Fast Company and NPR.  And they all focus on the same story--Trump condemned violence on both sides in Charlottesville, one group had a permit to demonstrate, and the other didn't.  It's too bad those news outlets have no one in Africa. With whom would they side?

https://www.crs.org/media-center/news-release/uganda-now-hosts-more-1-million-south-sudanese-refugees-hunger-crisis

http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/news/stories/2017/8/59944a0b4/khaled-hosseini-marks-millionth-south-sudanese-refugee-uganda.html

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/06/uganda-south-sudanese-refugees-crisis-170621092317423.html